‘I’m fucking knackered, kid. What are you still doing up?’

‘Come on, Sharif, tell me about it!’ pleaded Omar. ‘Who was it?’

‘A gentleman doesn’t tell,’ Sharif said smugly, readjust-ing his balls in his boxers at the memory.

‘You’re not a gentleman. Come on, man. Who was she?’

Sharif sighed with mock annoyance. ‘Well, man, if you insist. You know Cassie Rantell?’

Omar frowned. He knew Cassie; she was from the neighbouring girls’ school. Short, sporty and busty, with a wild mane of golden curls and a reputation for shagging the more athletic boys from school on the Common. Although a nice enough girl, and good-natured enough not to bear any grudges when her conquests failed to call her again, she herself was hardly a conquest for Sharif to boast about. She’d even shagged Stevo Morgan last term (who’d become admittedly better-looking since antibiotic treatment had dealt with his teenage acne).

‘I didn’t think she’d be your type,’ Omar said. ‘A bit young, and a bit, well, she gets about a bit, doesn’t she?’

‘Of course she’s not my type, shitwit,’ said Sharif derisively. ‘But she has a very hot big sister, almost nineteen.’

‘Omigod,’ said Omar. ‘Ali Rantell? Hasn’t she left school already? She’s really fit - how did you get to meet her?’

‘I met her last week - she came up to me after that gig we did in that crummy pub in King’s Cross. She’s a bit of a gig groupie - she was really drunk, and put her hand on my crotch while we were talking, so I took her number and asked her out.’

‘Where did you go?’ asked Omar, trying to keep the slight jealousy from his voice. He had been at the same gig, and while he and the others had been diligently packing up their gear, it seemed Sharif had been chatted up by a gorgeous older girl. He’d been in the band for two years and had never received the sort of attention that Sharif got. Sharif had been getting lucky with the ‘gig groupies’, as he called them, from the very beginning; but the only girls who ever talked to Omar just looked over his shoulder to where Sharif was standing and waited for him to disengage himself from whoever he was with, waiting for him to notice them.

‘I didn’t think she’d be a cheap date, so I took her out to the Ministry, out over at Elephant. Took a couple of tabs, saw some of the guys out there. Took her home and that was it.’