They’d obviously had some kind of row, but she wasn’t behaving like she did when she and Dad had had a row. Then she would slam a door and you’d hear her muttering, ‘Dick,’ under her breath, or wearing that really tight expression that said, Why do I have to live with this idiot? yet not saying anything when he shouted at her because of the children. Now she looked like someone who’d just been given six months to live.

‘Are you okay?’

She blinked and put a hand to her forehead, like she was taking her temperature. ‘Um. Nicky. I need … I need to lie down. Can you … can you sort yourself out? There’s stuff. Food. In the freezer.’

In all the years Nicky had lived with her, Jess had never asked him to sort himself out. Even that time she’d had flu for two weeks. Before he could say anything, she turned and limped upstairs, really slowly, leaving him with it all.

At first when she didn’t come down he had thought it was just because she and Mr Nicholls had had an argument, and she was being all melodramatic about it. He and Tanzie hovered outside her bedroom, discussing it in whispers. Then they took her in some tea and toast but she was just staring at the wall, even though the window was still open and it was getting cold outside. She hadn’t seemed to notice. Nicky closed the window and put the ladder and the drill back in the garage, which seemed really enormous without the Rolls in it. And when he came back a couple of hours later to collect her plate the tea and toast were still there, just congealing on the bedside table beside her.

‘She’s probably exhausted from all the travelling,’ said Tanzie, like an old lady.

But the next day Jess stayed in bed. When Nicky went in, the covers were barely rumpled and she was still wearing the exact same clothes she’d gone to bed in.

‘Are you ill?’ he said, opening the curtains. ‘Do you want me to call the doctor?’

‘I just need a day in bed, Nicky,’ she said quietly.

‘Nathalie came round. I said you’d call her. Something about cleaning.’

‘Tell her I’m ill.’

‘But you’re not ill. And the police pound rang up to ask when you’re picking up the car. And Mr Tsvangarai rang up but I didn’t know what to say to him so I just let him leave a message on the answerphone.’

‘Nicky. Please?’ Her face was so sad that he felt bad for even saying anything. She waited a moment, then pulled the duvet up to her chin and turned away.

Nicky got breakfast for Tanzie. He felt oddly useful in the mornings now. He wasn’t even missing his stash. He let Norman into the garden and cleaned up after him. Mr Nicholls had left the security light out by the window. It was still in its box, which had become damp because of the rain, but nobody had nicked it. Nicky picked it up, brought it inside and sat there, looking at it.

He thought about ringing Mr Nicholls, but he didn’t know what he would say if he did. And he felt a bit weird asking Mr Nicholls to come back a second time. If someone wanted to be with you, after all, they just made it happen. Nicky knew that better than anyone. Whatever had gone on between him and Mum seemed serious enough that he wasn’t sure he should interfere. It was serious enough that he hadn’t come back for his laptop.

He sorted out his room. He went online for a while, but he was bored of gaming. He stared out of the window at the roofs of the high street and the distant orange brick of the leisure centre and he knew he didn’t want to be an armour-clad droid shooting aliens out of the sky any more. He didn’t want to be stuck in this room. Nicky thought back to the open road, and the feeling of Mr Nicholls’s car taking them vast distances, that endless time when they didn’t even know where they were headed next, and he realized that, more than anything, he wanted to be out of this little town.

He wanted to find his tribe.

Nicky had given it some considerable thought and concluded that by the afternoon of Day Two he was entitled to feel a little freaked out. School was due to start again after the weekend, and he wasn’t sure how he was meant to look after Jess as well as Titch and the dog and everything else. He vacuumed the house and rewashed the load of damp laundry that he found sitting in the washing-machine, which had started to smell musty, and Tanzie helped him peg it out. He walked with her to the shop and they bought some bread and milk and dog food, and although he didn’t show it to Tanze he was quite relieved that there was nobody hanging around outside to call him ‘fagboy’ or ‘freak’ or whatever. And Nicky thought maybe, just maybe, Jess had been right and that things did change. And that maybe a new stage of his life was finally beginning.

A short time later, as he was going through the post, Tanzie arrived in the kitchen. ‘Can we go back to the shop?’

He didn’t look up. He was wondering whether to open the official letter addressed to Mrs J. Thomas. ‘We’ve just been to the shop.’

‘Then can I go by myself?’

He looked up then, and started a little. She had done something weird to her hair, putting it up on one side with a load of glittery slides. She didn’t look like Tanzie.

‘I want to get Mum a card,’ she said. ‘To cheer her up a bit.’

Nicky was pretty sure a card wasn’t going to do it. ‘Why don’t you make her one, Titch? Save your money.’

‘I always make her one. Sometimes it’s nice to get a shop card.’

He studied her face. ‘Have you got makeup on?’

‘Only a bit of lipstick.’