Ma was working at the kitchen table, pretending that she wasn't waiting for them, but Grace stepped inside first, and saw the way her mother's head snapped up to look over at the door. She was squinting slightly, a look Grace knew meant that she was worried, and only relaxed a little when she saw the rest of the family pour in through the door.

            Grace felt a squirming guilt, but then also a little bit of defiance. They were with Dad. Why shouldn't they go to the fair?

            "Hey, Ma," she said lightly, pulling her key out of the door and tugging Benjamin in after her. He was trying to writhe out of his thick coat as he went, instantly too hot in the warmth of the house as he always was. Grace found herself holding an empty sleeve with a glove wedged into the end of it, and Benjamin was halfway towards the sitting-room and the TV.

            "Where did you lot get to?" Ma asked, closing her sketchpad deliberately and acting casual. That told Grace how frightened she'd really been if nothing else had done it. Nothing short of absolute terror made Ma want to pretend that everything was all right.

Ma stretched and stood up, kneading her shoulder. "I thought you'd be back ages before I was."

            "We went to the fair," Dad said, before Grace had to explain. He was trying to unbutton Maggie's pink duffel-coat while she jumped up and down, and so he didn't see the way Ma's eyes narrowed.

            "It was great," Maggie said, punctuating her excited words with bounces. "There were jugglers and fire-breathers and cotton candy and a carousel and I went on it twice. And then I was nearly sick."

            "Neither of you answered your phone," Ma said, looking between Grace and her father.

            "I guess I left it here," Dad mumbled, making a big deal of hanging Maggie's coat up so he didn't have to look at Ma. Grace felt a little sorry for her father just then. She knew he was in a lot more trouble than she was. "Sorry, sweetheart."

            "Really sorry, Ma. I didn't turn mine back on after school," Grace chimed in, though Ma wasn't looking at her but at Dad.

            She unbuttoned her coat, beginning to sweat in the heat, and hung her school-bag by the door. Ma was putting her work things into her briefcase, and Grace saw that she was shaking very slightly.

            She sighed, feeling like it was a huge over-reaction but hating that she'd helped to cause it anyway. She went over to Ma and hugged her as she straightened up.

             "How was the meet?"

"Meeting," Ma corrected her, automatically. "It was good. They really want me to do something genuinely original, instead of copying some rubbish they've seen at some corporate event. It should be fun."

"Did we mess up dinner?"

            "No, I haven't made anything," Ma told her, and squeezed her around the middle in return, before letting go and tugging gently on her hair. "You look like you've been rubbing balloons on your head. Was there some kind of static thing there?"

            Grace glanced at her reflection in the kitchen window, and saw that her hair was frizzed up all over. She tried to flatten it down, remembering the strange feeling as she had touched the globe, and shook her head.

            "I got snow in it, I think," she replied.

            "Does no dinner mean we get to order takeout?" Dad asked, taking Grace's place next to Ma.

            "Takeout!" Maggie shouted, immediately, and from the sitting room, over the noise of the TV, they heard Benjamin say, "Pizza!"

            "You're really pushing your luck," Ma told Dad, and then smiled slightly as he pulled a heartbroken face. "Healthy takeout, yes. I'm not going to let you all shove saturated fat into your mouths."

            Dad sighed, and then asked, pretending to be disappointed, "Thai, then?"

            It was all a routine with him. Her father's favourite food was Thai, followed by Indian, followed by Chinese. He couldn't stand fried chicken and thought pizza was just a sandwich gone wrong. But even so he would act like it was all a terrible tragedy that he had to order in Thai. He would shake his head, and gloomily inform his children that they had to go by their mother's wishes and eat what was good for them. Then he would order most of the dishes on the menu and gorge himself until he could barely move.

            Grace slid into a chair on the far side of the table and watched Maggie scamper over to the notice-board and unpin the tatty Thai menu. Grace never involved herself in the ordering process. There were always too many dishes to try, and she was happy to have a little bit of everything. And nobody except Dad was ever allowed to phone thanks to his strange theory that if you spoke in a slight mock-Thai accent, incredibly slowly, the folks at The Bamboo Shoot would be able to understand better.

