There was the statue of Paddington Bear at the station, the crowds and the noise of the engines, and we thought that was far enough, could we go home now? There were church people who took our names, the labels pinned to our clothes, waving goodbye to our mum out the window, and the gasp of the train as it set off without her.

We sat in the railway carriage with the windows open, a dusty sickly smell coming off the upholstery, the seats joggling, the countryside rolling past, and a sick feeling in my stomach wondering who was going to meet us the other end. A man and a woman got on at Gloucester to take us off. We both said under our breaths we hoped it would be them, and it was. But there was a smell as we got down that wasn’t London and made me not want to breathe. I couldn’t open my mouth, I was going to faint.

‘Was it a nice journey?’

‘Yes, it was, thank you very much, I’m Katherine,’ Busola said, using a voice I hadn’t heard before. ‘And he’s Michael.’ They both looked at me – my head spinning, taking a huge gulp of air – looked at each other, and led us along the platform past the whistles, the oily metal heat of the engine and clouds of smoke towards the smell I couldn’t breathe.

‘They think you can’t talk,’ Busola whispered as we followed them.

‘You can pick strawberries in that field,’ they said as we drove past a raised bank with gaps in the hedge. I looked up in the back seat – picking strawberries to eat, a strawberry field, growing wild, juicy and red – just the thought of it made me bite down without thinking on my ice lolly. The electric shock went straight through my teeth, up to the top of my head and down through my feet, out through my fingers, and slowly along my back in trickles of sweat. It locked my jaw so I couldn’t speak, even to tell Busola. There were star bursts in front of my eyes, bright blurs of tears. All I could do was blink. I hadn’t been away this far before ever.

Bang! went the pop-guns, click! Bang!

It was our first time alone in the town, and they trusted us to walk down and look for presents to take back. We’d already spent all the pocket money we’d earned from picking buckets of fruit – which wasn’t much because we’d eaten them as we went along and I’d been sick and couldn’t take the smell of fruit again without throwing up. So we agreed to pretend we were looking with money we’d brought from home which we didn’t have. We were going to say we hadn’t found anything to buy – it was just being polite.