On this particular Saturday night I might possibly have pinched Caleb quite hard, and even though his chest was still a bit wonky, his screams were very loud, and Dad came out and roughly pulled both Caleb and Ruthy out of the car, slamming it on me before I could get out. Ruthy meanly took the torch in with her, so I was in the dark by myself. Although I think I am quite brave, I was a bit scared, particularly when a strong wind started up and the car rocked a bit. I sat up and checked all the door-locking knobs were down so only Dad could get in with a key and covered my whole head with a blanket. My heart was thumping so hard I could hear it in my ears. I squeezed my eyes tight shut and imagined a new play I would put on at school. It was about knights and in particular a new character called Don Quixote the librarian had told me about she thought I’d like. He was from a picture book that had lots of good illustrations, but he was a funny sort of old knight with a pretty deadbeat horse and a fairly dim friend, so it wasn’t the kind of story I usually liked. However, I did admire the fact he rode off to save people so I wrote a play with him in it but I gave him a girl to be his offsider. She was clever and even braver than he was, and of course I would play that role.

I was actually asleep when they loaded the back seat with the other two, who were also dead to the world. The next morning Caleb said they were allowed to sit in the kitchen and Mum’s friend gave them hot lemon delicious pudding with cream on the top, and paper and pencils to draw with and they were allowed to stay up for ages and ages before Mum put them down on the lady’s bed, which smelled of lavender and oranges. Mum had turned out the lights and closed the door, but the nice lady snuck in and turned the light on and winked at them and said it would be their secret, and brought them each two toffees. She had asked Mum if she wanted to bring me in, or if she should take something out to me, but Mum said no I had to learn. I wasn’t exactly sure what I had to learn, but I think it was about my general naughtiness, because what I had already learned was that Caleb could do no wrong and people liked Ruthy better than me because she was sweet and pretty.

The next morning on the way to school, Ruthy pulled me aside before we got into the building. She said she had important information from the night before, because she had adopted my ploy of sitting near a crack in the bedroom door to find out what the grown-ups were talking about.