‘Did I say you could come into my room?’

He stopped.

‘I’ve got something for you. Wanted to give it to you earlier but you were . . . a bit busy.’

She sighed.

‘What?’

He came over to stand by her bed.

‘I’m sorry about doing the film of you the other day, with Dad’s camera. I didn’t mean for you to be so upset.’ He brought his hand out from behind his back with a flourish, holding out a bag of strawberry bonbons. ‘I got you these. To apologise.’

‘Oh.’

He stood there, holding out the bag for what seemed like a long time before she reached up a hand and took it from him. He smiled and put his hands in the pockets of his pyjama trousers, feeling glad that he had made the effort, even if it had cost him half of his holiday pocket money.

A funny thing happened then.

Very softly, very quietly, his big sister started to cry.

Daniel frowned in the dark. That wasn’t what he had meant to happen; she was supposed to be happy.

‘Don’t you like them?’ he said. ‘I thought you liked those ones. They’ve always been your favourites.’

She studied the bag as if she’d never seen one before.

‘I do,’ she said quietly, a tear rolling down her cheek. ‘They are.’

Daniel sat on the edge of the bed, regarding his sister with worried eyes. In a small voice, he said finally: ‘Why are you crying, Luce? What happened?’

She wiped her eyes angrily on the bed sheet.

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘I don’t like it when you cry.’

‘Me neither.’ She sniffed. ‘Thank you for the sweets, though.’

‘Your hair is wet.’

‘From the pool.’

Daniel pointed to spots of blood on the bedsheets by her side.

‘Did you hurt yourself?’

Lucy stiffened and tucked the sheet around her, one arm across her stomach. ‘Just a few scratches.’

‘What happened?’

‘Oh, just scraped myself on the side of the pool,’ she said quickly. ‘When I was getting out.’

‘Does it hurt?’

She shook her head quickly. ‘Not really.’

‘Are you going to open your sweets, then?’

She smiled. Just a tiny bit. ‘Do you want one, little bro?’

He smiled back. He liked it when she called him that.

‘I’ve cleaned my teeth already.’

She shook her head. ‘Seriously?’

‘You should have some, though, so you’re not sad any more.’

She took one from the packet and put it in her mouth. ‘When you’re a bit older, you’ll wish for the days when all you had to worry about was eating sweets after you’ve cleaned your teeth.’

‘Hmm,’ Daniel said, willing to take her word for it. ‘So what do you worry about?’

‘Bad stuff happening. Bad things that can’t be put right again.’ She shook her head. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

He popped one of the sweets into his mouth.