I turned off down Auckland Street towards the railway arches and thought about what I should do. I didn’t want to have to stay in bed all day. I wanted to go to school. But I couldn’t think properly.

‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me,’ I said, and then got worried someone could hear me, but I passed by the shops and by the corrugated iron of the bombsite and no one stopped me. There was frost on the doorsteps. People had gone to school and the street was empty. I kept on going with the long sun behind me and my shadow out front. The old lady was telling me go to school. I couldn’t see her face, only my long legs and the shadow of my duffel coat. I didn’t know why I was running away. It was my fault for not going in, and it was me who wanted to go in the first place.

‘Can I go?’ I said.

It was back when Busola first started going to school, and I was leaning out the window with my mum. The bell was ringing and I could see the pointed roofs of the school over the houses at the top of the street. Manus was holding Busola’s hand to look after her, and Connor turned on the pavement to wave up at us. Everyone was going except me.

‘Can I?’

‘Yes,’ my mum said, ‘as soon as the school says you can.’

I got as far as the school gate and lost my nerve. They were all inside, the playground was empty and I could hear singing. The school keeper with keys came to the gate and I got frightened. I got in under a car in case he came out to look for me. I stayed really quiet and was scraping some tar off my hand when two women going past with a pram shouted there was a child under the car, so I scrambled out and ran. It was winter because the pink tree and the white tree by the flats didn’t have any leaves or blossom on as I looked back to see if anyone was following me.

‘Where have you been?’ my mum said.

‘Just out.’

My dad was there, getting ready to go back to Liverpool, shaving in the round mirror over a bowl, flicking the razor and scratching his chin with it. He laughed at the way I was breathing, ‘Have you been running?’ He was looking at me through the tilted-up mirror that made his nostrils look bigger than his eyes. But I could see his eyes were steady, looking down over the bristles on his chin. He was my dad and school couldn’t be more scary than that. He dipped the razor in water and flicked it, watching me. I took a deep breath and tried to slow everything down.