I said it to annoy Connor as they were tucking us up into their bed. Busola got in the middle between us and wouldn’t move, my mum and dad were gonna sleep in the front room because there wasn’t space at the sides. Manus hadn’t come out his room and wasn’t making a sound.

‘Don’t put the light out,’ Busola said.

‘It’s over now, it’s over,’ my mum said, but it wasn’t like a dream and I’d woken up, and I didn’t see anybody else look like they were going to sleep to get over it.

‘Was it real?’ I said.

My dad smiled like I was asking for a bedtime story and sat on the bed. ‘They are just passing through,’ and he reached over and put his hand through Connor’s hair. ‘They are mice on the move from the other houses.’ He pinched Busola’s toes through the blankets, ‘At least they’re not rats.’

My mum slapped his hand away and sat down next to Connor, ‘I’ll not have you worsen the plague, settle them down.’

She leaned over and started whispering Our Father, who art in heaven to Connor who was nodding his head. Busola made a big sigh and burst into tears. My dad looked at me and winked, ‘It’s time now we need that Tom.’

But my dad didn’t think it was doing its job and said it was lazy. He got really good when he came home and sat down in front of the telly at suddenly throwing his work boot and knocking out a mouse. The mouse would be stunned and he’d have to heave himself up out the chair again and go and finish it off, ‘ Where’s that bloody cat?’ But we thought it was frightened. There was a big mouse with a long tail sitting up one night watching the television with us. My mum and dad were out and we had to run out the room but the cat didn’t want to go in, even though Manus tried to throw it in and close the door. It scratched his hand with its bottom feet and then bit him, its body wriggling out from under his arm, and I felt sorry for it. ‘Let him go,’ I said.

‘It’s a she,’ he said, sucking his finger as it pelted down the stairs.