I see you: small, upright, and kneel­ing on the sky-blue crin­kles of the knock-off Donald Duck duvet passed down to you from your cousin. Face like a dull round moon in the gloom. Your curls are still short—you haven’t yet rebelled and grown them long so that you could be just like the other girls. You have been waiting duti­ful­ly until every­one is asleep so that you could open your bedroom door and sit guard.

Two brown eyes, fearful and fixed on the square of dark­ness at the top of the stairs. Silent­ly you wait, lis­ten­ing, barely breath­ing in case you miss it. Behind the smiling flowers of your curtain, the deep blue of the night has put the world to sleep.

Sleep. I can see you’re start­ing to lose the straight back that would get a gold star in Mrs Divine’s class. If only she were here with you now.

As the heavy of your eyes starts to win, you think of sausages explod­ing under the orange glow of an elec­tric grill.

You feel the bite of the winter air and find your­self stand­ing outside your house, home from school. The front door hangs open; there is a pierc­ing sound in the air. It is not the first time that dinner has been left to burn. You step inside but don’t smell grilled meat. You cough to empty those tiny lungs of the thick black that is trying to steal your breath. Reach­ing the kitchen door, you can make out little more than the white enamel of the oven and grill. Orange flames reach for you, ready to leap to your bottle-green school jumper. You look for the phone. Is it in the fridge or the cup­board this time? It doesn’t matter anymore; you’re stuck in some kind of nightmare.

But it wasn’t just a night­mare, little one.

This, though, this is a dream. And you’re not sup­posed to be dream­ing right now. If you sleep, then who will save the others?

Upright and straight-backed again. You are rigid. Pyjamas damp with fear.

Two gold stars.

Someone is gently snoring and a famil­iar feeling of frus­tra­tion rises within you. You will them to stop. You need them to stop so that you can listen for the crackle of flames.

You turn back to your vigil.

You have counted the steps an eight-year-old needs to make it down the hall to the box room and to your brother’s bed. But you worry that you will be too slow, and that you will have to crawl under the smoke to get to your parents. That they won’t wake, tired of being sent down­stairs in the middle of the night to check that the microwave has been turned off.

Mrs Divine would always check. She always listens when you talk. And she smiles and gives you a star for tidying her desk at the end of the day. You don’t need to worry about bat­ter­ies in the smoke alarm, or whether the phone is in the fridge—not in Mrs Divine’s classroom.

Your body is trem­bling. The night is never-ending. You go over the plan again.

To save them, all you will need is to get a window open so that they can jump onto the car parked outside the house. You saw it on the telly once. Every­one survived.

To open the window, you will need a key. To get the key, you will need an adult that will listen. If they won’t listen, Ben will be left to the smoke and the heat because he isn’t allowed to sleep in their bed anymore. He’s almost five now, and he doesn’t come when you tell him dinner is ready. Last night, he threw baked beans at you as Mum tried to get him to eat his toast. 

Don’t think of the TV or sausages.

Don’t think of the bitter choke of the black smoke.

You think of Dad. You are pretty sure he won’t leave you behind or forget you like he did last week at school, because if it’s not your Mum, it’s you kids. Some­times he just needs a moment to himself.

You imagine Dad car­ry­ing Ben out the window to the safety of the street, but your chest is tight as you think about what to do with Mum.

‘Acci­dents happen,’ Mum had said on that day, pulling you in for a hug while you wished you could be back at school emp­ty­ing pencil sharp­en­ers under Mrs Divine’s approv­ing gaze.

As the glow of dawn brings the smiling faces of your curtain into con­trast, I see you for the child you are: curled up and sinking into your pillow. Once-wary eyes sur­ren­der to sleep and fleet­ing dreams of gold stars and play. Outside, an engine hums and the quaver of the robin’s song announces that the world will soon wake. You are relieved of your watch. You have made it through one more night, safe.