I walk over to the kitchen windowsill to her treats. They’re in a ceramic pot shaped like two cats, with their tails curled round one another.

It’s only when I go to shut the lid that I notice the resemblance. The heart-shaped marking on their backs.

Weird.

I empty Lady’s treats into a container. She looks up at me, scandalized. ‘I’m not stealing them!’ I assure her. ‘But you have to admit,’ I say, ‘it’s pretty offensive for dog treats to be in a cat pot, isn’t it?’

I give Lady two of them, because she looks kind of annoyed. She responds by slinking off into the living room and taking a nap.

After I give it a good clean I stick the pot in one of Mum’s old hat boxes under my bed for safekeeping, until I can figure out exactly what is going on.

Chapter 15

‘Look at this,’ Matty whispers to David next to me.

‘That’s hilarious,’ David says in a robot voice.

‘Spottie Lottie,’ Matty adds smugly, obviously pleased with the rhyme he’s made up.

My stomach lurches. They’re talking about Charlotte Baker and, by the sounds of it, what they have to say isn’t very nice.

I watch them for a while unnoticed. They’ve basically spent our entire ICT lesson taking photos of people and laughing at them. Matty’s even added little red splashes coming out of Charlotte’s spots to look like lava on a volcano.

Matty catches me looking and raises his eyebrows. ‘Want to have a look?’ he says, shoving his phone towards me. I turn away and shake my head. ‘You’re in there somewhere, Dobby.’ He adds the last bit so quietly I can pretend not to have heard.

I ignore him, but I can’t ignore the jolts of electricity going through my stomach.

Matty laughs in my face and crosses the room to some of the other boys, including Jonnie. I can hear a ripple of laughter rising and falling, like the notes on a glockenspiel.

David stays in his seat. I can feel his eyes on me. Eventually I turn to face him.

‘I . . .’ He rubs the back of his neck. He takes a breath and starts again. ‘I just wanted to say, I heard about your mum and I hope . . . I hope you’re OK. My dad was ill last year . . .’

He smiles awkwardly at me, like he’s embarrassed.

‘Really?’ I ask. ‘I’m sorry . . .’ I’m just as bad at this sort of thing as he is. ‘Is he . . . OK now?’

David’s face lights up. ‘Yeah, he is.’ He pauses. ‘And your mum’ll be too, I bet.’

I nod. I hope so, I think.

‘Back to your seat, please, Matty,’ Mr Mitchell says, interrupting our conversation. ‘Or do you want a detention?’ The room falls silent, and everyone turns to stare at Matty.