‘We were up at five to get to the Rage Classic,’ Georgia said. ‘My head’s banging. I’m going up to my room for some peace.’

‘I made rock cakes,’ the neighbour lady said, pointing to the tin, which nobody had touched.

‘Are you sure you want to be on your own?’ Aunt Michelle asked. ‘I could come and sit with you.’

The idea of her aunt propped at the end of the bed boosted Georgia’s sense that everyone thought she was a kid. She felt a heave of anger and imagined herself screaming out, I’m fourteen not four.

But Georgia wasn’t a drama queen. She left that to her mum.

‘I probably won’t be back down,’ Georgia said drily. ‘I’ll say goodnight to everyone now.’

She was a sweaty mess under the Drone Pack bowling shirt. She brushed her teeth and showered. Georgia’s duvet was in a mound, because her dad had been yelling that Everyone has been waiting down here for ten minutes when she’d left her room that morning.

Apart from the consequences of this hasty exit, the room was immaculate. Footwear lined up under the bed, schoolbooks clamped between bookends and a wipeable planner board behind the desk, marked with key dates, like holidays, homework deadlines and the Geography field trip.

There was a pair of display cabinets on one wall. The larger one was full of drone-racing trophies and mangled remains of several quads she’d wrecked during years of racing. The smaller cabinet contained a couple of cheap plastic trophies and a row of medals on coloured ribbons won at swimming club.

Beneath the cabinets were piles of stationery. While some kids collect action figures or keychains, Georgia had a thing for stationery. When relatives first caught on, every birthday and Christmas became a mass of coloured Post-its, glitter pens and novelty erasers. Over time, her tastes had gone upscale. Nuuna notebooks, Blackwing pencils, MT Scrapbooking tape and handmade Japanese writing paper.

Georgia dug out a set of flannel pyjamas with seahorses on. She hadn’t worn them in ages and the arms were too short, but there was something comforting about the thick cotton, covered with lint baubles that she could pick at for hours.

She combed her hair in front of her mirrored wardrobe and the pyjamas reminded her of old Christmas-morning pictures. Georgia going bonkers, tearing through presents. Sophie, nine years older, with a smile for the camera, but eyes suggesting she’d have preferred an extra hour in bed …

Georgia’s Venetian blind wasn’t fully closed and she got dazzled by headlights onto the front drive. Uncle Phil and Auntie Michelle were already in their car, and Georgia’s nan gave her dad a big hug, then a more stilted one to her former daughter-in-law.