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Next morning, it’s Dad who wakes me up, wearing one of Grandpa’s checked shirts and Grandma’s shop apron.

“Up, up, up!” he says, banging on the back of a saucepan with a spoon.

I rub my eyes.

“It’s half past seven,” Hannah groans, from her room. “We don’t have to get up yet!”

“Don’t you?” says Dad. He sounds surprised. At home, we had to be up in time to drive to school. Here, it’s just down the hill.

He’s set the table for breakfast. He’s bought me another present: Coco Pops from the shop. When I lived with Mum and Dad, I only liked Coco Pops for breakfast, but now I like Frosties and Weetabix and eggs if Grandpa is making them.

“Molly doesn’t eat that any more,” says Hannah. “And I don’t eat cereal either. I have toast, like Grandma.”

Dad doesn’t wash the breakfast things up, like Grandpa. He leaves them in the sink with last night’s mugs. He clearly cares less about tidying than I remember him caring. And at ten to nine, when Hannah says, “You’re supposed to tell us to go now,” he looks at his watch and says, “Off you trot, then!” without asking if we’ve got our topic books or pencil cases or papier-mâché model of the Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge.

In the front yard, we stop and look at each other.

“Dad’s back!” I say.

“Not for ever,” says Hannah. “But no smelly Grandma bossing us about!” And she runs off down the hill, school bag bouncing on her back.

 

When we get home, he’s in the shop, selling stamps to Alexander’s dad.

“Afternoon!” he says. “Want an egg?” And he throws us a Cadbury’s Creme Egg each.

“You’re happy,” says Hannah. He is. He makes us proper Dad home-made bread, which doesn’t rise in Grandma’s oven either, but tastes just as chewy as it always did at home.

By Thursday, we’re used to having him to ourselves. It’s a shock to think he’s going home soon.

After school, before Grandpa and Grandma get back, I help him in the shop. I stack all the new tins and things on the shelves. I mop the floor. I sell sherbet fountains to Sascha and her little sister.

“If I was your grandma,” says Dad, “I’d give you a job.”

He looks so happy, I risk asking him again.

“Don’t you want to stay?”

Dad puts his arm around me.

“I wish I could,” he says. “But I can’t take your grandma’s job. I’ve got my own work. You know that.”

I lean my head against his stomach.

“So you can’t have us.”

“No.”

“And we’re Grandma’s responsibility now.”

“Well.” He squeezes me. “Maybe a bit mine too.”

I look up. “If you had another job, would you have us back?”

He doesn’t answer for the longest time. Then he says, “Would you want me?”

I nod.

“I—” He stops, but then he starts again. “I might not always get things right.”

“I don’t always get things right,” I say. “I get things wrong, all the time I get things wrong. And you don’t mind, do you?”

“Oh, Moll,” says Dad. “Never. Never, ever.”

“Well, then.”

Dad’s quiet. “There’s a job coming up,” he says. “Sub-editor. Working for someone I know from university. It’s the other side of the city, but the hours are better. And you can cope for a few hours after school on your own, can’t you?”

“Yes!” I say. “Do it!”

“It’s only a maybe,” says Dad. “I might not get it. You do understand that, don’t you, Moll? It’s nothing definite.”

“You’ll get it,” I say. “You will, won’t you?”

“I don’t know,” says Dad. Then he squeezes me, suddenly, so I can feel my ribs pressing against my organs. “Keep it to yourself,” he says. “But, yes. I think I will.”