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The dinner table is oddly quiet that night.

Mum makes massaman curry, which is one of our family favourites, but the conversation never really gets going.

Everyone seems to be lost in their own world, including me.

Once the dishes are done, I fetch my school tablet to do my Geography homework and Mutti and Joel whip out their computers.

They sit on either side of me at the kitchen table, frowning at their screens, occasionally typing something and then deleting it.

After twenty minutes, Mutti lets out a groan of frustration.

“I don’t know what’s happened to me.” She drops her face into her hands. “I haven’t finished a single paragraph since I came back from London. It’s like I’ve forgotten how to write.”

A guilty feeling niggles at me. It’s not my fault that the Blanks are here, or Neon’s, but our decision to keep him hidden is the reason they’re hanging around.

As long as they’re in town, Mutti won’t be able to finish the next draft of her book.

Her deadline is the end of November, so she only has a month to go.

“Maybe you need more of a break,” I say, forcing a smile. “You’ve had a lot going on, between the London trip and everything happening with the bookshop.”

“Laurie’s right. You’ll be fine if you let it rest for a couple of days.” Mum rubs Mutti’s shoulder. “How about we all play a game after Laurie’s done with her homework? Something to take your mind off it.”

Joel closes his laptop. “I’m in. I’m not getting anywhere with this essay, either.”

Mum heads to the cupboard upstairs where we keep the board games, and Mutti goes to get the biscuits.

They both come back with a few options, and we eventually decide on some fancy caramel shortbread and a numbers game, a simple one that doesn’t require much brainpower.

As I count out the plastic tiles for each of us, I realise something: Joel was supposed to go back to St Andrews last Sunday, after Mum and Mutti came home from London.

I’ve been so focused on everything going on with Neon, I haven’t thought to ask why he’s still here.

“Youngest starts,” Mutti tells me. As I’m working out the combinations I can make with my selection of numbers, she dunks a biscuit into her tea and takes a bite. “So, are you ready for the open-mic night?”

A jolt of nerves hits me at the mention of our performance. I pick out a row of consecutive numbers and move them to the centre of the table. “I think so. We’ve got a good line-up, and hopefully a few others will join.”

Mum is to my left, so she sets out her numbers next. “What about you, Joel?” she asks. “You fancy signing up?”

Joel snorts and teases a biscuit from the packet. “What would I do? I don’t have any talents.”

“Yes, you do,” I say, prodding him in the side. “You can act.”

“Thanks, Laur, but I don’t think anyone would appreciate me standing up and reciting a Shakespearean monologue.” He grins and slides his tiles across the table. “But I’ll be there to give moral support or be on the till, or both.”

“Where did Neon come from anyway?” Mutti asks me. “He seemed to pop out of nowhere, but the two of you are such good friends already.”

She glances up from her numbers, her eyes slightly narrowed. I almost wonder if she suspects something, but after a moment she looks back down at her tiles and sets three sevens in the middle of the table.

“I guess we clicked pretty fast. One of those things,” I say, keeping my eyes fixed on my numbers. “And, before either of you say it, no , he’s not my boyfriend.”

Mutti smiles. “I wasn’t making any assumptions. You know it would be OK if he was, though, right? We’d be totally supportive if you wanted to date a boy. Love is love!”

Joel and I both roll our eyes. Our parents never get tired of that joke.

“Thanks, Mutti,” I say, laughing. “Good to know.”

We play three rounds of the game. Mum wins the first, Joel the second, and I take the third before Mutti pretends to be a sore loser and flounces off to the kitchen to make more tea.

While she’s gone, Mum gets up to take the laundry out of the washing machine, leaving me and Joel alone.

He checks they’re both out of earshot, then leans towards me.

“What’s going on with Neon and Aurora? Are they OK?”

Keeping my voice to a whisper, I tell him about Carrie taking them to her friend’s place. Joel seems relieved that Neon is no longer sleeping in a barn, and his jaw drops when I describe the house – it turns out Tamara Mackenzie is very, very famous, at least to film buffs like Joel .

“Are you all right?” I ask. “Weren’t you supposed to go back to uni last weekend?”

He blinks. “Uh, yeah, I was. I’ve decided to stay another week or two. I’m missing a few tutorials, but most of the stuff is online anyway. I’ll catch up.”

“Oh. OK.”

Joel was different before he moved to St Andrews.

He’d play tricks on me all the time – he was always jumping out of cupboards or from behind the curtains to scare me, and one time he mixed half a bottle of extra-spicy hot sauce in with the ketchup and almost blew my head off.

He could be annoying, but he laughed more than he does now.

He made me laugh a lot too. He’d find really bad, low-budget movies from the eighties and nineties for us to watch together, and we’d spend the whole hour and a half laughing at the plot holes and cheesy dialogue.

We used to have entire conversations in film quotes.

It was like a secret language, both of us cracking up while Mum and Mutti looked on, smiling but baffled.

That changed when he went away to university.

Joel still comes home a lot, but he spends more time alone in his room these days.

He’ll still joke around or watch films with me, but sometimes he’s distant and quiet in a way he never was before.

I thought he was stressed about all the work he had to do, but maybe there’s something else bothering him.

Before I can ask him about it, Mutti comes back into the room with four cups balanced in her hands.

“Another round?” she asks, setting them down on the table. “I want at least one small success tonight, and it’s clearly not going to be with my edits.”

I smile and agree to another game, but the worries in my stomach multiply. If Neon and I don’t find a way to get rid of the Blanks soon, Mutti might never write another book again.