When I was five and first at school, there was a little girl in my class called Jane. I haven’t seen her since I was seven, I wonder what happened to her. But I remember she had a lisp which all the grown-ups thought was absolutely adorable. So when I created my little imp, the three year old Sofie Fauld (or Monster as the family call her), I remembered (and I’m afraid exaggerated) Jane’s way of speaking.

Her Z’s have a way of becoming D’s, so her big sister Hazel is Haydle. A ‘Th’ sound will also be a D, so it’s “What’s dat?” R’s become W’s, so she likes pwesents. Her oldest sister Roisin is Woisin or Woshie. Her best friend is Andwew, and so on.

But Jane’s lisp had another quality, which I also stole for the first scene of ‘Martine’, when Sofie finally asks Deb the question her parents have been dreading. To to quote the book:

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“Mum-mum,” she said once we’d settled on the grass. “Why I not got a Daddy?”

“You do,” I said. “You know you do. Uncle Leo’s your Daddy.”

Humm, good one Deb, that would confuse most adults let alone a toddler.

“My friend Andrew’s got a Daddy who lives with his Mummy,” she said.

Hang on, Monster, have we lost our cute little lisp for a moment, this must really be serious!

“But he’s not got two mummies,” she went on. “Why I got two mummies? Why does Dadda not live here. Doesn’t he love us?”

Oh hell, I knew this was coming someday. I’d just hoped it would be a bit longer. We’d been through it all before with Rosh and Hazel, of course, and we’d get it again with Danielle. Martine had once told Hazel that she didn’t have a Daddy simply because you had to be a boy to be a Daddy and we were both girls, and it took Haze months to see the flaw in the logic. I suspected Monster might be quicker on the uptake. She really was very bright. Besides, if nothing else, when you’re as big a bullshit artist as Sofie, you tend to be able to recognise bull in others!’

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Yes, I strongly suspect that Jane put her lisp on, at least a little bit, to make herself sound sweet, because it disappeared when she was worried or scared. And so, most definitely, does Sofie’s