‘Hope to die,’ Brian agreed, still staring, and it was a half-hour before he told his big sister, Laurie, who was unpacking in her room. Laurie was possessive of her room as only an eleven-year-old girl can be, and she gave Brian the very dickens for coming in without knocking, even though she was completely dressed.

‘Sorry,’ Brian said, ‘but I gotta show you something. It’s very weird.’ ‘Where?’ She went on putting clothes in her drawers as if she didn’t care, as if there was nothing any dopey little seven-year-old could tell her which would be of the slightest interest to her, but when it came to eyes, Brian’s weren’t exactly dull. He could tell when Laurie was interested, and she was interested now.

‘Upstairs. Third floor. End of the hall past Daddy Lew’s study.’

Laurie’s nose wrinkled as it always did when Brian or Lissa called him that. She and Trent remembered their real father, and they didn’t like his replacement at all. They made it their business to call him Just Plain Lew. That Lewis Evans clearly did not like this – found it vaguely impertinent, in fact – simply added to Laurie and Trent’s unspoken but powerful conviction that it was the right way to address the man their mother (uck!) slept with these days. ’I don’t want to go up there,’ Laurie said. ‘He’s been in a pissy mood ever since we got back.

Trent says he’ll stay that way until school starts and he can settle back into his rut again.’

‘His door’s shut. We can be quiet. Lissa n me went up and he didn’t even know we were there.’

‘Lissa and I.’

‘Yeah. Us. Anyway, it’s safe. The door’s shut and he’s talking to himself like he does when he’s really into something.’

‘I hate it when he does that,’ Laurie said darkly. ‘Our real father never talked to himself, and he didn’t use to lock himself in a room by himself, either.’

‘Well, I don’t think he’s locked in,’ Brian said, ‘but if you’re really worried about him coming out, take an empty suitcase. We’ll pretend like we’re putting it in the closet where we keep them, if he comes out.’