Mum was still standing with her arms folded, and her lips squished into a thin line pointing downwards at each end.

‘I hope you’re happy,’ she said.

‘Where’s Dad gone?’ I was almost too scared to ask. I felt decidedly less safe without him in the house.

‘He’s gone to work of course,’ said Mum. ‘On top of everything else he’s gone to work. On a Sunday. For Henry. Henry calls and he sacrifices everything because Henry sacrifices him.’

‘Mum,’ Caleb called out weakly. ‘I don’t want Dad to be sacrificed.’ And then he had a coughing fit that at least drove Mum to his side and stayed what I was sure would be my execution.

‘Why did you tell her?’ I hissed to Ruthy when she’d gone.

‘You left me everything to do, and that wasn’t fair. When they walked in I was trying to get the lipstick off the shirt because I saw what you did, Dorcas. And you can’t blame me for telling them because you are the oldest and you started it all and you should be a role model.’

She started bawling her head off until Mum came to the door and said, ‘Dorcas, leave that girl alone. Haven’t you created enough trouble for one day?’

‘Is Caleb okay?’ I asked Ruthy when Mum had gone.

‘He’s sicker than usual, I think. He’s all white and shallow breathing and noisy wheezing. They wanted to keep him in the hospital but Mum says hospitals are full of germs, and nurses are too busy to look after children and so she asked to take him home. She’s really upset, Dorcas. Like, I mean, really upset. Dorcas, she ate two biscuits!’ Ruthy then returned to more of the ugly, moaning crying.

‘What?’ I said in amazement.

Could this day be any more worrying and confusing? My mother was always doing what she called watching her waistline, which Caleb thought was very funny because he said it meant she would have to go everywhere with her head pointed down or she wouldn’t be able to watch it. It was pretty much unheard of for Mum to eat anything sweet, or actually anything much at all. This was a very bad sign.

And now Dad had gone to work on a Sunday. I couldn’t ever remember that happening before because Mr Bednarski knew we were Christadelphians and always said he respected Dad’s beliefs. And that he’d rather have a good Christian family man working for him than a heathen, even if Christadelphians were a funny kind of Christian if you asked him anything about it. But Mr Bednarski was a Jew, and that meant he didn’t work on Saturday but he did work on a Sunday.

I was scared that Dad had gone to work after what Mrs Edwards had said about Mum leaving, but then I realised I was confused because Dad had left, not Mum, and it was to go to work, not to go to Scotland, and so I calmed down a bit. Ruthy’s moaning was really getting on my nerves now, and I considered threatening to push her into the wee patch if she didn’t stop, or even telling her what Mrs Edwards had said, but knew I wouldn’t do that because it would frighten her to death and she might tell Mum and then Mum would know I had lasagna when I left Ruthy by herself and so all round this would not be a good idea.