She taps Mumma on the shoulder. ‘Mumma? Wake up. Wake up!’ Mumma doesn’t stir. She must be really tired. Maybe Gaia should just let her be. Mumma is often tired.

Gaia sits for a few moments in her bed, her hands playing with each other in excitement. The objects in the room are a smudge because her glasses are on the nightstand, but she doesn’t mind because Mumma is here and she wants to scream with excitement. She has so many drawings she wants to show her. If she’d known Mumma was coming today she would have painted a big banner saying ‘MUMMA WE MISSED YOU WELCOME HOME’ with rainbows and Viking ships, because she remembers how excited Mumma got that time they went to the Viking museum in Oslo. Well, she’d thought Mumma was actually sad, because she cried, but later she explained that she was just so overcome at the sight of a real Viking ship that she cried, because sometimes grown-ups cry instead of dancing when they’re excited. Gaia hasn’t danced in a long time but she feels like it now. Her body is beginning to bounce in the bed and her arms want to move, like they’re filled with beans or lots of tiny balloons.

Finally she gets up and walks to the dresser where Louis sits, looking on. She hopes her movement will gently wake Mumma, and even if it doesn’t she’ll feel better once she can tell Louis that Mumma is back now. He’ll be relieved, and maybe even surprised, because he said Mumma was never coming back.

But when she picks Louis up she notices he looks really weird. Not happy at all at the sight of Mumma.

‘What’s wrong, Louis?’ she asks crossly, because how dare he not smile and laugh and say how amazing it is. She remembers how she felt when Coco came – excited at first, but quickly disappointed because Coco was so boring, and she got all of Mumma’s cuddles and attention. ‘It’s not like that, Louis,’ she tries to reassure him, but quickly she notices his face – he looks stunned.

‘What’s the matter?’ she whispers, but he won’t look at her. In fact, he’s squirming in her hand like she does when she needs the toilet. She follows his gaze to Mumma, but when she turns around Mumma is no longer on the floor but on her feet.