“Seems that way,” replied Kara shortly. She was putting fresh sheets on the one empty bed; it was in the corner, slightly away from the others. I don’t think anyone was too upset about that, including me.

I moved to help her. “Yeah, we’re staying,” I said over my shoulder to Liz, and caught her whispering something to Trish – who looked almost ready to cry when she saw me watching; she waved her hand at Liz in a frantic shushing motion.

I straightened up from the bed. “Look, I know this must be really weird, but—” I stopped. They’d both frozen, as if a chair had suddenly started speaking. Great. Instead of alarming them further, I turned away and picked up the pyjamas of Trish’s that Kara had given me: blue with white polka dots.

“Is there a shower I could use?” I asked Kara. There hadn’t been one in the bathroom she’d directed me to earlier, and I was dying to get rid of the grime from travelling all day on the Shadow.

“Yeah, but only one, unfortunately,” said Kara, finishing with the bed. I was trying not to stare at her the way Liz and Trish were staring at me – the sculpted lines of her face were so exotically gorgeous. “The boys usually get it at night; we take ours in the morning,” she went on without looking at me. “But if you wanted to go ahead, since it’s your first night...”

“No, that’s all right, I’ll wait,” I said with an inner sigh. I started towards the bathroom to get changed – the last thing I felt like doing was getting undressed with Liz and Trish scrutinizing my every move – but then I stopped. If I did that, they’d be imagining god knew what about me; that I had angel wings sprouting out of my shoulder blades or something. So I set my jaw and got changed right there, keeping my back to them and feeling their eyes burning holes in my skin.

“I, um...don’t need those back, or anything,” Trish blurted as I pulled the spaghetti-strapped pyjama top over my head.

“Thanks,” I said, as if I didn’t know exactly why she didn’t want them any more. And as everyone else started to get ready for bed too, the silence in the dorm had felt like a blanket smothering the air out.