She told my mum she’d had to wait until the other children had gone before she could put on her coat and come out, and she’d left some of her own alone so she’d have to get back. She asked Busola and me not to be upset with her.

My mum told us to say sorry. Busola nodded and said, ‘See ya tomorrow.’ to Sandra who nodded back. I couldn’t look at Thaddeus because he wouldn’t look at me. I couldn’t look at his mum because I was ashamed, so I just looked down and mumbled, ‘Sorry.’

‘No, you’re not.’

I looked up, Thaddeus was looking at me. His face was blank – it was pale and red at the same time – his eyes were dark and glossy, almost crying.

‘Come on, Mum,’ he said, and pulled her away by the hand. He loved his mum and I’d got her in trouble. It was my fault she had to stand at the door and say sorry. It was all bottled up and something broke in his voice. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said.

‘My children are waiting for me,’ his mum said, and they went.

My dad heard us out. My mum said we’d told her a pack of lies. Busola blamed me and I blamed her. He asked if Thaddeus’s mum had looked after us properly, or if anyone had hurt us. I said yes and Busola said no, and we both hung our heads.

He made us stoop down, balancing on one finger and one leg until the snot came down and we fell over, so we could change legs and he wouldn’t notice. When both our legs were dead and the tears were burning our eyes because our heads were upside down, he told us off for trying to balance on more than one finger and waved the wooden stick over us as our legs collapsed under the weight on to our knees. After that, our mum asked him please let us up, we’d been stupid but enough was enough, she forgave us, we were only children and we’d learnt our lesson, it was crowded at Thaddeus’s mum’s and she couldn’t really cope.

We could tell he was angry because he told her off for coming between him and dealing with us. He told us to get up and wipe our faces. When our mum had given us something to eat, he told us to come back in and face him.

‘False report,’ he said, ‘is no child of mine.’ He looked at us like he didn’t know who we were, and didn’t like us. ‘Are you listening?’

I nodded, and burst into tears.