Woody leaned over our little metal gate—and grinned. How dare he come over here and lean over my gate and grin, like I was going to be able to manage conversation now?

Breathe. Swallow. Blink.

C’mon, Hol—what was in the “interesting conversation” brain folder?

Nope. All I could find was that the star of Bethlehem had probably just been Uranus. And I wasn’t saying that. I stared at the sign on our gate, willing something good to land in my brain. “Welcome to the happy home of Sophie, Naomi, and Holly.” Mum had had it made, and it had a symbol on it for each of us. And it was zero help. “Just a-doing the bins.” A-doing?! Where had that come from?! “Bin having a great time.”

Terrible. I. Am. Terrible.

“I bet. Looks like you’ve got Sunday in the bag.” Woody smiled—his annoyingly brilliantly awful, cute, perfect smile—as he pulled his beanie off and back on. I laughed, mainly with relief that he’d joined me in terrible joke-ness. Being around him made me feel like a string of Christmas lights, all twinkling and happy.

Well, until I remembered that he might not feel the same way, and then I basically short-circuited and set fire to the imaginary Christmas tree I was on.

I gulped and tried to focus on what I was here for.

Other than to separate the recycling.

Being cool and spontaneous and Woody-getting-back. “So…good, erm…day?” Not exactly an award-winning start.

“Depends. Does helping my dad choose between five types of potato count as fun?” It did when he said it. Woody looked at me as if trying to work something out. “And is now the time we talk about how mid-November could be a liiittle early for a Christmas jumper?” He’d noticed my bow jumper. Wasn’t noticing details a good sign?!

“We could do.” Face, DO NOT smile as much as you want to. Permission NOT granted. “But I’d have to immediately point out this is actually my semi-festive jumper, so actually it’s very time-appropriate.” Hmmm, was knitwear scheduling conveying my inner wild child?! Better not mention the spreadsheet where I’d worked out a jumper rota for the rest of the forty-one days before Christmas. “And it beats football shorts.”

Woody grinned. “Everything else was in the wash.” What?! I thought he’d actually been playing in them. It was minus a million degrees! He bent down and ruffled Colin’s neck fur. Ahhhhh. There they were—all 101,105 glorious follicles. Colin eyeballed me—he was suspicious of Woody. Ruby had obviously been talking to him. Even Fred had said he wasn’t sure I should be so obsessed with someone whose initials are WTF.

“You going out?”

Aha! Hello, perfect opportunity to remind him that I’m spontaneous and exciting and have all the fun and TODAY IS THE DAY TO STOP THIS RIDICULOUS BREAK NONSENSE.