And I don’t know how many spoons I have left, but it’s worth it to watch the dogs wrestle with each other, their tails whipping at my face. Dad sits on the bed with me and starts playing a game of what I think is hide-and-seek behind my legs, and I watch as the puppies leap over me and paw at him and his face lights up like it’s Christmas.

‘You did it without me!’ Mum says, running in and jumping on the bed next to me, so both dogs abandon Dad and go tumbling over to her.

I laugh and put my hands out so I can feel them. Like soft toys fresh from the microwave. And I can smell dog food, and taste the fur on my tongue from where the chocolate one got his foot in my mouth, and I can safely say that it tastes nothing like chocolate at all.

But it tastes like Living.

And I can’t wait to see Cecelia now. She might be able to climb walls, but her dad has never brought home puppies, or parrots, or even a python that one time …

‘You didn’t steal these, did you?’ I say.

Dad gasps in mock horror. ‘Me? A puppy stealer? My own daughter thinks I’m a common thief, Sophia.’

‘Well, it has been known,’ Mum says, sliding me a smile.

He puts his chin in the air. ‘They’re on loan from next door, actually. All above board, I’ll have you know. Not like the python – that was a mistake, admittedly –’

Mum huffs. ‘I’ll say. I still get calls from that pet shop every time they lose an animal. They must have your mugshot up on the wall.’

Dad rolls his eyes. ‘I told them I was borrowing it. I’m not a thief, you know.’ He drops his voice as he picks up the white puppy. ‘Although I might steal this dog. Do you think the Johnsons would notice if we paint Manta with that leftover emulsion from the kitchen and send him back in its stead?’

‘Dad!’

Manta flicks his tail in anger.

Dad checks his watch and puts the dogs back in the box, before coming over to draw a line through ‘Puppy Therapy’ on the whiteboard.

We’re all silent then, as he does that.

He stares at the board for a moment before writing something else under it, in such small writing that I can’t read it from here.

It doesn’t matter, though. The truth is, this board was once called the Cure Board. After a few years of trying different medicines and nothing changing, we started googling other ways we might banish the Illness. And the internet had a lot of ideas, actually. Thousands. Everything from eating strange herbs to living in a tent outside. We tried all of them and more – scoring them from the board when they didn’t work.