I have to take the bags upstairs in two trips because they’re so heavy. Flour, sugar, eggs in one bag. Yams, beans flour, chicken and fish in the other. It’s strange to see chicken again, having spent all week eating vegan food. I didn’t eat anything Le Temps cooked. But Le Temps seems a long way away and a long time ago, even though he’s in the future. Grandma sometimes buys chicken for Sunday dinner or if we have guests.

‘Na special occasion. You have come of age.’

When Grandma cooks, she cooks for the whole village, even though she left Nigeria years ago, rarely goes back and we don’t socialise with the other tenants. Who does she think will eat all this food? No one in church knows it’s my birthday. Maybe she’ll invite them round tomorrow after the service. She’s always pretended my birthday’s on the 1st of March. But I hope she doesn’t invite them. There’ll be too many people speaking at the same time and I’ll get a headache. But it’s nice Grandma’s acknowledging I’ve come of age at 3-leap, that 12 is an important age for Leaplings, like 13 is for Annuals.

We’re going to cook chicken, fried fish, moi-moi, jellof rice and fried yam. We would have made pepper soup but Grandma already made some so I had something to eat as soon as I got back. I feel funny about eating the fish, so don’t put any in my bowl. I have three chunks of yam, though. I’ve missed having yam every day. I wonder what happened to the rest of the yams in 2048. Maybe Season made soup with them.

We’re also going to make birthday cake. It will be cake with eggs, not the vegan cake Season made, but I won’t refuse it or Grandma will be sad. She walked all the way to the shops to buy food and carried it all the way home, though her legs were paining her.

Grandma lays all the food out on the table. She’ll make the cake because it’s my birthday and the cake is her gift. I’ll help her with the savouries. She gives me instructions. But I know how to cook and she knows I know. She just likes to talk. Maybe she missed me those few hours I was away from 2020. She doesn’t seem surprised I came home early. If Leap 2048 had gone to plan and Le Temps hadn’t tried to kill me and got arrested, I would have got home after 3 p.m. But Mrs C Eckler decided because the trip was unexpectedly cut short we all deserved more time at home to celebrate 3-leap with our families.