Big Ben’s favourite car is a Lamborghini Asterion, which goes from 0 to 60 in three seconds, but his ambition is to time its acceleration down to a nanosecond. That’s a billionth of a second. His uncle’s a second-hand-car dealer. Last year he told Big Ben he’d teach him to drive when he was tall enough. He didn’t expect that Ben would grow 6 inches that year. Now Big Ben can drive better than his uncle, even though he’s exactly the same age as me and it’s illegal to drive a car until you’re 17.

Everyone thinks he’s my boyfriend but he’s not. I hang out with him because he’s clever and kind and times me when I’m running. He says I’m the best sprinter in athletics club because I’m faster than boys the same age. Once I was crying at school because Pete LMS kept repeating everything I said in a silly voice so the teacher gave him detention. Big Ben gave me one of his socks straight off his foot. It was dark grey, at least a size 10 and smelled of cheese. I hid it in my bag because people might make more fun of me but it made me feel much happier. Big Ben doesn’t care what people think. He’d never give me perfume or flowers just because I’m a girl. He says ‘Am I your boyfriend?’ 100 times a day.

Grandma’s plaiting my hair before bed. I love it when she plaits my hair, even when she cornrows it so tight that I can’t close my eyes in bed for the first night. She says it must last a long time so the tighter the better, but it pulls my skin so I look like I’ve had a facelift. It takes days for my face to feel normal!

Tonight, she’s doing single plaits I can comb out in the morning. I sit on the floor and she sits on the sofa behind me, combs my hair with the afro comb, then the fine-tooth comb to divide it into sections. She massages pomade into my scalp, which smells like tar but in a good way. Some of the other pomades used to make me sick so we only buy this one. When I start shuffling on my bottom, shifting from one side to the other because I find it hard to sit still on the prickly carpet, Grandma sucks her teeth.

‘Elle Bíbi-Imbelé! You are too antsy-pantsy. Sit, not run-o!’