Jake and Matthew returned just as Nevada was leaving, and they seemed pretty high about something. It was dark and cold outside now and I couldn’t think where they’d gone in order to be back in such a short time. I really wanted to tell somebody – even my brother – what had just happened, but Nevada had made me promise not to tell anyone or she said she’d have to stop helping me. I still couldn’t quite believe that Nevada really was psychic, but how else could she have known my mother’s name?

As I sat in the kitchen staring at the jewellery box in a kind of daze, my brother and Jake came in to fix themselves some hot drinks. Jake walked across the kitchen to switch on the radio, fiddling with it until he found some music he liked, which he then turned up extra loud.

The plastic clothes-basket was sitting on the floor by the washing machine and it was full of dry washing waiting to be ironed, some of which was Lizzie’s. Jake spotted a pair of pink, lacy knickers and grinned as he held them up to show Matty.

‘You’d better put those back,’ I said as Jake pulled out a matching camisole top.

‘Do you think it suits me?’ Jake said, holding Lizzie’s camisole against him and wiggling about to the music. He danced over and put the knickers on Matty’s head, and my brother left them there, laughing loudly and wolf-whistling at Jake.

‘Matty, you’d better stop it,’ I warned him. ‘Dad’s—’

‘Dad’s gonna kill me, yeah . . . yeah . . . but he’s not here, is he?’

‘Yeah, Esmie – stop being such a little goody-goody!’ Jake teased.

I had been about to tell them that, right at that moment, Dad’s car was pulling into our drive (which I knew would be as much of a surprise to Matty as it was to me, since our father hardly ever got home this early). But instead I kept my mouth shut.

As Dad walked in – the sound of his entrance drowned out by the radio – Jake and Matty both had their backs to the door. Jake was still larking about with the camisole and Matty was giggling, the pink knickers still on his head as he bent over and rummaged around in the clothes- basket to see what else was there. Dad stared at them angrily for a few moments, before stepping forward and whacking my brother on the bum (on the non-wounded side and not as hard as he might have done, which I guess shows that he’s not that ruthless).

‘Hey!’ Matthew protested indignantly, clearly thinking it was me until he turned round and saw Dad glaring at him.

‘I told him you’d be mad at him, Dad,’ I said brightly, stepping forward to snatch the knickers off my brother’s head.

Jake hastily dropped the camisole back in with the other clothes. ‘I’m bailing, Matt,’ he said quickly. ‘See you tomorrow.’

As Jake made a rapid exit, Dad switched off the radio. Then he turned to face my brother, whose hair was standing on end with all the static.

‘Dad, we were just mucking around,’ Matty blurted. He was blushing bright red now.

‘So I see,’ Dad snapped. ‘And would Jake muck around like that at his house, with his mothers underwear, do you think?’

Matty opened his mouth but he seemed incapable of further speech.

‘He probably would,’ I put in helpfully. ‘He’d probably muck around like that with his granny’s underwear. Jake is totally gross.’

Dad ignored me and kept his attention fixed on my brother. ‘Now you listen to me, Matthew. When Lizzie moves in with us, I expect you to treat her with the same respect you’d treat –’ But he broke off then, as if he was suddenly worried that he might have gone too far.

I knew what Dad had been about to say though – and I didn’t think it was going too far. If you ask me, the trouble with Dad is that he never goes far enough where the matter of finding us a new mum is concerned.

‘It’s a pity Lizzie’s not really our mother,’ I pointed out quickly. ‘You know, Dad . . . the way she’d be if you actually got married to her . . . Well, she’d be our stepmother then, not our mother, but that’s practically the same thing.’ (A couple of weekends ago, Dad had taken Lizzie away for a romantic mini-break and I had got very excited because, according to a survey in one of Holly’s mum’s magazines, a significantly high proportion of women reported being on a weekend trip away when their partners proposed. But Dad and Lizzie still weren’t engaged when they came back, and ever since then I’d been trying to give Dad a bit of a nudge.)

Unfortunately that seemed to make Dad even more irritated. ‘Is your homework done, Esmie?’ he asked, sounding like he hoped it wasn’t so that he could send me off to do it, preferably to the furthest-away room in our house.

‘Not exactly, but—’

‘Well would you please go and do it exactly?’ And I ended up getting sent upstairs along with my brother.

I was in the middle of my maths homework when I heard Lizzie arriving, and I was having trouble concentrating because I kept thinking about what had happened earlier with Nevada.

I had brought the jewellery box back up to my bedroom, and the more I thought about it, the harder it was to believe that it could really give out psychic vibes. Of course, it was just possible that Nevada’s aunt or uncle had told her my mum’s name. They had never known my mum because they had only moved into our street a few years ago, but I supposed that one of our other neighbours could have mentioned her.

