I said, “I’m well, thank you, Mr. Maling.”

He looked at me and raised his eyebrows. “And in Esperanto you would say?”

I had to think. “Mi fartas bone, dankon.”

He smiled and nodded. “Bona.”

Mr. Crane took a deep breath to let everyone know I was a disturbance.

I considered slinking beneath the sorting table, but didn’t. It was a grown-up decision, and I felt a sulk take hold as if someone other than me had made it. Instead, I found a space between two shelves and shuffled awkwardly into place, disturbing cobwebs and dust and two lost slips.

They’d been hidden beneath the shelf on my right. I picked up one and then the other. C words, only recently lost. I tucked them away then looked over to the sorting table. Mr. Crane sat closest, and there was another word by his chair. I wondered if he even cared.

“She’s light-fingered,” I heard Mr. Crane say to Dr. Murray. Dr. Murray turned my way, and a chill spread through me. I thought I might turn to stone. He returned to his high desk and picked up a proof. Then he walked over to Da.

Dr. Murray tried to make it look as though they were talking about the words, but neither looked at the proof. When Dr. Murray had moved away, Da looked along the length of the sorting table to the gap between the shelves. He caught my eye and signalled towards the Scriptorium door.

When we were standing under the ash, Da held out his hand. I just looked at it. He said my name louder than he’d ever said it before. Then he made me turn out my pockets.

The word was flimsy and uninteresting, but I liked the quotation. When I put it in his hand, Da looked at it as if he didn’t know what it was. As if he didn’t know what he should do with it. I saw his lips move around the word and the sentence that contained it.

COUNT

“I count you for a fool.”—Tennyson, 1859

For a very long time he said nothing. We stood there in the cold as if we were playing a game of statues and neither of us wanted to be the first to move. Then he put the slip in his trouser pocket and steered me towards the kitchen.

“Lizzie, would it be all right if Esme spent the rest of the afternoon in your room?” Da asked, closing the door behind him to keep in the heat of the range.

Lizzie put down the potato she was peeling and wiped her hands on her apron. “’Course, Mr. Nicoll. Esme is always welcome.”

“She’s not to be entertained, Lizzie. She’s to sit and think about her behaviour. I’d rather you didn’t keep her company.”