Upstairs window: On. Bottom window still on = two lights on.

It was like the house was telling him something. A secret code spelled out in lights. Clambering off his bed, careful not to bang his head on the low, slanting attic ceilings, Stanley picked his way through the railway set that was laid out neatly all over the floor. He was wearing his special pyjamas and his feet were bare, so he didn’t want to step on anything. It wouldn’t just hurt his feet, it would upset the order of everything. The order was very important. Everything had to be done in a certain way. The right way. If it wasn’t, he couldn’t sleep.

Once Dad came in to kiss him goodnight and knocked over a level crossing and broke it, and Stanley was awake for hours worrying about it. In the end he had to wake Dad up and ask him to fix it with his special glue, but he got mad. He said it was the middle of the night and told him to go back to sleep. Stanley remembered crying. Then Dad started crying. It was just after Mummy became a star in the sky. But in the end Dad got up and fixed it, so he must have been really worried about it too.

Stanley knew he was supposed to be fast asleep now. But he couldn’t sleep. For months the house on the other side of the graveyard had been in darkness, but then suddenly, a few days ago, he’d seen a light go on. Now he watched it every night. Finding the torch he kept hidden behind the stationmaster’s house, he climbed back onto the bed. Aiming the torch at the window, he flashed it off, then on. Then waited expectantly.

Mummy being a star didn’t make sense, either. How could she disappear into the sky one day when he was at school? And did that mean it could happen to anyone? Could Dad just disappear too? Stanley didn’t want his dad to become a star. He got scared thinking about it, even now with his new telescope, so he chose not to gaze at the stars, but to stare at the lights instead.

The house answered. Off. Off. On . . . Off.

As the whole house fell into darkness, Stanley put down his torch and wriggled back underneath his Spider-Man duvet. Somehow he didn’t feel so scared going to sleep, knowing the house was sleeping too. He closed his eyes. Tomorrow he would count the lights again. Maybe the house was trying to give him a message.

Maybe it was from Mummy.

A Charitable Act

‘So how’s it going?’

‘Great . . . really great . . .’

Saturday. Two weeks later. And I’m on the phone to Naomi.

‘See! I told you! God, I’d love to get out of London – all that fresh air and open space. Ellie would love it. Have you been going for lots of lovely long walks?’