I block the door with a chair and pull the Banner Bag out from under the bed.

Its leather ties are stiff and it smells a bit damp too, like it’s been in storage for a long time. I have to press the catches really hard to get the bag to open. I carefully lift out the envelope with the Protest Book inside. The bag seems to have lots of separate compartments and there are old cobwebs in the folds of the yellowing canvas and a few paint stains. On one side there are sections containing paint bottles. I take them out. There’s a blood-red colour, a dark blue, a nearly empty bottle of black, an orange and a turquoise. The turquoise paint bottle hasn’t been opened yet, but all the others have been used and have crusted-up paint inside. There’s another section for paintbrushes, thick ones and thin ones too. In the bottom of the bag is a roll of old ripped sheets and a pile of bamboo poles about the same length as my arm. There’s one huge sheet that’s all bright colours. I carefully take it out and unfold it over Mira’s carpet. This must be the banner Hope was taking down off Simon’s wall.

I hold my breath as I unroll it like a precious scroll. It’s my Nana Josie’s painting, and this sea of bright-coloured faces wearing clothes of every colour of the rainbow holding up banners is for me. I know it is. I can feel it. In turquoise letters across the back of the sheet is written ‘Women’s March’. In the background you can’t tell the features of the faces – it’s just hundreds and hundreds of people – but at the front there are three people I recognize even though they’re so young. It’s Nana wearing a yellow skirt reaching down to the ground, Hope with a massive wild tangle of Afro hair and Simon pushing his bike with flowers in the spokes of his wheels. They look like proper hippies all marching barefoot.

I can’t believe I’ve got this painting of Nana’s and the paint she actually painted it in. I wonder if paint goes off. I twist the lid of the turquoise paint; it’s really hard to open and I have to use every bit of strength to get it to budge. It does smell a bit stale.

‘Laila, I’m home!’ Mum’s voice makes me jump. She’s climbing the stairs now.

I quickly scoop up the paints, the banner and the Protest Book and push them under my bed.

Mum calls through the door, then the knob turns. ‘Why are you blocking the door?’

‘Just hang on a minute, Mum.’

I pull the duvet over so that it covers the gap at the bottom of the bed and then I unwedge the chair from under the door knob.

‘What’s going on?’ Mum asks, sniffing the air.

‘I was just getting changed. I need a lock on this door!’ I say.

‘We don’t do locks in this house, Laila.’

‘I might as well sleep on the landing then!’

Mum’s nose is still twitching. ‘Do you think it smells a bit damp in here?’ She goes over and opens the window. ‘How’s your eczema . . . any better?’ She takes hold of my arm.

I wish she wouldn’t just grab me, like my body belongs to her. I shrug her off and pull my arms away from her inspection.

‘I’ve brought you some colour charts to look at. How about a mauve?’ Mum scans down the shades of purple.

I pretend to shove my fingers down my throat.

‘Not mauve then! What about something more neutral?’ She hands me a chart of creams and whites.

‘Mum, I keep telling you, I’m not bothered about getting Mira’s room decorated.’

‘That’s the whole point, Laila. It’s not Mira’s room any more. You need to make it your own, and it would be so much easier for me if we could get it done before Janu visits.’ Mum rubs at a stain on the carpet. ‘We could maybe get you a rug. This carpet’s looking pretty ropey with all Mira’s art stains! I don’t want Janu to think we live in a mess.’ Mum sighs.

‘He runs an orphanage for street children, Mum; I don’t think he’ll care how my room’s decorated.’

Mum knocks against something with her foot, then feels for it under the bed.

Well, I suppose this is it. I’ll have to tell her everything.

‘What’s this?’ she asks, picking up the bottle of turquoise paint.

Maybe she hasn’t seen the Banner Bag.

‘Kez gave it to me . . . I like the colour!’

‘If you like that . . .’

Mum scans down the blues and turquoises on her charts.

‘You know, this deep turquoise was one of your Nana Josie’s favourites too! Lots of her paintings are in this and gold. It might be too much for all the walls, but maybe one would work in this colour.’

Mum looks happy, as if me liking the colour turquoise is somehow progress.

The phone rings and we bump into each other in our race downstairs to pick up the phone. I get there first. It’s Mira. Mum’s doing that thing that Nana Kath does – and Mum says she hates – of telling me to ask questions at the same time as I’m talking.

‘Mum wants me to tell you that Janu’s coming next Sunday. She needs to know which of the weekends you’ll come home to see him. It’s in half-term,’ I tell her as Mum carries on talking in my ear.

I want to tell her about Nana’s beautiful banner painting. But how can I do that without letting on that I’ve got the Protest Book too?

‘She says she doesn’t have half-terms, Mum.’

I tell Mira that I’ll call her on my mobile later because even she can hear Mum talking right in my ear!

‘You get annoyed with Nana Kath when she does that!’ I say as I hand the phone over to her. But the truth is I feel so strange talking to Mira. Since Mrs Latif asked that question about lying, it seems like I haven’t stopped. I really want to tell Mira the truth about everything that’s been going on. It’s hard to be close to someone when there’s too many lies between you, and I hate feeling so far apart. But I just want to have a chance to take it all in before I own up to having the Protest Book. I think Bubbe understood that. I want to sit with Nana Josie’s Protest Book for a bit, just me and her and all the things she cared about.

I sit on the carpet, take the Protest Book out of the Banner Bag and start to read about all the marches Nana Josie went on. There are pages of them! And it’s not just marches – there are letters and campaigns and petitions too. There are even letters from prime ministers. Well, secretaries on behalf of prime ministers. Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair mostly . . . There are quite a few from Glenda Jackson, who I thought was an actress but turns out she used to be an MP . . . she must have been a good one, I think, because she wrote all these letters back to Nana explaining things. Most of the official letters that the politicians and organizations sent back are quite boring really. Just standard ones like they’d send out to everyone. It’s strange that they write in such good English – the kind of letters you’re supposed to learn how to write. But even though they use the right words, most of these letters don’t actually seem to say anything. I suppose they would just reply by email now. It would be much more interesting if there were copies of the letters that Nana Josie sent to them.

I read through page after page of newspaper clippings. I can’t really take in all the information. I make a note of the campaigns so I can research the things that mean something to me, like Simon said I should. Soon I will have to give this back to Mira and she might be angry with me for not telling her about it and take it away with her.

•  Women’s March

•  March on Lincoln Memorial – 1963 – Nana actually heard Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech

•  Anti-Apartheid movement (ANC – National Membership Card) – Meetings where Simon and Hope said they used to meet together

•  ‘Not in My Name’ (Banner Nana used for lots of things)

•  Greenham Common

•  CND

•  Animal Welfare

•  Anti-Arms Trade

•  Anti-Vivisection

•  Free People of Tibet (Vigil outside Tibetan Embassy, London) – Photo of Nana and Simon sitting holding candles

•  Naked Bike Ride for Climate Change (That photo!)

•  Bhopal Medical Appeal (Simon’s marathon fundraising runs)

•  Iraq Anti-War March

•  Refugees Welcome March (Simon’s last one)

There are lots of other local campaigns too that I don’t write down, but they’re kind of sweet, like ‘Save our local oak tree’! I like the picture of Nana and Simon and some other people linking arms together around the tree. I actually think I’ve walked past it on Hampstead Heath near the ponds – so that’s proof their protest actually worked.