Dad’s just phoned. There was radioactive fallout. I was sitting with Lily on the sofa when Mum brought the phone in, and I thought he’d want to talk to Lily, but this time he wanted to talk to me first.

‘I thought we were clear. I thought that box you found was in some kind of communal waste ground. But you’ve been going into private property?’

‘Didn’t mean to,’ I said. ‘And now the owner is fine with me, and he’s given me a job to do.’ Good thing I’ve stopped sending Dad those journal chunks.

‘Is that so?’

‘Yes.’

‘What’s the job?’

‘To keep an eye out for a wild … thing that’s escaped.’

‘Mum said nothing about a job,’ he said.

‘No, well—’

‘You had no right to worry Mum. We don’t want a repeat of the key-posting business.’

Mum once posted the car keys (which have the house keys attached) into a letter box and kept the letter she was posting in her hand. That was when Lily was in hospital.

‘I’m stepping in now. You are to stay at home where Mum and Lily can keep an eye on you. I thought I could trust you not to do stupid things. And dragging Sam into it with you is unforgivable.’

‘I didn’t drag him, and he wasn’t even there at the end – he legged it!’ Just saying it made my throat feel like it was closing up.

Then Dad repeated everything he’d just said but in a louder voice. I held the phone away from my ear and kept saying yes and sorry and I know till he stopped, but it wasn’t good.

And then he asked me to pass him to Lily.

Lily put the phone to her ear and her eyebrows shot sky high as she listened to Dad. And then she started totally blistering Dad’s ear off in a way I never dreamed she’d dare.

‘Are you still obsessing about me and my stuff?’ she said to him. ‘Because there’s all this stuff going on with Alfie and you never give him any attention.’

‘He just did,’ I said. ‘Too much.’

‘Too late,’ Lily said down the phone. ‘Alfie has been completely neglected by you, and now – when he needs you most – you’re not even listening to him! The fire was an accident!’ Her voice was getting louder and louder. ‘Can you hear me? Something is happening to Alfie, not to me. So get your act together and help him out, for once in your life!’

Couldn’t hear what Dad replied because she didn’t have him on speaker, but her last words were snapped out with pure venom:

‘Fine, then! Do that!’

And then she hung up! On Dad!

She gave me a nod and walked away.