Gram is still up. I can hear the cupboard door opening as she extracts the tin box of Mum’s memorabilia.

That’s when I know that I can’t confront her. Not yet. It’s like it’s too much at once, to go into her room and say, ‘Hi, Gram. Look at me – I’m invisible. And by the way, we need to talk about the contents of that tin box and then you can explain to me why you have been lying to me all these years. Oh, and by the other way, that was my dad, wasn’t it?’

I practise it – at least I get that far. But I just can’t do it. Not yet.

I lie on my bed and await the itching and the headache.

They don’t come.

Not by midnight.

Not by 2 a.m., when I am still awake, and have heard Gram put everything away and go to bed.

By 4 a.m. I am still awake, and in the greyish dawn light coming through my curtains I look down to check if I have somehow become visible without the itching and headache. But no: I am still invisible. The birds are waking up outside.

It’s OK, I tell myself. It’s just taking a bit longer to wear off.

At some point, I fall into a light, restless sleep. I don’t think I dream, or if I do I don’t remember any of it.

I hear Gram getting up, and I hardly dare to look down to see if I’m still invisible.

I am.

I am overcome with a fear that is somehow more than a fear. It’s like knowing something, but without knowing how you know it.

This is what I’m afraid of: that the invisibility is now permanent. I have messed around too much with the cells that make up my body. They have lost their ability to … to what? Regenerate? Renew their light-reflecting capacity? How would I know?

Exactly. How would I know? What was I even thinking?

And why, at times of stress, do I keep on hearing Gram’s voice in my head?

‘What’s done is done, Ethel. A strong person doesn’t moan and mope, but deals with the first problem at hand, and then the second, and then the third. Some people either attack everything head on, or they run away. That’s not our way.’

The first problem at hand? That’ll be my invisibility.

Well, actually: there is a closer one. According to Boydy, I’m supposed to be coming home to change before school after disgracing myself at his birthday gathering.

Gram, who I can hear making tea downstairs, will be expecting me in about … ooh, now-ish.