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We can take her home. I feel myself go limp. We al stand up and Lochan thanks Dr Maguire, who smiles broadly, reiterates that we can take Wila home as soon as she’s ready, and then asks if it would be al right to send Mrs Leigh in now. Lochan puts his hand against the wal as if to steady himself and nods rapidly, chewing on his thumbnail as the doctor leaves.

‘Mrs Leigh?’ I turn to Lochan with a questioning frown.

He swings round and looks at me, breathing hard. ‘Don’t say anything. OK? Just don’t say anything.’ His voice is low and urgent. ‘Let me do the talking – we can’t risk contradicting each other. If she asks you anything, just go along with the usual business-trip story and tel her the truth – you had a late class and didn’t come home til after it had happened.’

I gaze at Lochan across the smal room in bewilderment. ‘I thought you said they were fine about Mum.’

‘They are. It’s – it’s just procedure . . . for this type of injury, they say. Apparently they have to file some kind of report—’ Before he can get any further, a knock sounds and a large woman with a head of frizzy ginger hair enters.

‘Helo there. The doctor told you I’d be coming in to have a word? I’m Alison – from the Child Protection Agency.’ She extends her hand towards Lochan.

A smal sound escapes me. I turn it into a cough.

‘Lochan Whitely. N-nice to meet you.’

He knew!

I’m aware I’m being addressed. I take her podgy hand in mine. For a moment I literaly cannot speak. My mind has gone blank and I’ve forgotten my own name. Then I force a smile, introduce myself and take a seat in the smal triangle.

Alison is rummaging about in a large bag, puling out a folder and pen and various forms, chatting as she does so. She asks Lochan to confirm the situation with Mum, which he does in a surprisingly steady voice. She appears satisfied, scribbles a few things down, and then looks up from her notes with a broad, artificial smile.

‘Wel, I’ve already had a word with Wila about what happened. She’s a delightful little girl, isn’t she? She explained she was in the kitchen with you, Lochan, when she fel. And that, Maya, you were stil at school, but your two brothers were at home.’

I look across at Lochan, wiling him to make eye-contact with me. But he seems to have deliberately turned away. ‘Yes.’

Another of those fake smiles. ‘OK, so in your own time, explain to me how the accident occurred.’

I don’t understand. This isn’t even about Mum. And surely Lochan gave the details of the fal to the doctor in charge when he brought Wila in.

‘R-right. OK.’ Lochan leans forwards, elbows on knees, as if desperate to tel this woman every detail. ‘I – I came into the kitchen and Wila was up on the counter where she’s not alowed to be because it’s – it’s realy quite high, and – and she was on tiptoe trying to reach a box of b-biscuits on the top shelf—’ He is speaking in that manic, staccato way again, almost tripping over his words in his hurry to get them out. I can see the muscles in his arms vibrating, and he is scraping at the sore beneath his mouth so hard that it’s starting to bleed.

Alison just nods, scribbles some more, looks up again expectantly.

‘I t-told her to get down. She refused, saying her brothers had each eaten some and had then ddeliberately put the biscuits up there out of her reach.’ He is panting, staring at the form as if trying to read what’s being recorded.

‘Go on . . .’

‘So I – I repeated what I’d just said—’

‘What exactly did you say?’ The woman’s voice is sharper now.

‘J-just – wel, basicaly just: Willa, get down now.’

‘Was that spoken or shouted?’

He seems to be having trouble breathing, the air making a scraping noise at the back of his throat.

‘Um – wel – wel – the first time I was speaking quite loudly b-because I was worried to see her up there again, and – and the second time, after she refused, I – I suppose, y-yes, I sort of shouted.’ He glances up at her, chewing the corner of his lip, the rise and fal of his chest rapid. I can’t believe this woman! Making Lochan feel guilty about shouting at his sister when she was doing something dangerous?

‘And then?’ The woman’s eyes are very sharp. She seems particularly attentive now.

