‘Is this it?’ Jack had stopped in a small car-park area and now gestured at the beach, looking confused.

Izzie braked beside him. ‘No! Of course not,’ she scoffed, getting her phone out to check the map. ‘There’s the whole town further ahead.’ She showed Jack the screen with the route marked out. ‘See? We have to keep going, past this lagoon thing.’ She said the last bit hurriedly because she wasn’t sure if ‘lagoon’ was the right word for the large pool over on their left. Geography had never been her strong point, as would no doubt be proven when her exam results came in later that summer.

‘What are we going to do when we get there anyway?’ This was Amelia, the girl from the neighbouring cottage, who had the most badly pencilled eyebrows Izzie had ever seen, along with some seriously terrible orange foundation. She was from Reading, apparently, although Izzie had heard her saying to Jack that it was ‘near London’. Even Izzie, geography failure of the year, knew that this description was stretching the truth way past the point of elasticity.

Jack hesitated, then looked at Izzie.

‘Don’t ask me!’ she retorted snottily. ‘I didn’t even want to go in the first place.’

Jack glanced back to the beach. ‘Skinny-dipping?’ he suggested, raising an eyebrow at Amelia.

Izzie guffawed, not wanting the other girl to feel under pressure. Her brother was all mouth and no trousers. ‘Go on then, you first,’ she told him. ‘Me and Amelia will watch and give you marks out of ten for execution.’

Amelia snorted. ‘Bonus marks if you make any small children cry,’ she said.

Unperturbed, Jack slouched over his handlebars with a shrug. ‘You suggest something then,’ he said.

Amelia looked pleased to be asked. ‘Well,’ she said, delving a hand into her bag and pulling out a bottle with golden liquid inside. It glittered under the sun like something magical as she turned the bottle so that they could read the label. ‘José Cuervo Especial,’ it said, followed by the words ‘Tequila Reposado’. ‘I did bring this.’

‘Whoa!’ Jack was easily impressed. ‘Good one!’

Izzie did her best to look nonchalant, like it was no big deal. Amelia was fourteen, two years younger than Izzie, and she couldn’t allow herself to be bested. ‘Okaaaaay,’ she said, in her coolest drawl. ‘That’s going to make the day more interesting. Let me just get out my amyls and we’ll have a party.’

‘You don’t have any—’ Jack began saying, but she glared at him.

‘I’m joking, dickhead. Obviously,’ she said. She eyed Amelia, trying to channel Lily, her most worldly-wise friend. Head tilted. You don’t impress me. ‘So are you opening that, or what? Or is it just for show?’