            She leaned her head on her hand, feeling thoroughly exhausted for no particularly good reason. They hadn't had sports today and she'd been in bed early. But the fair had tired her, for whatever reason.

Ma came to sit opposite Grace, smiling as she watched Maggie and Dad make a list on a scrap of paper, but Grace could tell she was still upset.

            "Was everything ok at the fair?" she asked after a little while. "Benjamin didn't... get himself into any trouble, did he?"

            Grace looked at her sharply, wondering how her mother had hit on that. But Ma was still watching Maggie while she wrote untidily and then tried to correct it, with much teasing from Dad.

            "No," Grace said, happier avoiding the subject than outright lying. "He tried to make an exhibition of himself at one of the shows, but I managed to calm him down."

            Ma was unmistakeably relieved. She smiled at Grace, and her daughter felt a moment of worry about that coin. She hoped Benjamin kept it to himself, and didn't let on that Grace had made an exhibition of herself instead.

            The five of them collapsed in front of the TV after the takeout, Grace feeling so full that an ice cream for dessert had made her feel sick. Ma had forced her to complete her homework before they ate, which she had grumbled tiredly through without much care. Maggie and Benjamin had been on room-tidying duty, so the three of them were given passes to slouch in front of Erin Brokovich until Benjamin got bored with the plot and went to play on his DS. Ma usually chased them to bed by nine but she was so stuffed herself that she just lay there and made occasional protests.

            Grace was the next to leave, feeling sleepy from dinner but with her head still full of strange predictions and bright lights. She went and washed, barely keeping her eyes open for long enough to check her teeth in the mirror, and then ambled past Benjamin and Maggie's room.

Benjamin was, as usual, watching the little screen with huge, transfixed eyes. She knew better than to interrupt, so she went in and rubbed his hair before retreating with a "Good night." Benjamin's multi-tasking had come on to the extent that he remembered to say it back.

In her own comfortable, purple and cream room, Grace climbed into bed with a book. She was halfway through a mystery set on a cruise ship, and the heroine had just found a strange man in her room, when she remembered her brand new tarot book with a start. She hadn't thought of it once all evening.

Tomorrow, she thought. Friday was her favourite day of the week. She turned her light out, dissatisfied with the mystery, and drifted to sleep. She dreamed about her school being turned into a circus, and that she was failing her juggling tests.

Grace woke before everyone else, while it was still dark and clearly too early to get up. She lay listening to the quiet hisses and clicks of the heating switching itself on. She stretched, luxuriating in the extra time to lie there, before the dryness of her throat stirred her into action.

She padded quietly over the carpet, and out onto the landing, the night-light coming on as she walked past. The landing window turned from a deep blue to almost black, reflecting her form back at her as she walked towards it.

She glanced into the twins' room as she went past, already in her mind seeing Benjamin's sprawled form which was usually half on the bed and half off it with the duvet somewhere different each time. But the bed was empty.

            She stopped outside their door. Her head told her he was probably in the bathroom, even while her stomach squeezed in fear. There was no reason to think that anything was wrong.

            She took three steps towards the bathroom, and saw that there was no light coming from under the door. Benjamin wasn't there. However much he sneered at Maggie for wanting a light on at bedtime, he was more scared of the dark than she was. He never went anywhere without switching a light on first, or following someone else into the darkness and kicking their heels until they gave in and switched one on instead.

            Grace glanced at the stairs. It was dark down there as well. Then she went back into Maggie and Benjamin's room for another look, realising that he might have fallen out of bed in the night, or be getting dressed behind the door.

            She walked around the door, seeing first the window, then Maggie's bed with her mop of red hair visible above the covers, and then finally the wardrobe where it stood against the near wall. But there was no Benjamin, and when she crouched to look under his bed, it was a reaction made out of desperation, not belief that he might be there.

            Grace went back out into the hall, her heart hammering, and almost ran down to her parents' room. She came to a stop in the darkened doorway, not knowing quite what to say for a moment, before the words seemed to force their way out of her.

            "Ma. Dad. Benjamin's gone. I can't find him."