It was maybe the third morning when we were allowed upstairs for a short while, just to get the place sorted, the breakfast things redd up, all that. Then Daddy Tam put on his suit, the one he wore to church on a Sunday, and he went off in the car. Then Daddy Ivan chased us down the stairs and gave us a talking-to. He telt us we had to stay quiet down there, not make a sound, no matter what. He said if we made any noise, we’d be dealt with. And not just a slap or a kick either. He’d really hurt us. He was serious, you could tell to look at him.

So we stayed down there, just the one lamp burning, keeping quiet. The Mummies whispered one to the other, but only now and again. Mostly, we just waited. Mummy Joy had to scold me for fidgeting, but I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t holt still. I had to keep going to piddle in the bucket in the corner.

It was a long time past before anything happened. I don’t know how long, I still don’t have a great notion of time, I can hardly tell you the difference between a minute and an hour. But I’d gotten powerful hungry, I know that much, even though Daddy Ivan had sent down some bread and cheese with us. We could hear nothing but our own bellies rumbling. Not a noise from upstairs.

Then all of a sudden, there was footsteps. You could always hear the Daddies clumping about up there, and we could tell them apart, just by the sound of them. This was Daddy Ivan and Daddy George moving about. We all looked at each other because we knew something was happening. And then we heard Daddy Tam come in, and he had someone with him. Someone with hardly anything to them at all. You could hardly hear her footsteps. I say her because we knew it would be a girl. She must have weighed next to nothing, and I imagined in my head it was a fairy up there, just flitting about the place.