‘You’re right. We’ll go down Mere Lane and take our usual route,’ Tess said, though not without a qualm. She had always thought Snowy kind, easy-going and sweet-tempered, but today she had seen a side to him she had never even suspected. She knew he thought quite a lot of himself but had not realised that, when crossed, he could be downright vicious. She was glad she had hit first and then run like a rabbit, though she did not suppose that he would have done more than give her a clip round the ear and a mouthful of abuse. But as Lucy said, she would have to meet him on other occasions. So the two girls took their usual route to school, and though there had been no sign of him Tess entered the classroom feeling a trifle apprehensive in case one of her schoolmates had seen the fracas. But apparently no one had observed Snowy’s humiliation, and when Tess left school at the end of the day, casting panicky glances around as she emerged through the gates, there was no sign of him.

‘Come back to the flat with me; I’m scared he’ll be lying in wait,’ Tess urged Lucy. ‘If you do I’ll tell you the whole story and we’ll have lemonade and Gran’s shortbread. In a way it’s fairer to Snowy if I do, because I suppose he did have a reason to feel rather cross with me. But there’s no point in asking for trouble and I simply don’t want to have to listen to his woes all over again.’

Lucy agreed, and the two girls got safely to the flat over the milliner’s shop without so much as a glimpse of a tall, fair-haired figure. Once there, they took the shortbread and a bottle of Corona and went and sat in the parlour window, where they could watch for anyone approaching the flat. But they saw nothing of Snowy, and by the time Gran arrived home, full of the day’s doings at the bakery and wanting to hear how Tess had got on in her new class, Tess had managed to convince herself that Snowy’s rage would cool and that even if they could never be friends, at least they need not be enemies.

She had to admit to Gran that there had been what she described as ‘a bit of a falling out’, but did not say that they had actually come to blows. And anyway, she told herself with an inward grin as she got ready for bed that night, it had scarcely been an exchange of blows, since she had been the one doing all the blowing. She just trusted that Snowy would leave her alone in future. After all, if he thought about it logically and coolly, instead of when he was hot with disappointment and temper, he would surely realise that losing his girlfriend had had nothing to do with Tess, and that handsome as he was he would soon find a queue of girls anxious to replace Marilyn Thomas. And once he got himself a new girlfriend, surely he would not continue to be angry with Tess?