On Friday, things between Ashandra and Kayleigh seemed to even out to a sort of frosty politeness. But at home things between Amelia and Chloe just got worse and worse. On Saturday morning, Dad came back from dropping Lucy off at ballet and he and Suvi took Kirsti upstairs to get her changed and dressed. That’s when Amelia and Chloe started snapping at each other again.

Chloe was disappointed because Thunder had backed out of their plan to film Big Bear on roller skates.

‘What could possibly be more important than this?’ she asked me.

‘Maybe he has to do something with his parents,’ I said.

‘Maybe he doesn’t want to see you because you crushed him when he asked you out,’ Amelia said.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ Chloe said.

But it was true that Thunder had been making excuses not to see Chloe recently. She frowned.

Amelia started humming the song she’d written for International Day.

Chloe groaned. ‘Not that rubbish again.’

Amelia stopped humming and started singing.

Chloe put her fingers in her ears. ‘You do realise that no one is going to want to listen to you warbling on about countries in harmony and all that rubbish.’

Upstairs, Kirsti started howling.

‘You sound just like her,’ Chloe said. ‘No wonder Dad isn’t coming to see you sing; he has to put up with enough wailing already.’

‘Shut your face.’ Amelia shoved Chloe in the chest.

Chloe pushed her back. ‘You shut it. You think you’re so brilliant just because you can sing and you read books and wear make-up.’

‘You’re just jealous. Maybe in a million years you’ll act like an adult.’

‘I’m not jealous! You think you’re so big, but you’re an idiot, always being sarky with Dad and pretending you’re not part of this family.’

‘What family?’ Amelia exploded. ‘We’re not a proper family! Mum and Dad barely even talk to each other.’

‘So? He’s still our dad.’

Amelia looked at Chloe with dagger eyes. ‘We all know that you’re on his side.’

‘What do you mean, on his side?’

‘You think he’s brilliant. You’re always throwing your arms round him. You never even consider Mum. What do you think it’s like when someone you love goes off with another woman and leaves you behind to cope, and five minutes later they’ve got a whole new life with their new baby, and they don’t care about you any more and they never even show up to hear you sing?’ She pushed past me and ran out of the room.

Chloe’s forehead creased. ‘Wait a minute,’ she called to Amelia’s back. ‘Are we talking about Mum or you?’

I don’t think Amelia really knew.

‘Did I hear shouting?’ Dad asked when he came downstairs a few minutes later with Kirsti on his arm.

Chloe shrugged.

I was being tough so it wasn’t up to me to explain everything. I stared at my juice. In a tough way.

‘Well, let’s try not to get too boisterous at this time in the morning; we’ve already had Lucy doing the fairy elephant dance on the way to ballet,’ Dad said, popping Kirsti in her bouncy chair. ‘And I know Kirsti’s been bellowing, but we should try not to disturb the neighbours any more than necessary.’

I knew that when you’ve got Kirsti howling in your ear it’s hard to hear anything else, but I was surprised he didn’t want to know what the shouting was about.

Chloe didn’t seem bothered about telling him. ‘What’s the Plan for this morning?’ she asked.

‘The Plan is for everybody to be really good and quiet while I get some work done. We might have time for half an hour’s fishing this afternoon,’ Dad said, picking up his phone and starting to look through his emails.

‘I’m going to tell Thunder to stop being an idiot then.’ Chloe attempted to moonwalk out of the kitchen. I stood up to follow her.

‘Tell Amelia we’re not going out this morning, will you, Ella?’ Dad asked, not looking up from his phone.

‘I think she might have locked herself in the bathroom again.’

Dad looked up from his phone and then back down again. ‘Amelia and Chloe seem to be winding each other up a bit today. They’re normally such good pals. Do you think you could smooth things over between them?’

Suddenly, I understood a bit why Amelia was so cross with him. How could he possibly have not noticed that Amelia and Chloe didn’t get on at all any more?

‘They always wind each other up; they fell out ages ago,’ I said. ‘They hardly talk to each other at the moment. And even when they do it’s just to say nasty things.’

‘Mmm,’ Dad said, still looking at his stupid emails. He wasn’t paying attention to me. I didn’t care though because I was being tough. Which was good because it isn’t very nice when your dad doesn’t listen to something important you’re telling him.

It wasn’t a very good weekend. We didn’t even go fishing. Dad only came out of his study to watch the football with Chloe. Amelia only came out of the bathroom to shout at people.