She tried to move us away from the door but we didn’t care, we ganged up on her. Busola scratched her and I kicked out with my feet as we struggled to get past. It felt wrong to be doing it but we were screaming and something came out of us that we couldn’t stop. She was keeping us prisoner and she shouldn’t. We were supposed to be free and our brothers were out. She was a witch and we’d tell our mum. I spat at her. She stopped, swore at me, and walked off saying, ‘Break your fists on the door for all I care.’

We stood there breathing in the hall as the people on the stairs went back up, and Sandra and Thaddeus who were looking at us from the back door with the other children turned away to the backyard where their mum could watch them playing from the kitchen window.

I looked at Busola, and got down to let her climb on my back to open the latch. It clicked, we got out and Busola slammed the door shut behind us.

‘She’s a witch! And she’s got too many children!’ Busola said, but then she looked at me like it was my fault we’d run away in the first place.

‘What we gonna say?’ I said, because I wasn’t sure any more. It didn’t feel right to be out, there was no reason for it, or the reason just drained away. There was no one playing out on the street to tell it to, everyone had gone in. So we wandered around getting our breath back to normal until we came to the river.

A tug boat was making waves along the wall of the embankment. We leaned over to see the splashes reaching up. They were a long way down, but you could feel the thud as they lifted. The lights were on along the river and the water was dark and glittering across to the other side.

‘Shall we go back?’ I said.

Busola shook her head, she was looking out over the water as though I wasn’t there. I got off the wall because it felt too close to the lamp posts and the monster fish even though they weren’t moving.

We didn’t look at each other, then she said, ‘Let’s go and find Mum.’