‘Oh,’ says Mum. ‘Maybe! I’ll ask her. But for now, would you just stay up here? It looks like you’re doing some lovely colouring. Either way, we won’t be long.’

Prin looks down at her book. Her colouring is horrible, anyone can see that. But Mum decided it was nice, because she wanted Prin to stay up here and enjoy her pencil crayons and not cause a fuss.

Things get decided like that all the time in Prin’s house.

Prin slouches in her desk chair, crosses her arms and kicks her feet. Jane slides down from the window seat and crosses the room and takes Mum’s hand, and now Prin wishes that Daddy would come up and sort this out and make it better, but she can hear him still talking to Fiona downstairs, laughing his big jolly laugh, so he is busy and Prin knows he won’t come and fix this.

‘We won’t be long,’ says Mum again, and then she and Jane are gone. Prin can hear their footsteps tripping down the stairs, and then it’s just Prin and her room and her stupid pencil crayons and her huff.

And then the visit is over. Fiona says only six more words to Prin before she leaves, Prin counts them. She comes out of her room at the end, when Daddy calls her, and hovers on the bottom step, twining her arms round the newel post while the grown-ups say their goodbyes.

‘Look after your cousin, won’t you?’ Fiona says to Prin. Those are the six words. That’s it! And Prin wants to roll her eyes and say, ‘Of course!’

Then there are lots of smiles and shaking hands and then the front door bangs shut and Fiona is gone.

That night, Prin wakes up. She has been dreaming of … something to do with stars and jumping, leaping – but now she is awake. Wide awake.

Over in the bed by the wall, Jane is whimpering and moaning. Prin feels a lump in her stomach. She remembers once when she had a nightmare herself, woke up in the dark and was so scared, and cried out for someone to come and help her, because she couldn’t move to turn on the light in case a monster gobbled her hand. And then Mum came in and tried to shush her, but Prin was too upset by then, big sobs kept on falling out of her mouth. Then Daddy came in and it was different. He told Prin to stop making such a noise, and then Prin forced herself to swallow the next big sob that was coming – and her crying disappeared, just like that. She lay back down and Mum and Daddy went away and … she supposes that she just fell back to sleep.