It's still raining. When I come back into the kitchen I'm on TV. Mum put it on with the sound all the way down just to have something to look at. And now there I am. It's the picture from last Christmas, but they've zoomed right in on me. I look angry. I look as though I've just been crying.

It cuts from the picture of me back to a woman in a white suit reading the news. I can't hear what she's saying, but the idea that it could be about me gives me shivers down my back. Mum is asleep again. I think she's asleep. It has rained all day and we can't go and see the cows and can't go to the shop and can't do anything. I sit down right in front of the TV, watching and waiting in case they show me again.

They don't. Instead they show a little yellow room, and Maisie and Donald are there, except they look different and small on the screen. They are speaking into a microphone. Holding hands. I can't tell if Maisie is crying or not. It looks like she's just staring into space. Donald is doing all the talking.

It only lasts for a second or two. Not enough time for them to say anything. And then it's the newsreader again, and then the weather. A big map of the country covered in blobs of blue rain. I sit there for a long while, but the news ends and they don't show my picture again. I go and close the curtains and check that the door is locked and go and watch Mum sleep. She's just a slowly breathing lump underneath the covers. I feel very small.