‘Wila – she, wel, she i-ignored me.’

‘And so what did you do?’

There is a terrible silence. What did you do? I repeat to myself, desperate to butt in but trapped by my promise to let Lochan do the talking, on top of the fact that I wasn’t actualy there. Does this Child Protection person ask the parent of every injured child brought into hospital what it was the parent had done? Guilty until proven innocent? This is ridiculous! Children fal and hurt themselves al the time!

But Lochan isn’t answering. I feel my heart start to pound. Don’t start getting stage-fright now, I beg with him in my head. Don’t make it look as if you have something to hide!

Lochan is frowning and sighing and chewing his lip as if trying to remember, and with a shock I realize he is close to tears.

I press myself back into the chair and bite down hard to stop myself from intervening.

‘I p-puled her down.’ His chin quivers briefly. He doesn’t look up.

‘Could you explain exactly how you did that?’

‘I went – I went over and g-grabbed her by the arm and then – and then I puled her off the counter.’ His voice cracks and he raises his fist to his face, pressing his knuckles hard against his mouth.

Lochan, what the hell are you talking about? You would never deliberately hurt Willa – you know that as well as I do.

‘You grabbed her arm and puled her to the floor?’ The woman arches her eyebrows. Silence stretches out across the room. I can hear my own heartbeat. Finaly Lochan lowers his fist from his mouth and takes a ragged breath. ‘I puled her arm and – and—’ He looks up at the corner of the ceiling, tears amalgamating in his eyes like translucent marbles. ‘I know I shouldn’t have – I wasn’t thinking—’

‘Just tel me what happened.’

‘I p-puled her arm and she slipped. She – she was wearing tights and her feet just slid off the counter’s surface. I – I kept hold of her arm as she fel to try and stop her from hurting herself and that’s when I felt this – this snap!’ He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, as if in terrible pain.

‘So you were holding onto her arm when she hit the floor and the weight of her body puled the bone out of the socket?’

‘It was counter-intuitive to let go of her as she fel. I – I thought I’d c-caught her, not – not wrenched her arm out of its socket. Jesus!’ A tear glances off his cheek. He swipes at it rapidly. ‘I didn’t think—’

‘Lochie!’

His eyes meet mine this time. ‘It – it was an accident, Maya.’

‘I know!’ I exclaim in soft outrage.

The damn woman is scribbling again. ‘Are you often left in charge of your siblings, Lochan?’ she asks.

I recoil back into the chair. Lochan presses his fingers against his eyes and takes some steady breaths, trying to pul himself together. He shakes his head vehemently. ‘Only when our mother has to go away on business.’

‘And how often does that happen?’

‘It – it depends . . . Every couple of months or so . . .’

‘And when she’s away, I presume you have to fetch them from school, cook for them, help them with homework, entertain them, put them to bed—’

‘We do it together,’ I say quickly.

The woman turns towards us both now. ‘That must be exhausting after a long school day—’

‘They’re good at entertaining themselves.’

‘But when they misbehave, you must have to discipline them.’

‘Not realy,’ I say firmly. ‘They’re pretty wel-behaved.’

‘Have you ever hurt one of your siblings before?’ the woman asks, turning towards Lochan. He takes a breath. The fight with Kit flashes through my mind. ‘No!’ I exclaim in outrage. ‘Never!

’

In the cab on the way home we are al three silent, spent, exhausted. Wila is curled up on Lochan’s lap, her arm strapped up across her chest, the thumb of her other hand in her mouth. Her head rests against Lochan’s neck, spots of light from passing cars float over her golden hair. Lochan holds her tightly against him, staring blankly out of the window, face pale and stunned, his eyes glazed, refusing to meet mine.

We arrive home to a tornado-hit kitchen, the front room’s carpet embedded with crisp, biscuit and cereal crumbs. To our amazement, however, Tiffin is actualy in bed and Kit is stil in the house, up in the attic, music pounding down through the ceiling. While Lochan gives a groggy Wila a drink and some Calpol and puts her to bed, I climb up the ladder to let Kit know we’re back.

