‘Yeah,’ says Jake. ‘But setting off the fire alarm?’

I laugh even though I know I shouldn’t as we walk out of the school gates.

‘Maybe I could cut the tops off,’ says Rebecca, looking down at the burnt rolls in her container.

‘You’re joking,’ says Jake. ‘A shark couldn’t bite through those.’

We laugh again, but all the time I’m wishing Rebecca had thrown them in the bin. She said she couldn’t because her mum told her it’s bad to waste food, but I really wish she had. I’m making out that I meant to do it, that it was a joke, but all the bread rolls do is remind me that I was daydreaming about making bread with Grandma when I should have been checking the oven.

We reach the zebra crossing. Rebecca looks down at her container again.

‘Tell your mum I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I’ll pay for the ingredients.’

‘It’s okay. I’ll tell her I did it.’

‘No, you don’t have to,’ I say.

‘It’s fine, Felix.’ She smiles. ‘Don’t worry about it.’ She looks at me like somehow she knows I am. I try to force a smile back. ‘I’ll see you both tomorrow,’ she says as she turns away. Since she stopped coming around my house, she doesn’t hang out with me so much at school either. I think it might be because I irritate her now – I know Jake definitely does, because he’s always going on about her being brainy and he hated it when last term when me and Rebecca did a school project on the Romans together. Mum says I should try to work with her again, because I concentrated better when I did and got better marks, but now I think I’d mess around too much and put her off her work.

As me and Jake turn the corner, I think for a moment that Granddad hasn’t turned up and I feel bad for hoping that he won’t. Now I get to talk to Jake about the things we did at school and the tactics we can use against the enemy later, but just as I’m about to say something a white van pulls away and I see Granddad’s pink car parked tight against the kerb.

Jake steps into the road.

‘I’ll see you later,’ he says.

I nod. I used to ask if he wanted a lift, but he said he didn’t want to be seen anywhere near my granddad’s pink car, let alone get in it. I’ve got no choice. He’s my granddad. He smiles and waves as I get closer. I check around. I know Granddad made someone a promise to keep picking me up, but it is embarrassing getting into Bristol’s only pink car.

I’ve Got Problems