Everyone was waiting when I got back. Manus hadn’t found the key and my dad was telling him off. Busola was sitting up on the sofa not looking at anybody and Connor came in behind me after opening the door with his jaw set for trouble. My dad made us all sit down on the sofa and made Busola move up. He looked at all of us and said, ‘Busola, where have you been?’

She didn’t look up, but we could see he’d got it out of her. ‘Nowhere,’ she said.

‘Down by the railway. And what were you doing there?’

‘Playing,’ she said.

‘That’s a lie,’ and no one moved. I was still holding the bottle of Lucozade on my lap and looked at my orange fingers through the cellophane. I thought it might shield me that I’d been ill and he’d sent me out to go and get it. ‘I’m talking to all of you,’ he said. ‘Something has changed. Your mother is in the hospital. When she comes back, I don’t want any of you troubling her.’

I didn’t see how it was a lie that we were down by the railway arches, or what it meant that our mum wasn’t at the shops but up the hospital. I wanted to know when she was coming back. We hadn’t had supper. Manus was scratching at the eczema on his forearm and Busola was holding on to him with her thumb in her mouth.

‘What’s wrong with her?’ Connor said, and my dad looked at him but didn’t say anything.

We waited, and I thought my dad was gonna tell him off, but he didn’t, he just went on looking at all of us with his eyes shiny under his glasses.

Connor put his head down, the way the man looked down at his leg where he’d fallen, like he didn’t know where the ground was – but I pulled away from looking because I was scared if I thought about the man he’d find me. My dad pulled off his glasses, wiped his eyes and put them on again.