‘Nowt wrong with her,’ she’d told the teachers with a sniff, her too-tight headscarf making her chins wobble as she nodded. The hem of her best coat undone at the back. A wonky American-tan stocking sagging down her shapeless shin. ‘Just likes what she likes, that’s all. And bright? She could teach you a thing or two. Just you ask her about seahorses – she’ll chunter on for hours.’

The teacher, who’d been educating kids for thirty years and had never met a girl like Lizzie, and who just wanted an easy freefall into retirement with a nap in the afternoon, had frowned and shoved Lizzie into a corner with a book. Subsequent teachers had kept her separated and given her work they never even marked, just put in the bin at the end of the day. Sometimes Lizzie, bored with facts about pandas or volcanoes, would shout out the answers to spelling tests or, worse, correct her teacher. Even her brain, which was more mechanical than most, could deduce she wasn’t liked, wanted or understood.

Making friends was a long, hard battle. Lizzie had to force herself to ask questions, share toys, not be bossy. Tamsin, a tiny child with a squint who wore a built-up shoe, was obsessed with horses but struggled with reading. Lizzie had amazed her with facts. Horses can sleep standing up or lying down. Horses can run shortly after birth. Horses have bigger eyes than most other mammals that live on land.

‘Really?’ Tamsin used to say, her one good eye bulging in its fleshy socket.

‘Really,’ Lizzie would reply, and Tamsin would beam at her, and briefly Lizzie had felt like the fastest racehorse in the world.

In return for this equestrian knowledge, Tamsin would sit with her at lunch, and trot next to her in the playground, where they played Black Beauty.

But Tamsin’s eyesight deteriorated and eventually she was sent to a special school. Lizzie spent a sad season alone, looking for conkers, until Michelle adopted her in return for some help with homework. Lizzie preferred Tamsin, who didn’t want to pluck her eyebrows or experiment with blue eyeshadow, but her dad had a computer that he’d sometimes let Lizzie and Michelle play on.

Michelle and Lizzie’s friendship lasted until the end of secondary school. Then Michelle went to hairdressing college, and Lizzie went to study science. She had more in common with her new classmates, but missed Michelle and Tamsin.

She went to parties and on study dates, on political marches and camping trips, but was always on the outside, somehow, until she met Greg.

And then came Lenny, who is nothing like her. Who shows her another way of viewing the world. She doesn’t have to feed him facts in return for friendship, or have her hair permed and plaited. She just needs to be herself.