Mrs Mason was so worked up that when the bell went off to signal it was time for the next parent, she ignored it! James McCavity, who was sitting with his mum in the row of chairs behind us, waiting for his turn, gave me a sympathetic smile as I sat there dumbly while she ranted. When the bell rang a second time and she was still going, teachers from the other classes who were in the school hall began to stop talking and look over at Mrs Mason, who had got quite red in the face. And then, at last, when she had run all the way to the end of her tether, my dad spoke up.

“Did you ever look at her drawings, Mrs Mason?”

“I’m sorry?” Mrs Mason was confused. “What does that have to do with it? I’m talking about Maisie’s bad manners in class.”

My dad shook his head and sighed. “Are you aware that Maisie’s mum died when she was a newborn?”

Mrs Mason looked taken aback at this. “I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I wasn’t … I didn’t know.”

“No. Of course not,” Dad said. “So you didn’t know that I’m a solo dad. I raise Maisie on my own and my time is tight. I work a sixty-hour week and I’ve had to make excuses to get off work early today. I came here expecting we were going to discuss what your school was doing to encourage and extend my gifted child.”

“Mr Thompson!” Mrs Mason bristled back. “Even Picasso had to go to school you know.”

Dad laughed and said, “You know what, Mrs Mason? You’re dead wrong, but that’s the one interesting point you’ve made today.”

Afterwards, as we walked home, Dad told me about Pablo Picasso, one of the most famous artists in the world, and how Picasso was accepted into a fancy art school when he was just thirteen.

“I bet Mrs Mason wouldn’t tell off Picasso,” Dad grumbled.

“I think she probably would,” I replied.

In a weird way, though, we had Mrs Mason to thank for what was to come. If it hadn’t been for her, Dad would never have got the idea into his head that I could be like Picasso too. He was hatching a plan right there as we walked home, but he didn’t talk about it with me yet. He just told me that Mrs Mason was a silly old sausage, and we got fish and chips and Dad told me to at least try and look like I was paying attention in class in future to keep Mrs Mason from calling him again.

He spent the rest of the night on the computer, and at one point I remember he came into the living room and began to sort through a stack of my drawings on the coffee table.