The Trouble with Goats and Sheep

by Joanna Cannon

No one mentioned Jesus. In fact, I didn’t think anyone would have noticed if Jesus had walked into the room, unless He happened to be accompanied by an Arctic roll.

Although it was strange that, even when she was quiet, she still managed to be the loudest person in the room.

When I turned round, Tilly was smiling so much, I was worried that someone might hear.

‘A man like that shouldn’t be allowed to have hobbies,’ says May.

‘My mother dropped down dead in the middle of Miss World 1961. I couldn’t ever look Michael Aspel straight in the eye after that.’

‘Where’s Chelsea?’ Tilly stared at his badge. ‘Dunno.’ He started tapping again. ‘Why do you wear a badge of a place you don’t even know?’ I said. ‘Because it makes you a part of it.’ He missed the last tap, and his football drifted across the road. ‘It means you fit in.’ ‘Only in your own head,’ I had to shout, because half of him was in someone else’s hedge bottom. He reappeared, holding the ball to his chest. ‘But that’s the only place that matters,’ he said.

A coping strategy, Margaret Creasy had called it. The only problem was, when your whole existence is something you have to cope with, you look back one day and find that your strategy has become a way of life.

Sometimes, with grown-ups, the gap between your question and their answer is too big, and it always seems like the best place to put all your worrying into.

My mother was still holding my father’s hand, but I couldn’t tell if he was holding hers back.