“Why do you do that, Phoebe?” Sofia asked, dark eyes wide with concern. “I feel you could be happier if you didn’t feel the need to be so disruptive. Do we need to have a family conference?”

“Perhaps she’s feeling undervalued, Mummy,” said Pippa complacently. “Phoebe, do you feel you’re not listened to?”

Phoebe furrowed her brow and made a growling noise.

“It’s all right to feel frustrated,” went on Sofia. “Just let it out.”

At this, Phoebe kicked the laid-back Jack so sharply he cried aloud.

“Well, maybe we don’t let our feelings out quite like that, Phoebe,” said Sofia, and a sullen silence descended.

“Um, hi?” said Carmen.

Sofia would have gotten up if she wasn’t so encumbered; she was so pleased Carmen wasn’t hiding in her room. “Join us,” she said.

“Okay,” said Carmen. “Uh, I wanted to ask you . . . Please can I have some of your Christmas decorations for the shop? Have you got any you didn’t use?”

Sofia blushed, ladling curry onto a plate for Carmen and sprinkling it with almonds. It smelled heavenly.

“Ah,” she said. “Well, the thing is . . .” She hated confessing this, as she liked people thinking that she did everything herself and that things came easily to her. “I rent the decorations.”

“You what?” said Carmen, who hadn’t the faintest idea that was even a thing.

“Someone comes and puts them up and takes them down again.”

Carmen was absolutely speechless.

“That’s why you’re not allowed to touch the Christmas trees,” said Phoebe, nodding and carefully moving all the bits of carrot away from the chicken. She had to eat them, but she would put it off to the last possible moment. The house might fall down or something and she’d regret eating the carrots first.

Carmen blinked. “Okay,” she said. She hadn’t even realized that people who weren’t celebrities could do this kind of thing.

“So how is everything?” said Sofia, trying to change the subject.

“Mr. McCredie is nice . . . Well, he’s odd. What’s his background?”

“Well,” said Sofia, “I can’t discuss my clients’ personal business. But as for what everyone knows, the McCredies are quite a well-known family in Edinburgh, go back a long way. He’s young Mr. McCredie, but I think his dad was young Mr. McCredie too. It’s very confusing. His grandfather was rather famous—he was on the Scottish polar expedition, you know.”

“The what?”

“The expedition to the South Pole.”

“With Captain Scott? That one?”

“No! The Scottish polar expedition—1902 or something. They did some exploring—didn’t get to the South Pole, but they found a new bit of land and set up a weather station that was quite useful. They were very famous at the time, but nobody died on the expedition, so people don’t remember it now.”

“Even so, that’s amazing.”

“It is.”