‘Laila’s not that bothered about going either,’ Dad argues.

‘Well, she’s not getting much encouragement from you, is she? It’s only a Sunday-night supper. The girls have school tomorrow so it won’t be a late one.’

‘I suppose.’

‘Come on, Sam. Hannah and Maurice have been so helpful to Janu – and Kez is fundraising for his charity at her bat mitzvah.’

‘Yeah, I know, Uma. I just think things are settling down a bit with Laila. I don’t want her feeling all left out again because of the bat mitzvah. Shouldn’t we be doing supper for them?’

‘Probably! But they invited us first, and I think this might be Bubbe’s way of getting the girls together. Anyway, Janu’s raring to go. He’s gone out to buy sparklers.’

We’re sitting around Kez’s family’s table, eating and chatting under their sparkly chandelier that shoots star shapes all over the ceiling and walls.

Janu’s talking to Kez about the Durga Puja festival that’s going on in Kolkata now, and they’re comparing ceremonies for that and Hanukkah, which has just finished. I should have sent Kez a card. I always used to. I think it’s strange that all these festivals come at more or less the same time. Pari says she’ll be able to come back to mine after Eid in a few days’ time. I have this thought that millions of people must have had before, and it sounds too obvious to even say it, but why don’t all the religions get together at this time of year and do one big light celebration, no matter what the differences are between them?

Then Janu says exactly what I’m thinking – and it makes me feel like it’s not such a stupid idea after all:

‘Basically the same principle. Expel the darkness, let the light rise, and after all that have a feast! You should come to my village at this time. Why not plan your trip to come at Durga Puja next year? We will be having a very special celebration then. Why not all come? Go to Kolkata, visit Reena in her school, stay with Anjali, then come to see the new Vimana refuge. It’ll give me a deadline to work towards! One year to the day we should try to open. You can come for the opening ceremony! Krish has promised me he’ll come too. Chameli and Anjali will welcome you like you’ve never been welcomed before!’

It actually feels a lot less awkward here than when me and Kez meet on our own. I miss that hum of lots of people talking over each other at mealtimes, scrambling for a place in the conversation.

Mum’s chatting away to Kez’s parents about how much she’s starting to enjoy her new work now she’s getting to know the students she’s working with. I feel a bit bad that I haven’t even thought to ask her much about it.

Bubbe’s sitting next to Dad and they’re deep in conversation.

‘No, Sam! I can’t believe this!’ Bubbe hardly ever raises her voice. ‘How long have we known each other? But I used to go to that bookshop. I didn’t know his surname! Isn’t that incredible? It can’t be we’re only just discovering this now . . . Fancy you being Kit’s son!’

‘Can you fathom this, girls? Laila! Your grandad’s shop was one of my Stan’s favourite haunts in London. He dealt in those books that got saved by Jewish refugees in the war. He called them his Kinderbooks . . . That’s how Stan and I got talking to him.’

‘Sounds like my dad!’

‘We spent hours in his shop looking through all those precious books. Stan used to say it was like “holding a bit of history in your hand”. I was always under the impression your father didn’t want to sell them – I suppose, like he said, they were his Kinder!’ Bubbe laughs. ‘Definitely more of a bookkeeper than a bookseller . . .’

I’m so happy Dad played me that tape now, because I can hear Grandad’s voice in my head while they’re talking about him. I think I understand why Bubbe tells Kez so many stories about her Grandad Stan, because it does make you feel like you’re part of this big web that you haven’t even started finding out about yet. I suppose that’s what Mrs Latif’s getting at.

‘This is far too much excitement. I think I’ll put my feet up!’ Bubbe gets up from the table and walks over to the sofa.

Kez is chatting to Janu about her idea to blog about her journeys to different places in London.

‘Even though it’s better on the buses and some of the new stations, it’s still really hard. There’s loads of stations on the underground I still can’t go to,’ she tells him. Thinking about the day of the march, I don’t know how Kez would have got there if some of the stations don’t even have working lifts. She’s right . . . how can it be that she doesn’t even have the right to protest? Bubbe looks in her handbag and gets something out. I can see it from here. It’s the photo of her and Stan. She’s switched on the TV news with the sound turned down. I see her eyes fill with tears so I go over to sit with her. She’s watching pictures on the news of refugee children being carried on to a beach from a kind of dinghy. Bubbe has subtitles on all the time because of her hearing. I read the words as they scroll across the screen.

Just one more day and the storm would have taken all these Syrian children.

I hand her a tissue. I don’t know why but I found myself in a shop buying more after the ones from the girl on the underground ran out. Now I’ve taken to carrying some around with me wherever I go. Every time I open a packet I think of the little girl on the tube’s hands and her eyes full of hurt and I wonder what she’s doing at this moment. Where she is now. I think of her so often I wish I knew her name. Where she came from. I hope she’s not on a tube somewhere begging.

‘Why don’t we all go and sit on the comfy seats?’ Maurice suggests. ‘Fish soup, chicken and baked apples. It was all delicious . . . but far too much! Bubbe, why do you have to be such a good cook? I’m getting a proper paunch!’

‘I made the veggie risotto,’ Kez reminds him. ‘I didn’t think it would need that much stirring though – it was tougher than physio!’

Janu laughs. As he and Kez come over, Bubbe reaches out her arms to all three of us.

‘Sit with me, young ones.’ Bubbe holds my hand on one side and Kez’s on the other. ‘I think it’s up to you now to get the heart of this world beating again.’

