this morning. I know, because that was the time I blinked awake and stared blearily at my clock, wondering if there was a fire. There was a distant high-pitched screaming noise, which could have been an alarm, or could have been a siren, and I grabbed my dressing gown off the floor and shoved my feet into my furry slippers and thought in a panic, What do I take? I grabbed my ancient pink teddy and my picture of me with Granny before she died, and I was halfway down the stairs when I realized that the noise wasn’t a siren. Or an alarm. It was Mum. I could hear her in the playroom, and she was screaming, ‘What are you DOING?’ I skittered to the entrance and felt my whole body sag in astonishment. Frank was sitting at his computer playing LOC. At 3.43 a.m. I mean, obviously he wasn’t playing LOC right that second. He’d paused. But the graphics were there on the screen, and his headset was on and he was looking up at Mum like a cornered fox.
