Prin leads Fiona through into the kitchen. Mum is wiping her hands on a dishcloth at the sink. When she turns round she looks a bit flushed as she holds a hand out to shake Fiona’s. Daddy gets up from where he is sitting with Jane at the kitchen table. Now he is holding Jane’s hand, Prin notices. Everybody in the world seems to want to hold Jane’s hand! She isn’t sure why Jane needs so much handholding.

‘Shall we go into your living room?’ says Fiona. ‘Will the girls be all right on their own for a while, while we talk first?’

Now Prin is confused. This isn’t like a normal visit when one of Mum’s friends drops round, or Mum and Daddy hold a dinner party, or when Prin has a friend from school come to play. She doesn’t know what they are going to talk about. And she doesn’t know why she and Jane have to go away and play on their own. She can only suppose that this is one of those grown-up talks that grown-ups sometimes have. Ones she isn’t supposed to listen to. But does.

‘Oh yes,’ says Daddy. ‘They’ll be fine. Girls? Why don’t you go upstairs and play?’

So that’s what Prin and Jane do, except that upstairs in Prin’s pretty bedroom, Jane doesn’t want to do much of anything except stare out of the window, not even trying to have fun, and all of a sudden, Prin finds herself in a mood, one where all her toys and games annoy her, and she is tired of the summer and of being so hot.

She sits down at her desk and pulls out her tray of coloured pencils and opens a colouring book, squashing the pages down flat with her palms so that the spine cracks. Then she picks up one coloured pencil after another and scribbles on the paper, not caring about staying within the lines, not really caring about the picture at all.

After a while, there’s a knock at the door, and Mum’s head comes poking round. ‘All right?’ she says.

Prin pushes the colouring book away. ‘Can we come down now?’ she says, unable to stop a little bit of grumpiness sneaking into her voice.

Mum smiles and puts her head on one side. ‘Very soon,’ she says. ‘Fiona would just like to speak to Jane for a bit first.’ She holds out a hand towards where Jane is still sitting hunched up on the window seat – holding hands again! – and says, ‘Will you come down, Jane and have a chat?’

Prin looks back and forth between them. ‘And then me? And then it’ll be my turn for the chat?’

Whatever these chats are, she doesn’t want to miss out.