I got cautions for Blake and the window. There’s gonna be a meeting with me and Blake if he agrees. Me and Shelley talked about it for a long time. I didn’t want to meet him. Shelley said I had every right to be angry, but I did hurt him. She agreed that he hurt me in a different way. So in this meeting, both me and Blake have to say sorry. It’s got to come from both sides. Shelley’s also pushing for me to have a meeting with Kandi’s dad. That really scares me, but if I want to rebuild my relationship with Kandi, that’s where it starts.

When Shelley and I were leaving the police station, she said, “Kandi must miss you too, Charlene. I don’t think Kandi’s dad wants her to be unhappy. He just wants her to be safe. Do you understand?”

I nodded.

“Then you have something to prove to him,” Shelley added.

I nodded again. The shame flared up and sizzled out.

Shelley told the police that I need to be referred to a counsellor too. Part of it’s to stop me doing things I’ll regret when I’m angry, but most of it’s to talk about Mum – the good things and the things I don’t want to remember.

I take out my knitting and hold it up. I know what it needs. It needs people. I have so much wool and suddenly my brain’s full of ideas. I’m gonna knit me and Kandi and Mum and Aunty Jasmine and even my twin cousins. Maybe I’ll put Annie and Shelley in there too. And there’s plenty space for Skye. And one more thing? There’s gonna be a brontosaurus, right in the front, its long neck snaking up past the trees towards the sun.

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Copyright

First published in 2022 in Great Britain by
Barrington Stoke Ltd
18 Walker Street, Edinburgh, EH3 7LP

This ebook edition first published in 2022

Text © 2022 Patrice Lawrence

The moral right of Patrice Lawrence to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library upon request

eISBN: 978–1–80090–153–7