He was in the greenhouse. He’d been watering the tomato plants – except he wasn’t watering any more. He was lying down.

There was mess all around him: soil from knocked-over plants and water in a pool from the running hose, turning the soil to mud.

Sam crouched. ‘Grandad,’ he whispered, and put a hand on his grandad’s shoulder, but the only thing moving was his chest. He was on his side, his hair and one cheek flat against the greenhouse floor. I phoned Mum so that she could order an ambulance properly and come and help.

‘Grandad,’ Sam said again, but there was only silence.

23

Tilted

Everyone arrived at once. Sam’s mum with Roan, my mum, and seconds after that, the ambulance.

Everything got organised quickly, and both our cars followed the ambulance down Beggar’s Hill as if the ambulance was pulling us.

Mum just phoned Sam’s mum at the hospital and found out what happened.

‘It was a stroke,’ Mum told me. ‘His grandad’s lost his speech.’

Her voice sounded too loud. ‘How can it be lost?’ I asked.

‘The stroke has taken his voice and paralysed his left side, Alfie,’ she said. ‘Strokes often do that.’

‘What’s a stroke?’

‘It’s something that’s happened to Mr Irwin’s brain,’ she said, too carefully. ‘A blood vessel’s burst or a clot has formed. It’s interfered with the blood supply to that part of his brain.’

Blood. I couldn’t look at her. I wanted to talk through my fingers. ‘How long will it last?’

Mum glided over to me and stroked my back in little circles. ‘They don’t know. He’s very poorly, sweetheart. But it’s a blessing Sam was there, and you with him.’

This felt like being underwater. Things were muffled. Other things were numb, and my feet felt miles away. ‘Can’t he say anything at all?’

‘Not really,’ Mum said. ‘Not properly. The words won’t form.’

4.25 p.m.

I’ve come upstairs. Lily followed me when I first came up, and just stood in my bedroom doorway.

‘Can’t talk about it,’ I said.

She bit her lip, hovered for a second not looking at anything, then went back downstairs.

I still feel shaky. The destruction, Tombard … Every-thing’s going round and round in my head, but it all comes down to one thing: Whizzy. Sam’s right. She doesn’t mean to be, but she’s totally out of control, and all because I let her out. That’s what I can’t tell Mum and Lily.

6.45 p.m.

Wanted to ring Sam just now, but Mum won’t let me. They’re not even back from hospital yet.

‘Let me text Cindy again and see how Sam’s doing first,’ she said, so she did, and that’s how I found out he doesn’t want to see me when they get home.