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head? She’d never heard of such a thing. She dropped a knob of butter on the beans and stared at them doubtfully. Mum was going to say they were half-raw.
    Sure enough, when Mum bustled into the kitchen with the baby grizzling on her shoulder, she picked up a bean and bit into it. ‘Still crunchy, love! You took them out too soon.’
    â€˜I like them crunchy,’ said Sadie. ‘And if you cook them too long they lose all their vitamins . . .’
    â€˜Hark at her!’ said Mum. ‘Vitamins indeed. Clear off the table, Johnny, and set the plates.’ She leaned out of the doorway and called, ‘Clarry! Dinner! Now then, where’s your sister? Betty, if you’re hiding again, you come out now, you hear me?’
    Clarry . That name seemed familiar . . . How did she know that name? She shook her head. Of course she knew the name of her own father! What in the world was the matter with her tonight?
    As Sadie whipped the newspaper off the table, an upside-down headline caught her eye – something about a person called Hitler. Her heart gave a peculiar involuntary skip. The date was printed at the top of the page. Friday, June 23, 1933.
    Mum took the paper from her hands. ‘What’s wrong, love? You look poorly all of a sudden.’
    â€˜I feel a bit faint,’ whispered Sadie, groping for the back of a chair.
    â€˜You sit down, I’ll dish up. Ran back from Williams’s too fast, I daresay. There, can you hold the baby? Betty, have you washed your hands?’
    A little girl of about five or six peered from behind a curtain of dark hair at Sadie, who sat with the heavy, drooling baby on her knee, one hand pressed to her forehead. John moved silently around the table, doling out the plates.
    â€˜I can help, I can!’ Betty clattered the knives and forks beside the plates; Sadie winced at the noise.
    â€˜Forks on the left, don’t you know that yet?’ grumbled John.
    Mum paused to lay her hand on Sadie’s brow.
    â€˜You want to go and lie down, pet?’
    â€˜No – no, I’m fine.’ Sadie managed a smile. ‘I think I just need my dinner.’ She realised she was ravenous; she remembered that she hadn’t had any breakfast before she rushed out this morning, before she saw the crow . . .
    The world seemed to slide sideways for an instant as Sadie struggled to match up two sets of memories, two versions of herself. But then Clarry came into the room and everything steadied. Dad seemed to radiate a kind of calm. As he entered the kitchen, the children stopped bickering and sat up straight; Mum looked up and smiled; even baby Philip’s grizzling faded and he held up his arms for a cuddle.
    Sadie took her place at the table and picked up her knife and fork.
    â€˜What about grace, Sadie?’ said Dad mildly, and Sadie blushed as she bowed her head for the prayer. How could she have forgotten about grace?
    Afraid of making another mistake, she was quiet for the remainder of the meal. Betty told a long story about an episode of unfairness at school, and baby Philip spattered mashed potato from his wooden high chair. Everyone teased Sadie about the under-cooked beans. John said, ‘You trying to turn us all into rabbits?’
    But Dad said solemnly, ‘I don’t know that I don’t prefer them with a little crunch, after all,’ and he winked at Sadie.
    â€˜She’s not herself,’ said Mum. ‘She needs a dose of cod liver oil, I shouldn’t wonder.’
    Betty grimaced and gagged.
    â€˜That’s enough from you, miss, or you’ll have some too,’ said Dad, and Betty subsided with a wriggle and a pout.
    After dinner and a spoonful of the revolting fishy oil, Mum made Sadie sit in the chair by the stove while she put the little ones to bed. Dad and John washed up, talking about cricket. Sadie let her eyelids droop. She seemed to drift far, far away, to another world entirely, a world of