“Ross, we need to take Pang to the Beacon – right now!”

It's, like, one more week until Pang, our eight-year-old exchange student, goes back to China. I try not to look too pleased about it for fear of hurting the girl's feelings, but I actually can't resist performing a little drum roll on the table and going, "Seven more days and you're out of here. I'd nearly think of heading for the airport now – case we miss the flight. Sleep in the terminal, like Tom Hanks in what-was-it-called?"

Pang goes, "I might stay," and she says it like it's a genuine threat? "Just to spite you. I have the choice to extend my visa by six more weeks."

Sorcha walks into the kitchen at that exact moment, catching the orse-end of the conversation. “That’s true,” she goes. “Honor said the same thing to me when I talked to her on Skype last night. She’s loving China so much, she asked me if she could stay until Christmas!”

“No chance,” I go. “We’re swapping back. End of conversation.”

Pang lights a cigarette off the gas hob and that’s when Sorcha cops it. She’s like, “Oh my God, Pang, what’s wrong with your fingers?”

Pang blows smoke out of the side of her mouth, then holds up her right hand. “I don’t know,” she goes. “Very sore.”

And that's when I notice that her fingers are all, like, curled inwards – like her hand is turning into a claw. It gives me a bit of a fright. I actually end up jumping?

Sorcha’s like, “Ross, we need to take Pang to the Beacon – right now!” and, from the way she says it, I know it’s pointless trying to argue that they’ve probably got good doctors in China if she just waited a week. “Go upstairs and get that big brown envelope the school gave us with her health insurance details in it.”

Half an hour later, the three of us are sitting in front of a doctor, who ends up being woman. She gives Pang three or four different objects – a tennis ball, a rubber chew toy, a Galia melon, blah blah blah – and asks her to grip them as hord as she can. After 60 seconds of this, the woman looks at me and goes, “How many hours per day would you say that Pang spends using her phone?”

“I’d say a pretty typical amount for a girl of her age,” I go. “Six or seven hours. Although sometimes it’s more.”

She’s like, “I meant per day rather than per week.”

“Yeah, no,” I go, “I’m talking about per day. Six hours or seven hours – and, like I said, the odd time it’s more than that.”

She turns to Sorcha, then, because she’s obviously not getting the reaction she wants out of me. She goes, “Do you not think that’s a bit excessive for a girl of her age?”

Of course, straight away, Sorcha ends up falling to pieces. She’s like, “Oh my God,” her hand over her mouth. “Are you saying that’s why her hand is turning into, like, a talon?”

“She has carpal tunnel syndrome,” the woman goes.

I’m like, “Carpet what?”

She’s there, “Carpal. Tunnel. Syndrome,” spelling out the words individually, like I’m thick, which of course I famously am. “It’s a repetitive stress injury. We’re seeing a lot of children presenting with symptoms because of these things.”

She whips out her own mobile phone and holds it up. Sorcha is close to tears at this point. She lets people guilt-trip her, see.

The doctor goes, “So you’re saying that Pang’s mobile phone use is not something you see fit to supervise?”

I’m in there straight away.

“It’s like this,” I go. “Pang isn’t exactly our number one fan and we’re not exactly hers. We didn’t even know, when we sent our daughter on this exchange programme, that we had to take a kid ourselves, a kid who’s actually 10 times worse than our own – no offence, Pang. So basically, we cook for her and we bring her to Dundrum Shopping Centre three times a week for light, exercise and mental stimulation. The rest of the time is basically her own. It’s called parenting.”

Sorcha is so embarrassed at this point that she’s going through the big brown envelope, looking for Pang’s insurance details, so we can, like, get the fock out of here.

The doctor is staring at me like she’s just caught me eating her family dog. She’s like, “That’s what you call parenting?”

And I go, “Do you have kids yourself?”

“No.”

“Then you’re in no position to judge. You’ll find out yourself one day. They’re a living nightmare.”

Sorcha all of a sudden goes, “Oh my God, Ross, what’s this?”

She’s holding up this, I don’t know, sheaf of A4 paper that she obviously pulled out of the big brown envelope.

She storts reading it to herself.

"Ross," she goes. "it's from Pang's mum and dad. It's a list of dos and don'ts. Make sure she's in bed before 9pm because lack of sleep makes her moody. Don't let her eat sugar because it makes her aggressive…"

I laugh – try to keep it light. “What is she?” I go. “A kid or a Gremlin?”

"Restrict her mobile phone use to 20 minutes per day, as she has a repetitive stress injury. Ross, why didn't we read this?"

I can feel the doctor staring at me – again, judging. “Hey,” I go, “who even reads manuals? By the way, is there anything in there about her smoking? I’m not sure she should be doing that either.”

The doctor can’t get us out of there quick enough. She writes a prescription and recommends some exercises and also rest, which I suppose means Pang having to text with her left as opposed to her right. She says the hand should be fine again in four to six weeks.

Outside, Sorcha turns to me and goes, “Ross, you know what this means, don’t you?” I’m stupid. I’m like, “What?”

She goes, “We can’t send her back – not like this. How bad would we end up looking?”

I’m there, “No! Sorcha, please don’t say it!”

Pang laughs in a really, like, cruel way, then punches the air with her honky hand. She goes, “Yes!”

“Ross,” Sorcha goes, “we’re going to have to keep her until Christmas.”

ILLUSTRATION: ALAN CLARKE