As soon as I’d finished the maths problem I was working on, I decided to go and say hello to Lizzie. The living-room door was open and I could hear Dad and her talking as I descended the stairs.

‘So did you get Matthew to the doctor’s this morning?’ Lizzie was asking.

‘Eventually. I guess he’s at that really self-conscious sort of age.’

‘Unlike Esmie.’ Lizzie sounded amused as she added, ‘She certainly seems to be enjoying all the drama as usual!’

Dad gave a short laugh. ‘I think she’s congratulating herself on saving Matty’s life!’

‘Did Matty say any more about how it happened?’

‘No, but I’ve a feeling it was some prank or other,’ Dad replied.

I burst into the room, exclaiming indignantly, ‘I am not enjoying all the drama!’ It was the first time I had ever heard Lizzie say anything about me that was remotely uncomplimentary, and I was a little bit miffed.

‘Oh, Esmie, I didn’t mean it in a horrible way,’ Lizzie said quickly. ‘I just meant that you and Holly do always seem to find yourselves at the centre of the action – that’s all. Listen, I’ve got some good news.’

And it turned out that she had just taken a couple to see her flat and they had liked it so much that they’d wanted to rent it as soon as possible. In fact they had even said that they’d prefer to buy it rather than rent it and had offered her a really good price for it.

‘That’s brilliant news!’ I exclaimed, beaming at her. Now Lizzie could sell her flat and move in with us and hopefully it wouldn’t be long before Dad asked her to marry him.

‘Yes, it is,’ Lizzie said, ‘and they totally understood when I told them I’d rather not sell it just yet.’

I felt a tiny pang of worry as I remembered what my brother had said to me the day before. ‘Matty says you don’t want to sell your flat because you might want to move back into it when you get fed up living with us, but that’s not true is it?’ I couldn’t help blurting out.

Lizzie and Dad both stared at me.

‘Matthew said what?’ Dad said, and I suddenly realized that I might have landed my brother in more trouble.

‘John, it’s OK,’ Lizzie said quickly. ‘Matty isn’t really himself at the moment.’

Lizzie was a total saint, I thought, though I didn’t reckon she’d feel quite so sympathetic towards Matty if she’d seen the way he’d been wearing her knickers on his head earlier on.

‘Lizzie’s right, Dad,’ I said. ‘Matty tried to phone Jennifer when we got home from school but she wouldn’t speak to him. He was crying afterwards, though he pretended not to be. Holly says boys don’t like people to see them cry because they think it’s not macho. Do you think that’s true, Dad?’

‘Well . . .’ He looked like he wasn’t sure how to respond to that.

‘Holly reckons boys are really too afraid to show their feelings,’ I continued, ‘whereas girls aren’t. She read an article about it in one of her mum’s magazines. It was called: Men versus Women: which is really the weaker sex?’

Dad rolled his eyes. (He quite often rolls his eyes when I quote things that Holly has said.)

‘John, maybe you should go and talk to Matthew now,’ Lizzie suggested, sounding worried.

‘Sure. I just want to see the news first.’

‘It’s important that Dad watches the news so that he can keep up to date with all the latest murders,’ I told her. ‘In fact, I think I’d better watch it too.’

Dad sighed impatiently. ‘Esmie, have you finished your homework?’

‘Not completely,’ I replied, ‘but—’

‘Well please go and do it completely.’

I sighed too, because Dad can be so predictable sometimes. I left the room like he’d said, but as soon as I reached the stairs I stopped to listen to the rest of their conversation.

‘John, he’s clearly in a real state over this business with Jennifer.’

‘I know he is, but he’ll get over it. They’ve only been dating a few months. I had loads of girlfriends when I was his age.’

‘It’s not the same. He adored Jennifer. And have you ever thought that he might be more vulnerable than other boys his age when it comes to losing people?’

There was a long pause. ‘You mean because he lost Claire?’

‘Just go and speak to him, John. Please.’

As I headed for my bedroom I felt puzzled by what Lizzie had said and I wondered if she was right. Was Matthew more vulnerable to losing the other people in his life because our mother had died? And if he was, did that mean I was as well? I remembered that Matthew had been inconsolable for days after our grandmother first moved to Chicago with her new husband. He had been ten at the time, and Dad had had to take time off work to look after him because he’d refused to go to school and refused to stay with our childminder. He had calmed down in the end but he had been very clingy to Dad for a long time afterwards. I had been upset too, of course, but I had got over it much quicker than my brother. And now I was the one who was always on the phone to Grandma – not Matthew.