Finally, I can haul her out.

Elsa throws her arms round my neck and rubs her sticky, raisiny face into mine.

‘Mama,’ she says sleepily.

‘Still in Myanmar,’ I say, carrying her to Mum’s room.

I put her in her cot and she lies on her back and stares up at me. ‘Da?’ she says, pointing at her exposed foot.

‘I know. Your foot’s sticking out … Remember how you got stuck in that cupboard and I had to cut you out?’

‘Da …’

‘Well, no way am I putting you in another Babygro and doing up all those poppers again. I’m just too tired. Plus, I’ve got to go and put fifty jars of cumin back in the cupboard.’ That’s an exaggeration. There were only six jars of cumin.

‘Da!’ she shouts, sounding kind of outraged.

‘Goodnight, Elsa,’ I say, backing out of the room.

Even though I know she’s exhausted, she jumps to her feet and starts to shake the bars on the cot. ‘Mama?’ she says, and then she starts to cry.

I feel a lump in my throat. ‘Elsa, I’m so tired. Just … go to sleep.’

Her screaming starts before I’ve even shut the door.

Then, in a horrible rerun of last night, I sit outside the room, my forehead resting on the door, listening to Elsa cry. She just won’t stop. She cries and cries and cries. After a few minutes, I try to do some coding for IT, but I find it impossible to concentrate on algorithms when my brain is being stuffed full of screams.

When I was getting Elsa ready for bed, I didn’t have time to think about Mum, not properly. But right now, she’s all I can think about. It’s two in the morning in Myanmar. I wonder where she is: if she’s already asleep or if she’s sitting up late in a bar somewhere, chatting to her fellow volunteers. Or maybe she’s dancing on a beach … Mum once told me that nothing makes her happier than dancing under the stars. It makes my chest ache to imagine her happy to be free of us while Elsa and I are stuck here on our own.

The ache in my chest grows as Elsa’s screams get more desperate. Pongo comes and stands next to me, putting a paw on my knee. A tear runs down my cheek. Angrily, I brush it away.

‘Pongo,’ I say, ‘if I can’t get her to go to sleep, how can I last until Mum gets back? There’s no way I can complete my mission. I might as well just go round to Grandad’s and give up on going to Houston!’

Pongo barks, runs to the front door then runs back again. He nudges my hand with his nose. I rub my eyes with my sleeve. ‘You want to go for a walk?’ I say. And then I think, why not? Because I know just what will make me feel better, and, who knows, maybe it will make Elsa feel better too.