I don’t think anyone noticed my blotchy face at teatime. Once I’d stopped bawling, I decided that I didn’t want to talk to anyone about Lauren. I’d already snapped at Chloe earlier and I didn’t want to bring anyone else down by talking about my rubbish life.

Instead, I agreed to play cards with Ella and Chloe. There’s no TV at Dad’s house because Suvi says it rots the imagination so Ella and Chloe are always playing cards, as if it was during the war or something. I usually say no, but this time I was glad to have something to concentrate on.

‘What did you eat at the cinema?’ Chloe asked Ella, while she dealt out the cards.

When you go to see a film, normal people ask you what you thought of it, but Chloe doesn’t care about that; she just likes to hear what snacks you ate while you were watching it.

‘I had one of those little tubs of ice cream,’ Ella said.

‘What flavour?’

‘Chocolate.’

‘You should’ve got some of those nachos. I love that runny cheese they put on them.’

‘We’ve all seen you eating nachos with runny cheese,’ I said. ‘And I’m pretty sure no one wants to be reminded of that image.’ I turned to Ella. ‘Was the film good?’

‘It was OK.’ Her forehead was creased again.

‘Was Crystal all right today?’ I asked.

Ella studied her cards carefully.

Chloe nudged Ella. ‘What did she do?’

‘She never does anything bad to me,’ Ella insisted.

I laid down a card. ‘So who was she bad to?’

‘She was rude to the lady selling the tickets. And after the film was over and we were leaving she said, “I’m not coming back to this dump again.” It was really embarrassing.’

‘She sounds horrible,’ Chloe said.

Ella sighed. ‘But she’s not horrible other times. She’s never mean to people at school, not like Jasmine is.’

Jasmine is the meanest girl in Ella’s class. She’s so mean that she’s even horrible to Ella and that’s like being nasty to a kitten.

Ella screwed up her face. ‘Ashandra says that Crystal talks about herself a lot, but I don’t really mind that because she does lots of interesting things and she’s fun and she’s generous.’

Chloe looked surprised. ‘Do you mean you like her because she gives you stuff?’

‘Of course she doesn’t,’ I said. That didn’t sound like Ella at all.

‘She does give people chocolate and presents and things,’ Ella said thoughtfully. ‘But she does other things too, like she spent ages helping me and Kayleigh at hockey. I don’t understand how anyone who’s kind like that can be so horrible to their mum and nice cinema ladies that smile at you.’

‘People aren’t just all good or all bad,’ I pointed out. ‘Look at me: you’d think that someone as obviously brilliant and intelligent as me would never have blazing rows with people but I have been known to.’

Ella chewed her lip.

‘I don’t think you have to tie yourself in knots trying to understand Crystal,’ I said. ‘The way she talks to people makes you uncomfortable so I don’t think you should hang around with her.’

Ella’s eyes widened. ‘I can’t stop being friends with her because of this. She’d think it was silly.’

‘But you don’t think it’s silly. You get to choose your friends.’

Ella’s face cleared. ‘Really?’

‘Really,’ I said.

‘Except us two,’ Chloe said, pointing a finger at herself and then me. ‘You’re stuck with us two.’

After a while, Chloe wanted to play Slam and since only two can play that game I left them to it. I drifted out into the hallway. Dad leant out of his study. ‘Everything all right?’ he asked.

I shrugged non-committally.

‘Come in,’ he said and he pulled the other chair up next to his. ‘How’s Lauren?’ he asked, turning away from his computer to face me. He’s definitely much better at giving people his full attention these days.

I wasn’t sure it was a good idea for me to start talking about Lauren; my anger had mostly faded away, but I was still confused and upset.

‘She’s OK,’ I said. Then I couldn’t help adding, ‘I don’t really understand what’s going on with her; it’s like sometimes she’s too sick to do anything and then other times she seems completely fine.’

‘I think that’s how it is with CFS,’ Dad said.

I heard Lauren’s mum’s voice in my head asking if I understood that Lauren had a serious illness and an uncomfortable feeling started bubbling up in my stomach as I realised that I knew very little at all about CFS.

‘Are you feeling OK?’ Dad asked. ‘You seem a bit out of sorts.’

‘I’m just, you know . . . thinking about things.’

‘Anything in particular?’

I shook my head.

He opened his drawer and offered me a piece of fudge from his secret stash. We chewed for a minute.

‘What would you like to do tomorrow?’ Dad asked. ‘I haven’t seen much of you this weekend.’

‘Will the library be open?’ I asked.

‘Not on Sundays. Is it for homework?’

‘No, I thought maybe I could find out a bit more about CFS; Suvi says that books can help you learn about anything you can think of.’

Dad struggled so hard not to show his surprise that I was quoting Suvi that I almost laughed.

‘I think I ought to learn some more about it.’ I rubbed my eyebrow. ‘I should’ve done it before. I was a bit stupid and I just sort of assumed that the doctors would make it go away.’

‘It’s tough when you realise that’s not always possible.’ He patted my knee. ‘You know another great source of information on any topic you can think of?’

