Mae and I have a lovely half an hour drawing diagrams and making plans for the renovation of the Wendy house. I completely lose track of time, just like when I’m reading. But this isn’t something I’m doing alone, in my own head. I’m beginning to see why so many people have a best friend. Mae’s ideas make me smile because they’re brilliant and I know I wouldn’t have thought of them myself. Lots of her suggestions spark my own ideas, and together we develop them. It feels great. It’s twice as much fun to create something when you do it with someone else. I want the afternoon to go on for ever.

Supper is beef stroganoff. I’ve never had it before. It’s creamy and warming and tastes so delicious I wonder if there can be anything better in the world.

Mae’s mum smiles. ‘You were hungry.’

‘Yes,’ I say, looking at my plate. There isn’t a single grain of rice left. I know there’s more on the stove – I’ve seen it – but Mae’s mum doesn’t offer any more and it would be rude to ask. Instead, though, she does bring out a big chocolate mousse. Pudding!

‘We never have pudding in my house,’ I say enthusiastically, putting a spoonful into my mouth. The taste is heavenly.

‘I love pudding,’ says Mae. ‘Treacle tart, yum. Apple pie. Ice cream.’

I can’t remember the last time I had any of those things at home.

‘Crumble,’ says Christopher with his mouth full. His nails are still brown with dirt, even though his mum has made him wash them three times. She made him put the worms back in the flower beds too, and he spent the first half of the meal complaining about the unfairness. It made me want to giggle again.

‘What do you usually have for supper, Calypso?’ she asks, and her voice sounds light and friendly.

‘Oh, all kinds of things,’ I assure her. Being here, in this nice warm house, with this wonderful food, makes me feel ashamed of my own. I can’t tell her I cook my own supper and that it’s usually beans on toast.

‘Does your mum like cooking?’ she asks.

I dig my spoon into the bottom of the bowl. ‘My mum died,’ I say without looking up.

Mae gasps. ‘What? I didn’t know that!’

There is a pause. I keep scraping the bottom of my bowl so that I don’t have to look up. I imagine them all exchanging frantic glances: what do we say next?

‘I’m so sorry,’ Mae’s mum says, after a moment. ‘Was it recent?’

‘No. Years ago, when I was five.’

There isn’t any mousse left in the bowl, but I keep scraping for the tiny bits to avoid looking up.

‘I didn’t know,’ Mae says in an agonised whisper, and I get the impression she isn’t saying it to me but to her mum.

I don’t know what to say. What else is there? My vision seems to have narrowed to the white china bowl in my hands. Everything around it is in shadow.

And then Christopher does a huge burp and the shadows disappear.

‘What?’ he says defensively.

‘That’s revolting,’ his mum says sharply.

Christopher tries to protest. ‘It just came out of nowhere.’

‘No, it didn’t. You always know when it’s coming, and the polite thing to do is to close your mouth and apologise afterwards.’

‘I didn’t know it was coming!’

I was relieved at first when everyone was distracted from me, but now I feel anxious. I wish Christopher would just apologise and keep quiet, not argue back. I can see him getting crosser, and his mum’s voice is getting higher.

‘It’s just a question of manners, Christopher, and you’re turning into a savage.’

‘I am not!’

‘Don’t talk back to me!’

I clench my hands into fists under the table and feel chilly waves pass over me. Their voices are harsh, like they hate each other.

‘Shall I take the bowls out?’ says Mae in an ‘I’m bored by this’ voice. She gets up and starts to clear.

‘I’ll help.’ I almost knock over the water jug in my haste.

The argument subsides, to my great relief, and Christopher slinks off sulkily.

When everything’s cleared away and I’ve made sure to say how nice all the food was, Mae’s mum says it’s time to take me home.

‘Christopher!’ she calls. ‘Can you come and get in the car? It’s time to take Calypso home.’

To my utter astonishment, Christopher appears looking perfectly cheerful again, holding some kind of puzzle toy.

‘I solved it,’ he tells us, putting on his trainers. ‘It’s supposed to take half an hour and I did it in ten minutes. That makes me a genius.’

His mum laughs. ‘You wish!’

I am baffled. How can their argument be over so quickly? Why aren’t they still cross with each other? All that emotion, all those angry words – where did they go? I feel quite weak as I sink into the car seat, and I barely hear a word anyone says on the short journey through the fading light. Dad and I never argue. If I get cross with Dad, he never argues back. He just retreats into silence and I go to my room feeling like a cloud, thundery and dark. Sometimes it takes hours for me to feel normal again. I could never switch from anger to cheerfulness in the space of a few short minutes.

‘Is this the right place, Calypso?’ asks Mae’s mum.

I look through the window at our house. Set back from the road, detached, surrounded by overgrown trees and shrubs, with a small iron gate that has sunk on its hinges so it no longer shuts properly. Our house looks dark, unloved and unhappy, in sharp contrast to the warm and cosy house I’ve just left. For the first time ever, I feel reluctant to come home.

‘This is your house?’ Mae is leaning out of the window. ‘It looks like the house from The Amazing Mr Blunden.’

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s a really old ghost story. Ooh, do you have any ghosts?’

‘No,’ I say sharply, undoing my seat belt. ‘No, we don’t.’

Her face falls. ‘Shame.’

‘I’ll come up to the house with you,’ Mae’s mum says, turning off the engine and undoing her seat belt.

‘No – no, you don’t need to.’

I’m out of the car as quick as a flash and standing on the pavement with my bag. I don’t want her to see inside. What would she think of our cold, untidy house with its dusty corners and peeling paint?

I lean in through the open door. ‘Honestly. I’ve got my own key.’ I hold it up to prove it.

‘I just think it’d be nice if I said hello to your dad,’ she says, and her door clunk-clicks open. She puts one foot on the ground. ‘We’ve only spoken on the phone briefly – it seems rude that we haven’t yet met when you and Mae are such good friends.’

‘Look.’ I point to the window to the left of our front door. A light is on, twinkling through the branches of the dark tree. ‘That’s Dad’s library. The light means he’s working, and he hates to be disturbed.’

Mae shouts from the back of the car, ‘He’s going to be published!’

Mae’s mum hesitates.

I smile at her reassuringly. ‘He’ll be all grumpy if we disturb him in the middle of writing, honestly.’

She glances at the library window and then makes up her mind. ‘All right, if you’re sure. I’ll watch you go in, though.’

‘Bye, Calypso!’ Mae calls, waving.

Christopher is picking his nose again, trying to pretend he isn’t by turning his head to one side.

I walk up the garden path, put my key in the door and turn it, pushing down on the handle at the same time. I step inside the house, turn to wave at the car, see Mae’s mum get back in and drive away. Then I close the door and stand in the gloomy hallway on the cold stone flagging, listening to the silence and feeling the draught swirl around my ankles.