‘She’s boiling hot,’ I say, tucking the phone under my ear and unbuttoning Elsa’s cardigan. ‘What should I do?’

‘When I’ve got a temperature I have a nip of whisky then go for a dip in the sea,’ he says. ‘Works every time.’ After I point out how spectacularly unhelpful this advice is, he tells me to give her Calpol, adding, ‘Babies love the stuff.’

‘Yep, we’ve got some,’ I say once I’ve checked the medicine cupboard.

‘Give her a bit of that and she’ll be back to normal in an hour. I’ll pop round and see how she’s doing.’

My first instinct is to put him off, tell him she’s fine with me, but Elsa’s behaving so strangely that I would quite like to see him, no matter what madness he might bring with him.

Elsa slurps the medicine straight down then I put her in her cot and she curls up on her side and watches me through the bars.

‘I’m going to sit on the bed and work, OK?’

She rubs her face on one of her muslin cloths and carries on staring at me so I get out my speech cards and start reading through them, looking for places where I can ‘add pizazz’ or a bit more Meg … whatever that means. Every now and then I glance up at Elsa because it’s slightly unnerving how quiet she’s being.

After an hour, I hear the front door click open and Grandad walks in. He’s wearing Lycra shorts and his anorak, which tells me he’s taking his bike on the Downs.

‘Where’s the patient?’ he says, going over to Elsa. ‘Hello, there!’ Elsa flops on her back and smiles up at him. Grandad sits on the end of the bed and puts his hand through the bars so he can stroke her forehead.

‘Cup of tea?’ I say.

‘Go on then. I brought round some cakes.’ He passes me a Tupperware box. ‘They taste better than they look.’

I open the box and see a crumbly green mess. ‘I hope so.’

‘They’re made from foraged seaweed. Loads of vitamin C in them.’

Grandad’s right. They do taste better than they look and while we drink our tea and eat green sludge cake, Grandad suggests various ways I can improve my speech. Basically his suggestions are ideas for costumes, because he thinks every situation in life is improved with fancy dress. I tell him that there’s no way I’m dressing up as a star, a planet or an alien, but that I will wear the necklace Mum gave me with the letter ‘M’ written as binary code.

‘It’s relevant, but it won’t make me look stupid,’ I say.

‘It won’t make you look anything,’ he says with a shake of his head. ‘No one will even see it.’

We carry on talking about the competition and at some point Elsa falls asleep and starts snoring. It’s strange hanging out in Mum’s bedroom when she’s not here. It feels like she’s just in the kitchen or something. Her grey jumper is still draped across the corner of Elsa’s cot and her Tinker Bell nightie is poking out from under her pillow. Also, every now and then I get this faint Mum smell – a cross between mint tea and incense.