In shock, she blinked and saw bright lights and floaters in her field of vision. She felt like she was going to fall off her chair and grasped the pine table as she imagined walking around school with everyone staring. She felt like burrowing under her duvet and never coming out, and might have done so if she hadn’t heard the toilet flush upstairs.

John was stirring and Georgia felt less like facing him than ever …

‘Cookie, are you home? Did you go to school?’ John queried from the top of the stairs.

Georgia needed a PE kit for Tuesday afternoon, but rather than go up to get it, she grabbed her bag, patted her blazer pocket for keys and bus pass, then crept out of the back door and round the side of the house.

It was twenty to ten when her bus arrived. Georgia was relieved to find she was the only person on the upper deck, then horrified to see the floor and seats littered with abandoned copies of London Met, with her fist-pumping leap on the cover.

At first, the thought of touching a newspaper made Georgia shudder. But when she did lean over and pick one off the seat in front, she saw it for the first time without the shock factor. It felt like another person, but at least it was a cool person. Nicely fitting jeans, green eyes, trails of flying hair and a distinctive button nose that gave an air of mischief.

Georgia decided the shot must have been taken by a photographer crouching in the rows of chairs on the opposite side of the gallery. They had probably snapped dozens of people jumping, but picked Georgia because she was beautiful and the timing with the riot cops had been perfect. She thought about all the creepy men in suits, looking at her face on the trains into London, but still walked around the bus, gathering three copies in good condition and dropping them inside her backpack.

‘No need to ask where you’ve been,’ Miss Stockwell said curtly when she arrived at school.

The main gate got locked when school started, and the deputy head stood behind a barred side gate. Dressed in a tweed skirt and a blouse with sausage dogs chasing beachballs, she wrote down Georgia’s name and form, then glanced up and down her uniform.

‘Are those canvas?’ Miss Stockwell asked.

Georgia sighed as she lifted a scruffy black pump. ‘Half the school wears these,’ she said.

‘You can wear those for gym, but school shoes must be waterproof,’ Miss Stockwell said. ‘Do you have a letter of excuse for your lateness?’

‘No.’ Georgia sighed again, wishing she’d stayed home as two year-eight girls arrived behind and started whispering.

‘Can we have your autograph?’ one asked sarcastically.