It was like a drum beat – six dah-dah fifty-four, seven dah-dah did-dee dee, ah dah-dah did-dee do ... She gave it a bounce, because she could dance and that’s what she wanted to do, not numbers, and by doing it that way you don’t fall and the steps keep coming ... nah-nah dah-di dah ... I’d drifted off because the next one was ‘Twelve nines are a hundred and eight.’ That was it – twelve nines, nine twelves – only now it was me going over the cliff because she’d stopped. I had a panic but I calmed it, there was still times ten and eleven to go.

My dad was patting her on the head and saying she must know it off by heart for next time, but he could see she was working hard. He looked back at the sums and I thought he couldn’t see me, because I put the chewing-gum in my pocket and made a sign at Busola with my hands over my head that she was a big-head and a show-off. Only it was too quiet, I could hear Connor scratching his head and Manus counting numbers under his breath, but my dad wasn’t moving and Busola was staring at me.

‘What are you doing?’ my dad said.

The window was reflecting in his glasses and I couldn’t see until I leaned back that even though his head was bent over the sums he was looking at me.

‘Be careful,’ he said in a voice telling me to get ready.

Manus looked up, checked my dad had his back turned, and gave me a warning with his eyes not to get it wrong.

‘Now, we won’t bother with ten, eleven,’ my dad said. ‘Your turn, twelve.’

It wasn’t like a headache. It was my head feeling thick and heavy so my neck had to bend down, and everything was slow. It was like I could see all the numbers swimming like flashes off the edge of my eyes but I couldn’t catch them.

‘Seven twelves?’

That’s seventy and two sevens ... ‘Eighty-four,’ I said.

He looked at me like he saw me working it out and said, ‘By heart.’

My head was hurting, like it was burning, but I couldn’t be ill.

‘Twelve twelves?’

‘Hundred and forty-four.’ It was the last number in black on the back of the red exercise books that had all twelve of the times tables on and I remembered because it was the biggest number and if I could learn that –

‘Nine twelves?’

‘A hundred and ...’ What was it? It was gone. I couldn’t work it out because Busola had just told me and I’d forgotten. It was blocked. It was her fault turning numbers into a song so I’d forget the words, twelve dah-dah ... dah-dah ... It wasn’t my fault there were numbers that didn’t want to be learnt, that jumped about and swapped and disappeared.

‘Twelve nines?’