Cover

Dedication

To vaccine scientists, because, man, you saved us, you brilliant, brilliant people. And the vaccinators too. Thank you.

Epigraph

And oh, how sweet and pleasant it is to the truly spiritual eye to see several sorts of believers . . .

—Isaac Penington, Quaker author

Prologue

“But it’s August!” said Carmen into the phone, putting down her book. “August! It’s almost sunny outside! I have sandals on! Ice-cream vans patrol the land! I put sunblock on last week and almost needed it! How can I possibly get my head round what you’re asking me?”

“I’m just saying,” her mother’s soft voice came again, and Carmen sighed. They had the same tussle every year. “It’s just useful to know early, that’s all. And of course Sofia . . .”

Carmen screwed up her face. “Yes, she’s popping out yet another sprog and overpopulating the world, blah blah blah, I know.”

“Carmen June Hogan. Be nice.”

“Come on, Mum. She’s already got three. She’s just being greedy. Anyway, I don’t know what I might be doing at Christmas. I might be going away.”

“Who with?” Her mother sounded skeptical.

“I could meet someone between now and Christmas! And he could whisk me off to Barbados! Or LA!”

Her mother smiled. “So you’re not coming home for Christmas because you’ll be in LA.”

“I could be in LA.”

Carmen couldn’t, she thought, be the only person in the world who was both nearly thirty and who still turned into a stroppy teenager when confronted by her mother.

But it was only August. She just didn’t want to think about the summer being over or about another Christmas, sleeping in her old bedroom, which was full of ridiculous junk now that didn’t belong to her—sewing machines and whatnot. Reading all her old paperbacks on the shelf: C. S. Lewis and the Follyfoot and the Dark Is Rising series, seeing as it was Christmas.

Then it would be everyone making the hugest fuss over Sofia’s noisy, bratty children and giving them so much stuff (which always had to be wooden and expensive) that they could barely tear the wrapping from one gift before they dived to the next.

With every passing year too, Sofia’s gifts to the rest of the family got more and more lavish and expensive, making it more and more apparent who in the family was doing well—and who was still sleeping under her Spice Girls duvet and handing out discounted gifts from the shop she worked in.

Her mother plowed on regardless. “I mean, Sofia wants to show off the new house and won’t want to travel . . . I thought we’d all go to hers and I’d cook . . . ?”