Claire felt ancient, even though she was a full year younger. She said, ‘Um, can I see your room now?’

‘Creepy talk creeping you out?’

‘Little bit, yeah.’ Shane would have had a brilliant comeback, or Eve, but Claire couldn’t come up with one, suddenly. It didn’t matter. Elizabeth pulled her down the rest of the twisting flight of stairs to the second landing, and opened up the door and flicked on the lights.

‘Ta da!’ she sang, and did an extravagant sweep of her arm. The room was as orange as Claire’s was blue. To be fair, only one wall was painted that colour, but it was the far one, and it practically glowed in the dark. So did the bedspread with its profusions of ruffles, and the piles of pillows. It was nice, though, even if it was unsettlingly bright … Elizabeth had taped up band posters and some kind of fantasy art featuring winged, half-naked male angels. Her dresser was practically covered with make-up and piles of jewellery. It was the girliest room Claire had ever seen, actually, and that included Eve’s. At least Eve’s was dark.

‘It’s really … cheerful,’ Claire said. That was true. It also gave her a headache. Maybe that was the incense, which smelt like freshly peeled … oranges. That seemed a little bit too much theme for sanity. On the plus side, she was suddenly grateful that Liz had chosen blue for her bedroom. ‘Well, let me get unpacked, and you can show me the rest of the place, okay?’

‘Not much else to see. There’s a tiny little living area and a crappy kitchen. No TV; I figured we could stream something if we wanted to watch it, but I’m not really into that stuff anyway.’

‘What stuff?’

‘You know, TV, books, films, all that kind of stuff.’ Liz dismissed it with a wave of her hand. ‘I like the real world. Besides, only geeks go all nuts over made-up stories.’

That was a shock, because Claire clearly remembered squealing with Liz over the latest Harry Potter book, and excitedly chattering about what Snape would get up to next. This Elizabeth – this platinum blonde, carefully made-up, fashion-conscious young woman – this one was a stranger. ‘I still like it,’ Claire said. Not defensively, because she really didn’t feel a need to defend it. She was just stating a fact.

But it seemed like Elizabeth took it as a personal attack. Her face turned pink around the cheeks and at the top of her forehead, and she glared and said, ‘Well, I don’t, so let’s get some ground rules straight – you don’t bring home any geeky weirdos who want to sit around and play games or talk about movies or that stuff. You’ll never find a guy that way, and you’ll ruin my chances, too!’