‘Mum! Let’s switch this off. We don’t want to spoil the evening.’ Hannah takes the remote control, presses the OFF button and the screen goes blank. She sits on the back of the sofa and places a comforting hand on Bubbe’s shoulder.

‘I’m sorry, Hannah – I can’t switch off and I don’t think you should either. Stan and I wouldn’t have been here if people had switched off back then! Nor would you, for that matter!’

‘Please, Mum, try not to get too worked up; you know the doctor said you should rest more. Maurice, let’s have a bit of music.’

Kez pulls a face at whatever it is that her dad puts on. I like it. It sounds like folk music. ‘Sorry! Not to your taste, Kez? You two girls want to go and hang out in your room for a bit then?’

Kez closes the door to her bedroom.

‘Is Bubbe all right?’ I ask.

‘She has to take blood-pressure pills now,’ Kez explains. ‘She gets really upset with everything that goes on in the news, like it’s happening to her all over again. Mum and Dad don’t want her watching it, or listening, but she’s obsessed. She keeps saying history’s repeating itself and she gets really angry with Mum and Dad when they try to calm her down.’

I think of when I sat with Bubbe on Stan’s yahrzeit day . . . when we listened to that little boy talking.

‘What do you think of the makeover?’ Kezia asks, following the wall-grip around her room to her bed. I’m behind her, looking at the walls that used to be covered in photos of her and me from when we were little. I don’t even have to look up to the ceiling to know that the parachute silks have gone. It feels like ages since we had the argument, and I do feel a bit childish now for getting so upset.

The wall by Kez’s bed is painted bright yellow.

‘Do you like the colour?’ she asks. ‘If it’s not sunny, at least I’ve got my sun wall! I’ve just finished this collage. What do you think?’

In a huge frame on the sunshine wall is a massive collection of photos. There are some people I’ve seen before, but lots I don’t know.

‘We’re there, right in the middle!’ Kez points to a cluster of photos of the two of us together – photos ranging from when we were in nursery together right up to the one we took on the last day of primary school – but none after that. There’s a photo of Reena, the little girl in Janu’s House of Garlands Orphanage that Kez’s family has kind of sponsored. She’s holding the teddy that I helped Kez choose for her. I look at another, more recent photo, of Selina and Kez wearing their sports kit and raising each other’s arms in victory. All these other people I don’t know I suppose are from her summer camp. I can’t believe I was so jealous before. Now I just want to know more about all the people she knows.

Hannah knocks and opens the door. ‘Sorry, girls. Janu wanted to check something again about the design of the bathroom . . . Do you mind if he has a quick look at your pod, Kez?’

‘Yes, they’re all adapted depending on the site,’ Kez’s mum explains as she and Janu look in the little bathroom in the corner of Kez’s room. ‘More a matter of proper engineering, imagination and, of course, funds. But you’d be surprised; we’ve got the costs of a basic one right down now. Half the time there’s quite a simple solution. The beauty of this system is that you can keep building sections as you grow the refuge . . . start small.’

‘Actually, Kez and I were talking about something concerning this principle and I would like to get your advice . . .’ Janu’s voice trails away.

‘What were you two talking about?’ I ask Kez.

‘Oh! He’s going to help me set up a website, that’s all.’ Kez takes my arm and turns it over. ‘Your eczema’s getting better,’ she says, and keeps holding on to my arm. ‘Laila, I was talking to Bubbe and I really want to invite Pari to my bat mitzvah. I know she’s not really my friend yet . . . but I like her and we probably all will be friends, won’t we? What do you think? Should I ask her or would you like to?’

‘I don’t mind asking her.’

Kez hands me an envelope already addressed to Pari. She’s obviously thought this through.

I don’t quite get why Kez wants to invite Pari to her bat mitzvah, but just the fact that she does somehow makes me feel like it’s less awkward between the three of us. It doesn’t feel like it has to be Kez or Pari any more.

‘Oh – and I’ve made you a playlist . . . some new stuff I’m listening to. Thought you’d like it.’ Kez smiles at me a bit shyly, like she’s not sure if I’m going to accept it. ‘I’ll share it with you if you want?’

‘Thanks, Kez!’

It feels so good to be doing these normal things again.

‘Sparkler time, girls!’ Kez’s dad knocks on the door. Kez raises her eyes to the sky – but when we’re all standing in the garden with that smell of flint in the air, swirling our sparklers around to make star-tracks and patterns in the dark like we used to every November, it doesn’t feel childish. It just feels like us again . . . me and Kez as we’ve always been.

Before we leave, Janu makes everyone take their shoes off and stand together while he takes a photo of our bare feet all in a line.

‘They’re not my best asset!’ Bubbe laughs, looking down at hers. ‘You can probably tell that these old feet have done some walking! I still can’t get over it, Sam. To think that after all these years of our girls being such good friends, that I knew Laila’s grandparents.’

‘Did you know my Nana Josie too?’ I ask.

‘A little . . . but to be honest, Laila, I was always a bit in awe of her arty ways!’ Bubbe strokes my cheek and gestures for me to bend down so she can whisper in my ear.

It feels like she’s shrunk, but I suppose it’s just that I must have grown.

‘You will let me have a look at that Protest Book one day, won’t you, Laila?’

I nod. I really would like to sit at Bubbe’s table and read it together. She could probably tell me more about all the things in there than any googling could. I just hope Mira’s not so angry with me that she takes it away.

Bubbe kisses me on the cheek as we say goodbye.

‘Funny! Now I remember. The first time I saw your little face in nursery I thought there was something familiar about you.’