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cartons scattered round the room. The boys had torn up the
polystyrene bases, and Sam had used the pieces to lay out a curving road as part of the floor-level steering test. Millie approached it now, in full control.
    ‘Slow down,’ whispered Oli. ‘Try and get the nose up .’
    Ruskin walked along with the little car, intent on its progress. His own vehicle had taken eleven minutes to complete the course; Millie was on a very promising eight so far. She turned into the
first straight and missed the curve. Reverse, try again. She oversteered. Black smoke was leaking from the engine and she couldn’t work out how to close off the drill. This was a problem as
the razor-sharp edge was cutting into the carpet, sending wool-threads spinning – the friction was counting against her.
    Nobody heard the hammering on the door.
    Millie was stuck and the seconds were ticking by. Oli and Sam were cheering. The finishing post was a pillowcase dangling over a coffee table, and it was going to be very close. The drill was
devouring the carpet, the nylon threads melting and smouldering. Millie tried to reverse again.
    ‘Go!’ shrieked Oli. ‘You can cut through it!’
    Ruskin was jumping up and down: ‘She’s stuck, she’s stuck!’ But Millie found reverse and somehow disentangled the drill. She went for the home stretch fast, missing the
pillow and curving wildly. This time the drill slammed into the skirting-board, and the boys cheered louder, knowing she was losing more points. Sam leaped onto the mattresses, did a backward flip
from the table; he punched the air, confident that he had the best time. He bounced to his feet and ran to Oli: the child was doing complicated sums on the wall, subtracting and adding points.
    ‘Sixty-two!’ he cried.
    ‘Never!’
    ‘Sixty-two, so Jake’s seventy-nine points and you’re eighty-one.’
    ‘Yes! I’ll go again,’ said Sam.
    ‘Hang on, I haven’t even been!’ said Oli. ‘Millie just had my go. I haven’t been!’ He went to rescue his toy, which had split the wood and was now drilling
through breeze-block. He was about to shut down the motor, when the bedroom door was thrown open and a man in pyjamas stood there, gaping. By his side stood the Sleepeasy receptionist.
    ‘What the hell . . .’ said the man. Millie and the boys stared at him.
    The receptionist was a lady of middle-age: smart, stout, and carefully permed. She held a pass-key in her hand and her mouth was a little black hole of disbelief. She’d been on duty when
the road accident had happened. She had been calm and efficient, and dealt with the worried Mrs Tack, agreeing to keep an eye on things. Sam in particular had reminded her of her own little boy,
ten years ago. She’d meant to pop up and put an ear to the door earlier on, but there’d been a booking mix-up and some builders had arrived unexpectedly, needing accommodation. Then a
big, foreign man had insisted on paying cash with a kilo of coins. The credit-card machine had gone down immediately after that, which led to the computer freezing. It was another guest who’d
alerted her to the indescribable noises coming from the family room. Her eyes took in the smoke, the debris, the upside-down, flung-about furniture: her mouth opened wider as it hunted for an
appropriate word. She looked at the children themselves. They had looked so smart, trooping in after the ambulances and fire-engines had departed. Now they stood there, tie-less and blazer-less
– the sweet one had dirt over his face and his shirt had been used as a cleaning rag, the tails covered in what looked like oil . . .
    The man in pyjamas said, ‘I’ve never seen anything like this.’
    ‘Were we keeping you awake?’ shouted Ruskin, over the noise of Oli’s digger. ‘That was the last race. I’m ever so sorry.’
    ‘Was not!’ said Oli.
    ‘Oli, you gave your go to Millie!’
    ‘I didn’t!’
    The receptionist clutched the door frame. She was making small sounds,