‘It’s OK to stay here till you feel better. But I need to see you to know you’re safe. That’s my job on this trip. I must do my job.’

She’s right. I like people who do their job properly. Not like the police, who wouldn’t look for Kwesi for more than a week.

‘Elle, if you want me to lift the tablecloth to check on you, knock once on the table. If YOU want to lift the cloth, knock twice.’

I pause before knocking twice. I shuffle forwards on my bottom as I’m sitting cross-legged and lift the cloth. She lowers her head, then gets onto her knees to check. When she sees I’m OK, she smiles. Maybe Ama told her about Kwesi and she was worried I’d gone missing too.

‘Elle, Ama wants to talk to you. Is that OK?’ she says. ‘Knock once for yes, and twice for no.’

I knock twice. I don’t want to talk to Ama because she shouted at me and doesn’t want to be my friend.

‘Elle, will you let Ben talk to you?’

I knock once. I don’t lift the cloth, though. He can talk to me through the cloth. It’s like a veil. It makes me feel safe and I don’t have to look at people’s faces to see whether their eyes are rolling clockwise or anticlockwise if I say something rude.

‘Am I your boyfriend?’ he says.

‘No,’ I say.

When I’m tongue-tied, talking to Big Ben is like talking to Grandma. Sometimes when I’m tongue-tied I only talk to them. If it’s Armageddon like after I got SOS L, I don’t talk to anyone. There’s a gap before he speaks again. Even though I can’t see him, I imagine him screwing up his face to think of the next sentence. He’d rather talk totally in numbers.

‘Do you want my hat?’ he says.

‘OK.’