There wasn’t time and I’d had to help Mummy do the shopping, and clean the stairs, other children could play out, they were shouting outside the window, I couldn’t think when the telly was on, and I didn’t know it. I hadn’t made time, but I could have all this time that was empty to look round at Manus and Connor who were both looking at me with their mouths open, Manus trying to count out for me by nodding his head until I lost count how many times he’d done it. I had lots of time because I didn’t know what twelve nines was, and even more to look back at Busola who was trying to blink at me, and time to get ready because I was the only one who knew my head was empty until my dad stepped in and said, ‘You don’t know?’

I shook my head.

He took off his glasses, ‘The only thing you will inherit from me,’ he said, ‘is your education.’ And he put his glasses back on.

Connor leaned back in his chair like he didn’t think anything was going to happen. My dad turned round to them on the other table and said, ‘Oya! You can finish.’

They closed their books and we were out of trouble.

‘Not you.’

I was getting ready to go, and stopped with my arm on the table.

‘Two twelves?’

I didn’t know. My head was blocked, I couldn’t do it. I could a minute ago, but I couldn’t any more. I looked at him.

‘Two times twelve?’

I didn’t even want to shake my head.

He took off his glasses again, and wiped his eyes with both hands and looked at me. He wasn’t going to explode but no one moved. I could see a vein throbbing over his eye.

My mum looked in the door. ‘We’ve to go,’ she said.

He nodded, and she went away and closed the door.

‘You have to know,’ he said. ‘You don’t like numbers, still you have to know. And you can’t fool with numbers. They will say no, it’s not true, you’re not counting them.’

‘They’re hard,’ Manus said.

My dad turned round to look at him and put his glasses on, ‘Hard and fast. They won’t change. That’s something you can build on.’

‘They don’t do this in school,’ Connor said.

‘So we have to do the building at home.’

‘The top of the street’s been knocked down,’ said Busola.

It was like the houses had been eaten from the inside. They just had the wall of them facing the street with the sky through the windows. And then they knocked that down.