This year I called it early myself, in June, which didn’t go quite as well. I ate my fake celebration lunch on the beach in Eastbourne, while my mother drank tea and used hers to make a well-constructed chip house with a grilled fish roof for the seagulls to fight over. On the train home, she pushed her hair off her forehead and pressed it up against the window. She didn’t move for the entire trip back to London, and I was worried I might have played my hand too early.

When my real birthday came and went a few weeks later without so much as a WHSmith voucher, I had my answer.

My dead grandfather’s replacement day tradition is one of the few things I know about Lou’s family, so when I heard about Danny giving himself another birthday, you can bet I noticed. I sat there listening to George witter on about how you’re only supposed to get one birthday a year, but I was staring out of the window at the garden shed thinking, Well, that’s kind of interesting.

At first, I couldn’t work out why it felt so weird, hearing about that dumb thing I’d only ever gone along with because it made Lou happy. But then I realised it was because I thought it was ours, hers and mine, and suddenly there was this strange connection with someone else. Like there was something that linked us now; the thinnest of threads strung between Lou and me, and some stranger who lives in a garden shed.

I think I saw that thread when Lou and Danny first laid eyes on each other at our flat, too. It was the strangest thing, because I was watching Lou when he walked in and straight away it was like somewhere way down inside her a switch got flicked, and the faintest, faraway light came into her eyes. Almost as if for just a few seconds, wherever it was she’d been on her way to, she stopped and shuffled a few steps back.

We’ve been at Belsize Park for five days and it still feels like I’m living in a TV show. I mean, believe the hype. Opening scene: morning, the huge house, the super-cute dog, eating breakfast in the perfect kitchen with the perfect father–son combo, then fade to the ads as we all get into the posh car and drive off to school. Part two: after two buses to get back from school, it’s a full cast for the welcome home scene. Except for Danny, that is, because except for the brief sightings in the mornings, my uncle is still quite conspicuous in his absence.

It’s pretty obvious he’s spinning out about the whole thing with Lou and me, but even more so since that Pete guy showed up with those letters. I mean, the minute I met Danny in real life I knew the story had to be a beat-up, because from what I’ve seen so far he’s about as spiritual as a plank. Although, to be fair, the cat and king thing is pretty interesting and I guess that came from somewhere.