Before she knew it, the kitchen clock was showing midnight – how had that happened? It was the latest that Em had ever stayed out, without there being a responsible adult in the house with her kids. Despite text reassurances from Izzie (I’m still up watching Netflix anyway, it’s fine) and Jack (I punched a couple of paedos and shot the burglars, don’t worry, I got this, Mum), she decided, reluctantly, that she should head back. ‘Alas, Cinderella has to return home to her teenagers, who may or may not have been at my pathetic drinks cupboard,’ she confessed to George, weighing up whether she was drunk or brazen enough to ask for his phone number.

Sod it – nothing ventured, nothing gained and all that. ‘I was wondering . . .’ she began recklessly in the next moment, just as he said, ‘I don’t suppose I could have your number?’

They’d smiled at each other dreamily. Kapow! she thought, her heart thudding. Get in there, Cinders.

‘Wait,’ Jack was saying now. ‘Does George drive a shitty beige Volvo?’

Em shut the fridge door, sensing an imminent anticlimax. ‘No,’ she said. ‘He’s got a black BMW.’

‘False alarm,’ said Izzie with a snort of laughter. ‘Unless George has turned himself into a spoddy-looking woman, that is.’

‘I certainly hope not,’ Em said, coming to peer through the window with them at the small shared car park that was in view. Out of the car (Jack’s description of a ‘shitty beige Volvo’ turned out to be pretty accurate) emerged a tall, rather hunched-over woman in a dark-green anorak and corduroy trousers, with a faintly harassed air. She looked as if she was Em’s age, slightly older perhaps, with shaggy brown hair. ‘Nope,’ Em said, ‘that’s definitely not George.’

As the woman turned in their direction, Em dodged abruptly away from the window, embarrassed that she and her children were being so nosy. ‘Stop staring,’ she hissed, but then Jack murmured an approving ‘Excellent!’ and curiosity got the better of her. Peering over again, Em was just in time to see a teenage girl clamber out of the passenger seat with an air of resignation. The girl had long black hair that fell into her eyes and was wearing a ripped black vest-top, a bottle-green miniskirt and high-heeled DM boots. She folded her arms across her chest and took up the stance that Em recognized from her own two as Combative Teen, then said something they couldn’t hear.

‘Someone’s not happy,’ Izzie commented, glued to the scene.

Just then, as the three Hugheses gawped on, the girl noticed them and glared. Em ducked back again, mortified to have been caught snooping, but not before she saw the girl stretch out an arm and flip them the finger.

‘Whoa,’ cried Izzie. ‘Harsh.’

‘She is fit,’ said Jack, grinning back at her.