‘So has she broken her arm, or what?’ Despite the nonchalant tone of his voice, I recognize a spark of worry in his eyes as he glances up at me from his Gameboy. I push his legs to one side to make room on his mattress and sit down beside his sprawled-out figure.

‘She hasn’t actualy broken anything.’ I explain about the dislocated shoulder.

‘Yeah. Tiff said Loch lost his temper and puled Wila off the kitchen counter.’ His face darkens suddenly.

I pul my knees to my chest and take a deep breath. ‘Kit, you know it was an accident. You know Lochan would never hurt Wila intentionaly, don’t you?’ My voice is questioning, serious. I know the answer, I know he does too, but I need him to be honest with me for a moment and actualy admit it. Kit takes a breath, ready for a sarcastic retort, but then seems to hesitate as his gaze locks into mine. ‘Yeah,’ he confesses after a moment, a hint of defeat in his voice.

‘I know you’re angry,’ I say quietly, ‘about how things turned out with Mum and Dad, about Lochan and me always being the ones in charge – and Kit, you have every right to be . . . but you know what the alternative is.’

His eyes have slid away, back to his Gameboy, uncomfortable about the sudden change in conversation.

‘If Social Services found out that Mum was no longer living at home, that we were on our own—’

‘Yeah, yeah, I know,’ he interrupts gruffly, pounding the buttons of his games console viciously with his thumbs. ‘We’d be taken into care and split up and al that shit.’ His voice sounds fed up and angry, but I can sense the fear behind it.

‘It’s not going to happen, Kit,’ I reassure him quickly. ‘Lochan and I wil make sure of that, I promise. But it does mean we have to be careful, really careful, about what we say to other people. Even if it’s just some mate at school. Al it would take would be for him to mention it to his parents, or to another friend . . . al it would take is one call to Social Services—’

‘Maya, I get it.’ His thumbs stop moving against the buttons and he looks up at me sombrely, suddenly appearing much older than his thirteen years. ‘I won’t tel anybody about Wila’s arm – or anything else that could get us into trouble, OK? I promise.’

We keep Wila off school for the rest of the week in order to avoid awkward questions, and I cal in sick and stay at home with her. But by Monday she is bored, has lost the sling and is eager to return to her friends. Mum returns from Devon, and when I finaly track her down at Dave’s for money, she shows scant interest in Wila’s injury.

I am having trouble sleeping again. Whenever I ask Wila about her shoulder, she gives me this worried look and assures me that it’s ‘al mended now’. I know she reads the guilt on my face, but this only makes me feel worse.

The green glow of my digital alarm reads 02:43 when I get up and creep out of my room and down the corridor. Released from the warmth of the duvet, I quickly start to shiver in my holey T-shirt and boxers. The creak of the bedroom door makes Maya stir and I wince, anxious not to wake her. Closing it softly behind me, I pad over to the wal opposite her bed, sliding down against it, my bare arms turning silver in the light of the moon. She continues to shift sleepily, nuzzling her face against the pilow, then abruptly raises herself on one elbow, pushing back her long curtain of hair.

‘Lochie, is that you?’ A startled, frightened whisper.

‘Yeah – shh – sorry – go back to sleep!’

She struggles to sit up, rubbing sleep from her eyes. Finaly her eyes focus on me and she shivers, puling the duvet around her. ‘Are you trying to give me a heart attack? What on earth are you doing?’

‘I’m sorry – I realy didn’t mean to wake you—’

‘Wel, you have now!’ She gives me a sleepy smile and holds up the edge of the duvet. I quickly shake my head. ‘No . . . I just – can I watch you sleep? I know that sounds weird but –

but I can’t sleep at the moment and it’s doing my head in!’ I give a sharp, painful laugh. ‘Watching you sleep makes me feel—’ I inhale deeply. ‘I dunno . . . at peace . . . D’you remember, I used to do it when we were young.’

