But the worst thing that ever happened to me began on a hot morning in July. It was the first week of summer vacation and there I was, as usual, stuck with my big brother, Tim, the world’s most unsuccessful private detective. Tim had just spent a month helping with security at the American embassy in Grosvenor Square and even now I’m not sure how he’d decided that there was a bomb in the ambassador’s car. Anyway, just as the ambassador was about to get in, Tim had grabbed hold of him and hurled him out of the way—which would have been heroic if there had been a bomb (there wasn’t) and if Tim hadn’t managed to throw the unfortunate man in front of a passing bus. The ambassador was now in the hospital. And Tim was out of work.

So there we were at the breakfast table with Tim reading the morning mail while I counted out the cornflakes. We were down to our last box and it had to last us another week. That allowed us seventeen flakes each but as a treat I’d allowed Tim to keep the free toy. There was a handful of letters that morning and so far they’d all been bills.

“There’s a letter from Mom,” Tim said.

“Any money?”

“No . . .”

He quickly read the letter. It was strange to think that my mom and dad were still in Australia and that I would have been with them if I hadn’t slipped off the plane and gone to stay with Tim. My dad was a door-to-door salesman, selling doors. He had a house in Sydney with three bedrooms and forty-seven doors. It had been two years since I had seen him.

“Mom says you’re welcome to visit,” Tim said. “She says the door is always open.”

“Which one?” I asked.

He picked up the last letter. I could see at once that this wasn’t a bill. It came in a square, white envelope made out of the sort of paper that only comes from the most expensive trees. The address was handwritten: a fountain pen, not a ballpoint. Tim weighed it in his hand. “I wonder what this is,” he said.

“It’s an envelope, Tim,” I replied. “It’s what letters come in.”

“I mean . . . I wonder who it’s from!” He smiled. “Maybe it’s a thank-you letter from the American ambassador.”

“Why should he thank you? You threw him under a bus!”

“Yes, but I sent him a bunch of grapes in the hospital.”

“Just open it, Tim,” I said.

Tim grabbed hold of a knife, and—with a dramatic gesture—sliced open the mysterious envelope.

After we’d finished bandaging his left leg, we examined the contents. First, there was an invitation, printed in red ink on a thick white card.