‘That’s a very good question! Blood running through systemic veins is blue as long as it remains inside the vein. When it flows out and gets oxygenated, it becomes red. And in the same way, the heart makes the blood red because it adds oxygen to the blood.’

‘Wow,’ I answer. ‘I’ve got another one: can an eye pop out of its socket if you don’t blink often enough?’

The doctor looks at me, and, perhaps because of my question, blinks his dark eyes several times.

‘Not really. But I specialize in X-rays – I’m not an eye expert.’

‘There are no bones in the eye,’ I say, nodding.

‘Exactly,’ the doctor replies.

‘What if you sneeze hard? Can the eye come out then?’

‘You can’t sneeze with your eyes open,’ the doctor answers.

‘I know! I’ve tried.’

I show the doctor how I’ve tried to use my finger to make my eyes stay open.

‘And did it work?’

‘It didn’t,’ I answer.

The doctor winks at me.

Before I go, the doctor gives me the X-ray to take home. My popped-out shoulder glows there, blue and clear.

‘You could frame it,’ the hairy doctor says.

In the manor house, Auntie Annu puts the image in a golden frame, and I hang it up in my room. Not many girls have a picture showing their own skeleton.

22

22

In Sawdust House, Dad was always afraid that there was water running inside the walls. Or that there was a hole in the roof, or the drains were blocked, or a water pipe would burst. So many things could go wrong in a wooden house, and Dad had to worry about all of them.

Sometimes, when it was raining hard, Dad stood next to the wardrobe and stroked the wall.

‘Do you think this is damp?’ Dad asked Mum. ‘Why is this so cold?’

Dad had this constant feeling that a problem would creep in stealthily – through the roof, through cracks in the walls, through the flue of the fireplace or the vents in the cellar. He felt he should spot it but might miss it, and then it’d all be too late and Sawdust House would be rotten. Or we would contract cancer from exposure to radon. Or a flue would catch fire. Or water would drip in through the roof, through the holes where nails had been hammered in, which had become enlarged, and the decayed roof would collapse on us. Or carbon monoxide would come in through loose tiles on the stove and poison us. And it would all be Dad’s fault.