I needed to get out of the house. The question now was: how? I’d talked myself up into my room, where I was now a virtual prisoner. There was the doctor who was here to ‘check on me’. And there was Dad blocking the door when I went downstairs. This was all madness. An ordinary life turned upside down. I was going to have to improvise. I sat down on my bed. The sunlight coming through the window made my eyes hurt. I stood up, went over to the window and opened it. My bedroom occupied the space directly over Dad’s study, with a view of a small front garden that nature was busy taking back from my parents. My parents and Doctor Campbell were talking in the living room, which we called the front room even though, technically speaking, it looked out across the back garden. If they stayed there for a few more minutes, and if I was brave – or foolish – enough to climb out of my window, there was a chance I could be well away from the house before they even realised I was gone. I sized up the drop.
