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barking. I wait with my fingers clipped firmly to my nose.
    ‘Hello,’ I overhear Mum saying, trying to be friendly. ‘Don’t look so worried, she won’t bite you. Her name’s Isabel. We call her Bells.’
    Who’s Mum talking to? I poke my head round the wall. It’s Imogen, from the year below, with her mother.
    ‘What’s wrong with her?’ Imogen asks, unable to take her eyes away from the baby in the pram. ‘What’s that big hole in her face?’
    ‘Imogen, don’t be rude,’ the mother says, blushing. ‘It’s the inside that counts, isn’t it?’ she says to Mum.
    Mum says nothing.
    Imogen still stands rooted to the spot like a mannequin in a shop. Piss off, I want to shout. Her mother eventually pulls her away.
    I wait until it is quiet and safe to come out. After roughly ten minutes I poke my head round the wall. Mum is bending down talking to Bells. I bolt sideways and then stroll forward as if I have come from the main school building. ‘I don’t care what anyone says, you’re my beautiful little girl, and your mother loves you, and we are having a lovely time, aren’t we?’
    ‘Hi, Mum. I had to tidy up the paints … and stuff,’ I falter.
    Mum eyes me suspiciously. ‘Emma said you were showing your needlework to the headmistress.’
    We walk back home, my head hung low.
    ‘Are your feet suddenly fascinating?’ Mum asks.
    ‘Nope.’
    ‘I had a call today,’ she says, as we walk on briskly, the pushchair rattling against the pavement. ‘From Mr Stubbington.’
    My whole body freezes.
    ‘Katie, I’m ashamed of you. I leave you to walk home on your own because I think you’re old enough. Then I find you have been going into his shop and stealing from the charity pot. What has got into you lately?’ Mum turns to me, demanding an explanation.
    Mr Stubbington has banned me from the shop for a week because he caught me trying to steal coins from the charity stocking. Mostly it’s full of one- and two-pence pieces but there are always those tantalizing silver and gold coins stuck in the netting of the toe. When Mr Stubbington turned away to put some apples into a brown paper bag one afternoon, I could not resist plunging my hand in to try and get a fifty-pence piece. ‘This money goes to Help the Aged,’ he rebuked me, wagging one finger furiously when he saw what I was doing.
    I can offer no explanation. ‘Unless you promise to stop stealing, I will collect you every day,’ Mum threatens.
    I don’t look up.
    ‘With Bells,’ she adds.
    Does she know what I’m thinking? ‘I promise I won’t do it again, Mum.’ Two girls are walking towards us. They stop and gawk when they see Bells. ‘What’s wrong with it?’ one of them asks. I am focusing on a particular crack in the pavement. If I step on this line it will bring me bad luck.
    ‘“It” is my daughter, Isabel. She was born with a cleft lip and palate, and your staring doesn’t help,’ Mum says, pushing past them. I turn to look at them and they are still standing there staring with their mouths wide open. ‘What the hell is a cleft lip?’ one of them asks the other.
    ‘I’m sorry, Mum.’
    ‘It’s all right, but please don’t steal again, Katie. I have enough to do, just looking after this one.’
    After that, Mum and I walk home quietly. ‘Hello, Bells,’ I say behind the closed door, stroking her hair. ‘I’ll give her her tea tonight,’ I tell Mum because I know she’s tired. I like mushing up Bells’s food. ‘How are you today? Have you had a good day?’ I push her into the kitchen. The guilt sits like a lump in my stomach.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    ‘I’ll meet you at the station,’ Sam suggests, cramming in a mouthful of toast and marmalade. ‘What time does Isabel’s train get in?’
    ‘Don’t worry, we’ll meet you back home.’ I don’t know why I think delaying the meeting is going to help. At some point the bomb will go off.
    ‘You know, I’m really looking forward to meeting her. I have to be