‘I honestly don’t really know,’ he says. ‘Like, with any of it. We met in tutorial on the first week and had some of the same classes, so we started walking together. Then we were meeting in the park after school, and then it was kind of like when you’re two thirds of the way through a sharing bucket. You know if you keep going, it will make you feel sick, but you’ve gone too far to stop or turn back. You’re going to finish that bucket whatever.’

‘At what point did you decide it was a good idea to get your ear pierced?’ I ask. 247

‘Oh man, I hate it. But she wanted us to get matching earrings.’

‘You know you could have said no,’ I say, trying not to laugh.

‘I totally lost it,’ Mak says. ‘It was like I turned into a different person. We even did a Christmas snow-globe photo together.’

‘Do you have it?’ Karim says. ‘Please say you have it.’

‘I’m not showing you.’ Mak shoves his hands in his pockets.

‘But you’ll feel better about it once it’s out in the open,’ Kat says. ‘And it would really cheer Ade up. Wouldn’t it, Ade?’

Ade sniffs. ‘Yes, I think it would help a lot.’

Mak sighs and pulls his phone out of his pocket, then scrolls for a bit. ‘Here.’ He holds the phone up to show us a picture of him and Georgia-Rae kneeling inside the snow-globe looking into each other’s eyes, throwing the fake snow up into the air, and doing these huge open-mouthed fake smiles. I mean, we all have a million pics of ourselves, with stupid filters that make us look a hundred years old, or totally deformed, or with our faces swapped. And they’re 248 funny. But this is probably the cringiest photo I have ever seen.

‘Are you wearing…’ I say.

‘Matching Christmas jumpers? Yes.’ He sighs again.

‘And this cost you how much?’ Karim asks.

‘Twelve ninety-nine for the photos, then another tenner so that Georgia-Rae could have one put inside a miniature snow-globe to keep in her bedroom. And…’ he hesitates.

‘You might as well get it off your chest, Mak,’ I say.

Kat nods. ‘Rip off the plaster.’

Mak sighs again. ‘I also spent fifteen pounds to have the picture on a cushion.’

‘To cuddle?’ Karim says.

Mak puts his hands over his face and nods, and it’s all I can do to keep the laugh from exploding out of my face.

‘Is that what you hid under the duvet when you were showing us around?’ Ade asks. ‘A cushion with yours and Georgia-Rae’s faces on it, pretending to play in some plastic snow?’

‘I think I’d use the word “frolic”,’ Karim says. ‘I’ve never said it before in my life, but it feels right.’ 249

‘Sounds like something little lambs do in fields of daisies,’ I say.