She smiles in faint recolection. ‘Wel, you’re unlikely to get to sleep sitting there on the floor.’ She holds out a portion of duvet again.

‘No, no, it’s fine. I’l just stay here for a while and then go back to bed.’

With a sigh of mock-irritation, she gets out of bed, pads over and puls me up by the wrist.

‘Come on, get in. God, you’re shaking.’

‘I’m just cold!’ I snap, my voice coming out harsher than I intended.

‘Wel, come here then!’

The warmth of her duvet envelops me. She slides onto my lap and the touch of her warm skin, her arms and legs wrapped around me, forces me to begin to relax. Hugging me tight, she buries her face in my neck. ‘My God, you’re an icicle.’

I let out a strained laugh. ‘Sorry.’

For a few moments we are both quiet. Her damp breath tickles my cheek. We lie down and I feel my body gently thaw against hers as she strokes the back of my head, running her fingers across my neck . . . God, how I wish we could stay like this for ever. Suddenly, for no reason, I feel close to tears.

‘Tel me.’

It’s as if she can feel the pain through my skin. ‘Nothing. Just, you know, the usual crap.’

I can tel she doesn’t believe me. ‘Listen,’ she says. ‘Remember what Wila said the other day?

We’re the grown-ups. We’ve always shared the responsibilities. You don’t have to start trying to shield me from reality now.’

I press my mouth against her shoulder and close my eyes. I’m afraid of worrying her, afraid of teling her how torn up I feel inside.

‘You think you can do the worrying for the both of us,’ she whispers. ‘But it doesn’t work like that, Loch. Not in an equal relationship. And that’s what ours is. That’s what we’ve always had. Our relationship may be changing in some ways, but we can’t possibly lose what we had before.’

I exhale slowly. Everything she says makes sense. In every way imaginable she is so much wiser than me.

Blowing into my ear, she tickles me. ‘Hey, have you falen asleep?’

I smile slightly. ‘No, I’m thinking.’

‘Of what, my love?’

A smal aftershock runs through me. My love. She has never caled me that before. Yet that’s who we’ve become. Two people in love.

‘What happened with Wila . . .’ I begin unsteadily. ‘That must have given you a fright.’

‘I think it gave us both a fright.’

Unspoken words hover in the air between us.

‘Maya, you know, I – I realy did pul her arm quite hard. It’s – it’s no wonder she fel,’ I manage in a frantic rush.

She lifts her head from my chest and props it up on one hand, her face turning white in the moonlight. ‘Lochie, did you mean to pul her off the counter?’

‘No.’

‘Did you mean to hurt her?’

‘Course not.’

‘Did you mean to dislocate her shoulder?’

‘No!’

‘OK,’ she says gently, stroking my face. ‘Then that train of thought leads nowhere. It was a complete accident. Don’t let that stupid woman at the hospital make you doubt that for one tiny second!’

Tears of relief threaten to overwhelm me. I didn’t think she blamed me, but I couldn’t be sure. I take a deep breath. ‘But now Social Services have got us on their radar – Jesus!’

‘Then we’l just have to keep beneath it, same as always.’ Maya puls herself up onto her elbow, looking down at me. Her hair partly obscures her face and I cannot read her expression. ‘Lochie, you’l be eighteen next month. We’ve got this far. We can keep going! We can keep this family together, you and I. We’re a good team, we’re a great team. Together we’re strong!’

I nod slowly against the pilow and reach up to stroke her cheek. Maya circles my wrist with her hand and gently kisses each finger. My hand slides down her neck, her chest, comes to rest against her breast . . . Suddenly I can feel my heart.

