‘But they didn’t.’ It was her own voice. ‘And we still have to get back. So let me sleep, before they come in the room and look at us.’

I didn’t know they did that.

‘Busola?’ I said, but she didn’t answer. ‘Busola?’

I listened for footsteps on the landing. An owl called outside. I thought about the lamp broken on the floor. About who she’d become on the holiday. About what she knew and hadn’t told me. The way she’d been with Charles, giving him a hug as we left. And when his sister asked where we came from, the way she’d cut in and said, ‘The moon.’ About us being followed and called names, she said not to answer. About the way she looked after me. And I wouldn’t speak. About wanting to be brave like her, and I wasn’t.

Our dad was in the station, standing with his foot up at a stall smoking and looking down the platform. He saw us from a distance and came over and chatted to the people who were getting us off the train with our bags. We showed him our stilts which we’d lifted ourselves off the overhead racks. He let us carry them all the way to the car, saying we had to write and thank those people as soon as we got home, what was their name? Mr and Mrs Brown, we said, they were teachers. Did we like being away on holiday? Neither of us said anything, but Busola looked at me and nodded.

We were in the green car going back over Vauxhall Bridge. It was old-fashioned, and the running-board under the doors was a bit broken, but it had red leather seats and orange lights that flapped out like ears at the side, and it was our dad’s car and made us feel better. I felt a pressure come off my chest as we got over the river, like a weight I didn’t know was there but that made it hard to breathe, and as we came down the slope the other side I was back home.

We stopped suddenly and the whole of the back seat tumbled over on top of us. Our dad didn’t seem to notice we were underneath as he slammed his door shut and opened the boot to get our bags out. Busola looked at me across the stilts which had been on our laps. It was awkward because our heads were bent under the overturned seat, so we didn’t speak. The door opened and he pulled us out saying he’d soon get it fixed. Our mum was at the window waving to us as he walked off with the bags and we pulled our stilts free. She was in her nightgown and her hair was grey. Manus and Connor were still away on holiday, our dad said, and she’d been in hospital.