‘He didn’t join in from the start. I tried getting him to, but he just sat in his sleeping bag by the cave.’

Maria nodded. How she wished she’d listened to her heart and not her husband.

‘Next time I looked around I couldn’t see him,’ Stella said. ‘I told Jill I should look for him but someone was toasting marshmallows and …’ She paused and glanced away.

‘Stella, you’ve done nothing wrong.’

‘We carried on talking and I kind of forgot all about Danny and then there was this shriek. Everyone jumped up and we couldn’t work out who it was, but someone started running out of the cave screaming that he grabbed her.’

‘That Danny grabbed her?’

Stella nodded.

‘Who?’ Maria asked. She raced through the girls in her mind. Jill – God, what would Bob say if it were Jill? Iona – what would she say if it were her?

And then there were the ones who were most likely to make something up for attention. Emma Grey?

‘Tess,’ Stella said solemnly, and Maria’s heart sank because they both knew Tess Carlton had never been the type for dramatics and also because she would have to face her best friend, Susan.

Danny pounded his fists into his pillow. ‘Stupid, stupid, stupid,’ he repeated.

His heart beat rapidly and tears stung his eyes. He’d heard Stella calling out behind him but he hadn’t stopped.

Why had he sat in the cave in the first place? If he hadn’t he would never have seen Tess, and then he would never have had to run away.

He knew the answer to that, but he also knew it wouldn’t sound right to anyone else.

He’d been watching them. Drawing them in his pad. It was the reason he’d wanted to go to the sleep-out. He was right about people; most of the time they acted the same way, but when you watched certain ones closely, they’d occasionally do something you least expected. He wasn’t sure if this made him more excited or more on edge, but either way he was definitely more interested.

Automatically Danny reached out a hand and grabbed for the pad, then leant over and slipped it under his bed. He was sure no one else saw things the way he did because they never looked hard enough.

They wouldn’t see tonight the way he did, either. They would take Tess’s side, and who could blame them? They weren’t likely to take the side of the weird kid.