‘Yes,’ I said. ‘OK. I’m going to bring Teddy and I’m going now.’

I stood up and walked over to the window. I pulled back the curtain and waved at the two ladies there. They smiled and waved back. They looked nice. They didn’t look bad or scary at all.

A man shouted something and then there was a bang and the door flew open. It was so loud I put my hands over my ears and started crying. A man and a lady dressed in green clothes came in and the man picked me up and said, ‘It’s OK, duckie, you’re safe now.’ He carried me outside and put me on a chair on wheels, which seemed silly because I could walk, but I let him do it because it was comfy and I was hungry and the blanket he put over me was soft and I was suddenly very tired. Teddy was with me and I cuddled him tight.

We went down in the lift and I was carried into the back of a big yellow van which looked like an ambulance but I thought couldn’t be because I wasn’t ill. Anna stayed with me and asked me things like how long I’d been on my own and had Mama ever left me on my own before. I said I didn’t know how long and sometimes she had left me on my own before but never for so long that I had to eat all the food so that was why I had to bang on the door because I couldn’t get out to go to the shops.

I was taken to a hospital which was exciting because I’d never been to a hospital before. There was even a blue light and a siren on the ambulance. At the hospital I had my own room which was a treat because I’d never had my own room before and lots of kind people came in and out asking me things and looking at different bits of me. I had to do a wee in a cup which was tricky even though a nurse helped me. They put a bit of paper in my mouth to see if I was too hot, though I told them I was not. The only bit I didn’t like was when they put something around the top of my arm which squeezed it, but only for a second so even that wasn’t too bad. Anna stayed with me all the time and after lots of people had looked at me and asked me things and I felt like my tummy would turn inside out I was so hungry a nice lady brought me a tray of food – it was mashed potato and fish fingers, which were both my favourite foods.