I ended up being responsible for Chris an awful lot.

Which meant I ended up telling Chris off an awful lot.

It wasn’t something that sat very easily with me.

It certainly didn’t sit very easily with him.

Mum was too emotionally drained to do battle with Chris, so it fell to me to make sure he did his homework, cleaned up his room, ate everything on his plate.

I became a miniature dictator.

I might have been helping Mum, but I sure as heck wasn’t helping myself.

Or Chris, for that matter.

Then Dad came back, begging for forgiveness.

Things had been weird ever since he moved back in.

Every silence, action or look held hidden meanings.

And I suddenly wasn’t so important any more. I went back to being a kid again. Any power I had assumed was gone in an instant.

I had been forced into a role that I didn’t want, so why should I feel bitter about being squeezed out again?

Powerlessness, I guess.

Chris doesn’t let me forget.

He resents any attention our parents offer me, and rejoices in seeing me fail.

Mum and Dad act as if nothing has changed, when even I can see everything has.

That’s my family.

Drive you absolutely crazy.

But you miss them when they’re no longer here.

When the bad stuff comes – and it always will – you look back on those moments with longing.

The bad stuff was just around the corner.

The talent show changed everything.

Forever.

That’s why I like to think about the way things were, however imperfect they seemed at the time.

In extraordinary times, the ordinary takes on a glow and wonder all of its own.

03

The talent show loomed.

Danny kind of dropped off the radar and Simon joked that it wasn’t as if he was sitting in his room practising by himself – surely a hypnotist needed people to practise on.