I try not to cry. I try to be brave. I try to swim. Daddy will be proud of me if I swim. But I can’t see Flynn House or Daddy’s cottage, or which way to go. The rain is bouncing and bouncing and bouncing on the water, on my head.

I try to put my feet back down on the sand, and step, one, two, three, and whoosh – the sea lifts me up and I’m moving and moving, and I don’t know where I am, and I cry and I cry, and the rain stings my face. ‘Daddy, Aunt Verity.’ And I cough and I cough, because the water is in my nose and in my mouth and in my ears.

Daddy doesn’t care about me.

And then I feel someone taking my hand …

*

‘Tiger, Tiger.’ It’s Aunt Verity. Her voice is all funny. High and screechy, like when I don’t put my toys away but worse, and she’s crying, and pressing down on my chest over and over and over and it really hurts. Water bursts from my mouth like a fountain, and I cough again. I look up at her. Her hair is all wet, and hanging over her face, and her eyes look red and sore.

‘Oh. Tiger,’ she cries, lifting me off the sand, and she holds me so tight in her arms, wrapping me in a big, grey beach towel. And I’m so glad I’m here with her. But I’m so sad because there’s no sign of Daddy.

‘Oh, Tiger, my darling,’ Aunt Verity says. ‘I thought I’d lost you forever.’

*

‘You can stay here, Tiger,’ Aunt Verity says the next day. She’s looking in her bag, mixing up the things inside, trying to find her car keys. ‘You’re still not completely well after yesterday.’ She lifts out her keys, jiggles them, and zips up her bag.

I’m not sure if I want to be in the house on my own. It’s never happened before, and it’s a very big house, and sometimes I think there might be ghosts living here with us.

But then I think of my puppet friends. They’ll take care of me while Aunt Verity is away. And it’s better than going to Tesco. I don’t like Tesco very much.

Aunt Verity has to go shopping when the tide is out, so she’s in a big rush and is all flappy, and her cheeks are red. She kisses my head three times; she’s been doing that a lot since I nearly drowned. ‘Be good though, won’t you, Tiger?’ she says, as she races out of the kitchen.