Maya is watching me intently, her eyes very bright in the shadows. I can hear my breath, hot and heavy, suddenly acutely aware that al that separates our two bodies is a cotton nightie, a thin T-shirt and underwear. I run my hand down her ribs, across her stomach, towards her bare thigh. Maya leans forward. Taking the bottom of my T-shirt in her hands, she begins to raise it, slowly puling it up and over my head. She then reaches down and puls off her nightie. I emit a ragged gasp. Her body is perfectly white, in sharp contrast to her hair, almost fiery in the moonlight. Her lips are a dark pink, her cheeks lightly flushed, and her eyes bluer than the sea – watchful, uncertain. The colours and contrasts overwhelm me. My gaze travels down over her, taking in the upward curve of her breasts, the taut skin of her stomach, the long slender legs. I could stare at her for ever. I can make out the ridge of her colarbone, the peaks of her hips. Her skin looks so smooth I long to kiss it. I want to feel every part of her but my hands tighten against the sheet.

‘We can touch each other,’ Maya whispers. ‘Just touch each other. There’s no law against that.’

Reaching out, she gently runs her finger up my stomach, across my chest and into the curve of my neck; cupping my cheek in her hand, she leans forward to kiss me. I close my eyes, and with trembling hands, stroke her neck, her shoulders, her breasts. Circling her with my arms, I pul her gently back down against the pilows and slowly, tentatively, as if afraid of hurting her, begin to trace my fingers down her body . . .

I awake with a start to find myself alone in Maya’s bed, but the house around me is silent. A scrap of paper bearing my name is left beside me on the floor. After reading it, I fal back against the pilows, staring up at the cracked ceiling. Last night feels like a dream. I can’t believe we spent it together, naked, our hands stroking each other’s bodies; can’t believe I actualy felt her naked form press against mine. At first I was scared we might get carried away – might cross that final, forbidden barrier, but just touching each other was so incredible, so powerful, so thriling, it took my breath away. I wanted more, of course I wanted more, but I knew that, for now, this would have to be enough.

I am jolted out of my reverie by the slam of the front door, the sound of a school bag being dropped to the floor, folowed by softly creaking footsteps on the stairs. The bedroom door inches open, and I pul myself up against the headboard as Maya’s face breaks into a smile. ‘You’re awake!’

She bounds over to the window and throws open the curtains, and I rub my eyes against the bright morning light. I yawn and stretch, waving the note she left me.

‘Maya, what were you thinking? We can’t just skip school.’ The reproach in my voice fades as she jumps onto the bed beside me and gives me a cold kiss.

‘Eek, you’re freezing.’

She colapses beside me, the back of her head hitting the wal with a thud, squashing my legs with hers. ‘You didn’t have anything important on today, did you?’

‘I don’t think so . . .’

‘Good, wel, me neither.’

I take in her flushed face, the wisps of hair framing her face, her school uniform. ‘You pretended to the others you were going to school and then just came home again?’

‘Yes – as soon as I saw Kit go through the gates, I turned back! You didn’t think I was gonna give you the day off alone, did you?’ She gives me a wicked grin. ‘Come on, you awake yet?’

Shaking my head, I raise my hand to my mouth and yawn again. ‘I don’t think so. How come I didn’t hear the alarm?’

‘I turned it off.’

‘Why?’

‘You were sleeping so deeply, Loch. You’ve been looking so knackered. I just couldn’t bear to wake you—’

I start to smile, blinking at her sleepily. ‘I’m not complaining.’

‘Realy?’ I watch her face light up. ‘We have the whole day to ourselves!’ She gazes up at the ceiling in delight. ‘I’m going to get changed, and then I thought we could make pancakes and then we could go for a walk and then—’

‘Wait, wait, wait. Come here first.’ I reach for her arm just as she is about to rol off the bed.

‘What?’

‘Come here!’ Stil squinting slightly against the light, I tug at her wrist. ‘Kiss me.’

Maya laughs and obliges, sliding back down beside me. Slowly I unbutton her shirt and she wriggles out of her skirt. Ducking beneath the warmth of the duvet, I start tracing a line of kisses down her body . . .