I shrugged.

‘People. And not just people who write books. There must be a lot of people who have experienced what Lauren’s going through and thanks to modern technology . . .’ he pointed to his laptop, ‘you can hear what some of them have got to say.’ He tapped away for a moment and then swung his laptop round so I could see what he’d found. It was a forum for CFS sufferers.

I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before. ‘Thanks!’

Dad pushed back his chair. ‘Take as long as you like. I’m going to make a phone call.’ He picked up his mobile and left the room.

I pulled my chair close to the desk. I don’t know why but I’d sort of assumed that Dad would hang around and talk a bit more. Maybe he hadn’t changed quite as much as I’d thought.

I scanned down the page of thread titles and clicked on Is it just me that finds other people’s reactions to CFS hard to handle? The first post was by a woman who said she’d been suffering from CFS for years and that one of the most difficult things about it was that many of her so-called friends didn’t seem to believe that it was a real illness. Other posters replied saying how people had told them that they were lazy or that they didn’t ‘look ill’. I squirmed when I read that one. I knew I’d said that to Lauren a few times.

I spent an hour reading different threads. Every time I thought I’d found the saddest story, I came across another one. There was a woman who hadn’t been able to travel to her son’s wedding. There was a man whose girlfriend had left him because she thought his illness was all in his head. And, over and over again, people spoke about feeling betrayed by their body and simply not having the energy to even get dressed in the morning. When dad came back to his study, I was crying.

‘Amelia!’ He wrapped me up in a big hug. ‘What is it, sweetheart?’

‘It’s so horrible,’ I gulped. ‘Poor Lauren.’ I wasn’t making much sense but Dad took a look at the computer screen and I think he got the general gist.

He squeezed me tight and said, ‘It’s all right,’ until I got my sobs under control.

‘Listen,’ he said, wiping my tears with a tissue. ‘You mustn’t scare yourself with stories from the internet.’

‘But they’re true,’ I sniffed. ‘All these poor people have got CFS and it’s terrible.’ The tears started falling again.

‘I know,’ he said soothingly. ‘It’s rotten that this is happening to Lauren.’ He smoothed my soggy hair away from my face. ‘What you have to remember is that the people who are posting here are probably at their lowest ebb. The internet is a useful tool, but you’ve got to keep in mind that it does have its limitations.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Who do you think is most likely to write a post on this forum? A CFS sufferer who’s having a bad patch so they’re stuck in bed, maybe with no one to talk to, or a CFS sufferer who’s doing well and is out having a good time with their friends?’

I supposed he had a point there. ‘But the bad patches do happen.’

‘Of course, and I don’t think it hurts for you to know how tough things can be for someone with CFS, but it won’t help you or Lauren to dwell on it.’

I suddenly felt tired. When my dad had come into the room and wrapped me up in his jumpery hug, I’d thought that everything was going to be all right; that he’d fix things like he did when I was a little kid. But he couldn’t fix it any more than the doctors could fix Lauren.

‘I’ve just been speaking to my friend, Azra,’ Dad said. ‘Remember we went to her barbeque last summer? She’s the doctor.’

‘I remember.’

‘I asked her what she knew about CFS.’

So he hadn’t disappeared to make a work call. My tears nearly started again. He wasn’t leaving me to it; he’d been doing his own research for me. I swallowed. ‘What did she say?’

‘Well . . . it’s a difficult condition. Not everyone is in agreement about what exactly it is or the best way to treat it.’

‘Does Azra have patients with CFS?’

‘She’s not allowed to talk to me about individual cases because their details are confidential. But she did tell me that in the course of her career she’s seen a wide-ranging level of impact of the condition.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means that sometimes people are confined to their beds for long periods of time, while some have cycles of improvement followed by relapse, but then others learn to manage their condition in a way that means that they can live something approaching a normal life. She’d even heard of sufferers who completely recover.’

‘Really?’

‘Yep.’

I took a long breath. ‘So Lauren might get better,’ I said. ‘Or she might get better and then relapse.’ I thought about the first stories I’d read. ‘Or it might just be awful for her the whole time.’

Dad looked serious. ‘You have to hope for the best,’ he said.

‘But what if she never gets better?’

‘Then I’m certain that you’ll be there to help her through it. You can’t influence Lauren’s health so it’s no use worrying about it. Concentrate on what you can do and that’s being a good friend.’

He was right. I knew that I wouldn’t be looking up any more sad stories. I was glad that I had a clearer picture of what CFS meant because now I could appreciate what Lauren was going through, but getting depressed about it wasn’t helpful.

Dad pulled me in for another hug. ‘I know it’s hard,’ he said. ‘But I’m here if you need to talk about it.’

And I felt better because, even though I was growing up and I knew that some of the problems I’d come across now wouldn’t be the kind that my dad could fix with glue or words or ice cream, I also realised that he’d always be there beside me, whatever I was going through. And so would my mum. And even Suvi. Some difficult things can’t be made better but they’re easier to get through if you have someone special by your side. I hoped I could be one of those people for Lauren.