Charlie said, “Lullah, can I, can I, help you up … Are you … were you pretending to be an owl?”

And then he started laughing again.

I managed to get my legs out and I pulled my hat off. I struggled to my feet. With my luck my hair was probably in the exact shape of a bird’s nest. I brushed some of the straw off me and said casually, looking down at my feet, “I was just … just …”

He said, “Being an owl.”

I tried to explain. “Yes—but—Bob said that you can’t be, you know, a person, because they won’t leave you, they’ll think they’re human beings and come in your home and want to go to school and get a decent job and so on.”

Go to school? What was I thinking?

I wasn’t thinking, I was looking down at my feet.

Charlie said, “I called round at your house, but there was no one in, so I thought maybe you would be here. I came to find you, because I wanted to …”

I said quickly, “Talk about stuff, I know, well, it’s all right, I’ve already forgotten about the thing that, you know, you said ‘can’t we forget about it.’ Well, I have, whatever it is.”

Charlie sighed. “Look, I want to say …”

I said, “Oh, you don’t need to. I’ve forgotten about it. Whatever it was.”

I was fiddling with my buttons because, to be honest, I felt like crying. Although I haven’t much experience, it seems to me that there is only one thing worserer than having someone not wanting to kiss you, and that’s for them to explain why they don’t want to kiss you.

Charlie said, “Lullah, will you stop fiddling around with your buttons and look at me? I want to see your eyes.”

I said, “I don’t want to look at you.”

He said, “You won’t look at me?”

I said, “No, I won’t look at you. I don’t want to and I’m not going to.”

He said, “What, never again?”

I said, “No.”

He said, “Are you sure?”

I said, “Yes, I am quite sure, I am never going to look at you again.”

There was a bit of a pause and then his face appeared by my feet. He was lying on the floor and looking up at me.

He said, “Wrong.”

He gave me such a shock, but it was actually the first time I’d felt like laughing for days.

He said, from upside down, “Please talk to me properly, this is not my best angle.”

He got up and I looked at him.

He smiled and said, “That’s the girl.”

Charlie looked really nice. Oh, well. I’d said that once I had done the icicle thing with him, I’d like to be his friend. Like we were before the kissy thing happened. Ah, well.

He said, “Look, you shouldn’t be upset just because I’m an idiot. I won’t be the only idiot boy you meet, believe me. You can practice on me.”