He landed on his feet like a cat and his knee came up and banged off his mouth with the horrible sound of a clack. He stood up stiffly with blood on his lip and limped past us to the bathroom door. It was locked as he pushed at it because Mr Babalola and Florence were in there, so he went round the corner up the passage to the toilet and the bins. I could hear Mr Babalola in the bathroom shout, ‘Kilode? What’s going on?’ as me and Marie both sprang up to follow. He bolted the toilet door from inside and wouldn’t answer as Marie banged on it, ‘Sunday?’ I saw his feet move through the chink in the door at the bottom, then I raced back to tell my dad where he was. Mr Babalola came out the bathroom and looked at me sprinting past, but I didn’t stop. I bumped into Mr Lawal coming out the back door and fell back on my bum as his leg lifted over me. I could feel I’d sprained my wrist but I picked up Tunde’s hat that was lying there. My dad came out and the air came out his chest as he saw me lying on the ground. ‘I’m all right,’ I said because he froze and Mr Babalola was picking me up in his arms saying, ‘Kilode?’ I told them I could stand and wriggled my legs down to show I wasn’t hurt. Jimmy Singh came up behind my dad in the doorway and half pushed past and half held him round the shoulders as though my dad was going to fall over. It was all wrong because it was Tunde who’d fallen and it was Mr Lawal pulling and banging at the toilet door to try and break the bolt. ‘Where de noise?’ Jimmy Singh said, and I could see Marie had come away and was looking back down the passageway with Florence who was leaning out the bathroom wrapped in a towel. ‘Tunde! Come out! Open the door!’ Mr Lawal wanted to break the lock but he couldn’t.

‘You useless man!’ Florence was out in her towel and took her flip-flop off and threw it down the passageway to hit Mr Lawal, ‘Leave him!’ He came charging back down the passageway at her, and Marie gave a little scream as he knocked Florence over the metal buckets and brooms against the backyard wall. She scratched him back on his face, keeping one hand to hold up her towel and spitting at him in Yoruba, ‘Oniranu’