I’m thinking this when the knocking on the door gets much louder, like the person is angry. Why doesn’t Mrs Leggett open it? Who could be visiting at this time of day? Maybe someone has come to see Grandma. I remember the phone rang several times this morning and I didn’t answer it. My mobile buzzed and I ignored it in case it was another Predictive.

I think about ignoring the door but Grandma shouts from the bedroom.

‘Elle, answer the door. Answer it-o! I’m expecting the Pastor.’

The Pastor sometimes comes to pray over Grandma’s leg to make the pain go away. But it may not be the Pastor. It could be the Leap Police, who’ve come to arrest me for my illegal leap.

‘Elle, rise from this your table before my ears bust. Please, I beg!’

Even if it’s the Police I have to go downstairs and answer the door. But it isn’t the Police with steel handcuffs, or the Pastor smelling of palm oil. It’s Mrs C Eckler.

‘Can I come in, Elle?’ she says. I don’t know why she’s asking, as she’s already walking up the stairs and entering our flat. I close the door and take a deep breath.

Either she’s come to exclude me for running out of class without time-out permission or for running away from her car. Time-out permission is when I’m allowed to leave class to do running round the track. I couldn’t ask for time-out permission yesterday because my voice stopped working and my legs wanted to run home rather than round the track but I ended up leaping instead. I hope she doesn’t know about THAT.

She’s looking around the room and I feel ashamed of the damp patch that grows mushrooms on the wall behind the television. The mushrooms are grey and look like ears you’ve scrunched up in your hands. I don’t know what kind of mushrooms they are, but I bet they have a long name in Latin and if you eat them you’ll die. Even though I cut them down and scrub the patch every Saturday, they never really go away. Mrs C Eckler is turning her head, looking like she’s lost something.

‘Is your grandmother here?’

I point towards the bedroom door and, at the same time, Grandma says, ‘Elle, who is here?’

I open the bedroom door and Mrs C Eckler follows me into the bedroom. I’m not happy. No one gave her permission to enter the bedroom. Does she think she owns the flat? But Grandma is sitting up in bed, now wearing her yellow-and-blue fish headtie and smiling.

‘Mrs Eckler, you are welcome. Please. Take a seat.’