She is standing naked in front of the open door of her wardrobe when I return from the shower and it takes her a moment to notice me hovering in the doorway, watching her. She turns, meets my gaze, and blushes. She reaches out for the crumpled sheet at the end of her bed and wraps it round beneath her arms. The white material swirls around her feet, making me smile. I pul on my underwear and join her by the window, kissing her cheek. ‘I do.’

She looks at me questioningly and then down at the sheet before breaking into giggles.

‘In sickness and in health?’ she asks. ‘Til death us do part?’

I shake my head. ‘Way beyond that,’ I say. ‘For ever.’

She takes my hands and leans in for a kiss. It hurts. Suddenly everything hurts and I don’t know why.

‘Look at the sky,’ she says, resting her head in the crook of my neck. ‘It’s so blue.’

And suddenly I do know: it’s because everything is so beautiful, so wonderful, so utterly glorious –

yet it cannot possibly last, and I want to preserve this moment for the rest of my life. I wrap my arms around her and press my cheek against the top of her head, then notice the bracelet against her white wrist, the silver glinting in the morning sun. I reach down and touch it.

‘Promise me you’l always keep it,’ I say, my voice unsteady suddenly.

‘Of course,’ she replies instantly. ‘Why wouldn’t I? I love it. It’s the most beautiful thing I own.’

‘Promise me,’ I say again, running my fingers over the smooth metal. ‘Even if – even if things don’t work out . . . You don’t have to wear it. Just keep it hidden somewhere.’

‘Hey.’ She tilts her head so that I am forced to meet her eyes. ‘I promise. But things are going to work out. Look at us – they already have. You’re about to be eighteen, and then next month I’l be seventeen. We’re nearly adults, Lochie, and once we are, no one wil be able to stop us from doing what we want.’

I lift my head, nod and force a smal smile. ‘Right.’

I see her expression shift. She leans her forehead against my cheek and closes her eyes as if in pain. ‘You have to believe it, Lochie,’ she whispers. ‘We both have to believe it with al our might if we want to make it happen.’

I swalow hard and grasp the tops of her arms. ‘I believe it!’

She opens her eyes and smiles. ‘So do I!’

This is the definition of happiness: a whole day stretching out ahead of me, beautiful in its emptiness and simplicity. No crowded classrooms, no packed corridors, no lonely breaks, no cafeteria lunch, no droning teachers, no relentless ticking clock, no counting down the minutes to the end of yet another dreary day . . . Instead we spend it in a kind of joyous delirium, trying to savour every moment, enjoy to the ful our bubble of happiness before it bursts. We make pancakes and mess about with the strangest combinations of filings: Maya wins Most Disgusting with her combination of Marmite, cornflakes and ketchup, which has me gagging over the bin. I win Most Artistic with frozen peas, red grapes and Smarties on a bed of mayonnaise. We close the curtains in the front room and cuddle up on the sofa. Sometime in the early afternoon Maya fals asleep in my arms. I watch her in slumber, tracing my finger across the contours of her face, down her neck, over the smooth white shoulder, down the length of her arm, along each of her fingers. The sun pours in through the hastily drawn curtains, the clock on the mantelpiece ticks its relentless countdown, the thin needle making its way mercilessly round and round the face. I close my eyes and bury my face in Maya’s hair, trying to shut out the sound, desperate to stop the precious time we have together from running through my fingers like sand.

When she wakes, it is just gone three. In half an hour she wil have to pick up Tiffin and Wila, while I clean up the mess in the kitchen and carefuly remove any remaining items of clothing from her bedroom floor. I cup her flushed, sleepy face in my hands and start kissing her with a fervour bordering on hysteria. I feel angry and desperate.

‘Lochie, listen to me,’ she tries to say between kisses. ‘Listen, my love – listen. We’l just start skipping school every couple of weeks!’