I ran to where Aidan was sitting, watching the basketball. He’s good at most sports, but he wouldn’t play unless I was on court with him. It’s no wonder I always have to take the initiative.

‘Come with me, Aiden,’ I said and he didn’t hesitate. It was like he was waiting for instruction.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Over the fence,’ I said. ‘And then to Victoria Park.’

‘Why?’

‘I’ll explain as we go.’

To be fair to Aiden, he doesn’t waste time arguing. When I put the toe of my school shoe into the chain link fence and climbed the two metres to its top, he was right there beside me. We dropped down onto the ground and scurried behind a straggly bush maybe fifty metres away. I brushed hair from my eyes and peered from our hiding space. As far as I could tell, no one in the school had noticed us. No alarm had been raised. I squatted down on my haunches and tried to regulate my breathing.

Now I had time to think, I wondered what the hell I was doing. There wouldn’t be a mango tree. That was just crazy. And Charlotte was right about one thing – there were dangerous places round here. Mum and Dad had told us stories about the horrible things that could happen to people who wandered off by themselves. What had seemed like a good idea – proving my courage and worth – now seemed stupid and pointless. But I couldn’t just climb back in. Charlotte would know I’d got cold feet and I couldn’t face that. It crossed my mind to just wait there for ten or fifteen minutes, hidden from view, and then go back, tell Charlotte I couldn’t find the tree. Or maybe that I had found it but someone must have beaten me to it and taken the fruit. Aiden would back me up.

But somehow I couldn’t bring myself to do that either. The park could only be a minute or two down the street; in fact, when I glanced over my shoulder I caught a glimpse of trees just a few hundred metres away. We could be there and back in no time at all.

‘Come on, Aiden,’ I said.

I tried explaining as we walked, but it was difficult to find the right words. For one thing, confessing that I was doing this purely to impress Charlotte would make me look like an idiot, and even though I didn’t care too much what Aiden thought, I drew the line at that. So I told him that I’d heard there were mangoes growing in the park and that I needed to check it out for myself. All brave, resourceful and independent. I have no idea if he believed me.

‘This is dangerous, Ash,’ he said. ‘If Mum and Dad find out …’

‘Then we’d better be careful they don’t find out, okay?’ I replied. He didn’t say anything to that but I could tell from the way he kept glancing all around as we walked that he was on high alert for any threat. And I have to confess that the further we walked the more scared I became. It was a strange world out there – an unfamiliar world, by and large – and apprehension was like hot breath on the back of my neck. The smallest sound made me jump and my skin felt hyper-sensitive.