He thinks MC2 said Write a Passage, like in school where Big Ben has an assistant to write the words down. But a Rite of Passage is like in Kenya when boys have to wrestle a lion to the ground to prove they’re a man and not a boy any more. I don’t know what the girls have to do but I’m glad I’m not a boy in Kenya. The lion would win.

‘Nothin’ to do with writing, Ben. I’m talking R I T E. Something you do to show you’ve learnt something hard, risen to the challenge, grown up.’ He seems to double in size. ‘Gimme a fairytale an’ I’ll drop a freestyle.’

We all go quiet till we all speak at once: Babes in the Wood, Little Red Riding Hood, Beauty and the Beast, Hansel and Gretel. I picture them written one on top of the other. It looks a mess.

‘OK, gimme a split,’ he says, closing his eyes tight like clenched fists. ‘Listen up, peeps! Twice ’pon a time, the megamix.’

‘Leap in The Round an’ you’ll never be seasick,
don’t lose your hood or your hat for the scenic,
paint the trees red an’ you’ll end up anaemic;

stay on the path, face the wolf and defeat it,
sunny day night, don’t drop bread, birds will eat it,
witch wants you fat, it’s a fact, don’t delete it;

house made of toffee and pear drops and d-mix,
mouth of the oven flared up like a phoenix,
the fee-fi-foe . . .’

‘Bravo!’ says Le Temps, clapping with his huge hands. ‘Pure genius! Give him a round of applause; he deserves it.’

We do as we’re told. But I don’t like MC2’s poem because it mixed up lots of fairy tales. Maybe megamix means you mix up lots of stories, pile them up one on top of the other till they look a mess. And there was no end! He didn’t tell us about Jack and the Beanstalk. And we never found out what happened to Hansel and Gretel. In the original version, the witch fattens up Hansel to roast him but Hansel pretends he’s still thin, so when the witch opens the oven to roast GRETEL, Gretel puts the witch in the oven instead. I don’t think Ama liked the poem much either. When everyone else is clapping, she has her hands stuck together like she’s praying.

Le Temps helps us roast marshmallows by the fire. It doesn’t take very long and some of them go gooey. There are pink ones and white ones. Mrs C Eckler offers me the white ones, which are burnt on the outside and runny in the middle but they taste good. I have six! Then Mrs C Eckler brings us mugs of hot milk.