He takes it. He almost touches her fingers, bright with blue gel nails. He can feel the air between them. He lifts the cigarette to his mouth. He catches a sticky, enchanting hint of strawberry lip gloss on the filter.

He blushes, and inhales deeply.

After he’s finished coughing, he stays down, head between his knees. He spits. Sticks his tongue out.

‘Blah,’ he says. ‘That’s fucking rank.’

Alisha catches Oni’s eye. ‘Pass it,’ she says, reaching out. She draws, lets the smoke drift casually over her face. She passes it to Oni, who smokes it down then flicks the butt perfectly into the grass.

They step out from under the arch and head on up the path. After the bridge, the trees gather round the river. The path muddies, and roots curl across its surface. Everything is worn. The trunks by the path are etched with names and dates, the weeds rich with urine. Cider bottles gather in pockets at the base of wide-branched trees.

There are witches hiding here, if you look.

When Dillon was six, he saw them from the bridge. He peered over with his mother into the twilight, and the shadows cackled with laughter under wreaths of cigarette smoke. Witches and beasts and love and lost children.

Every town has a wood like this. Maybe the trees are streetlamps, or goalposts, or concrete pillars wrapped in chicken wire, but there is always a place like this, where teenagers step out, alone, into adulthood, finding out the rules for themselves.

The girls lead the way. Dillon watches. His mouth tastes awful, but the day is high and bright. The girls wear the same clothes. Jeans, trainers, puffy bomber jackets with huge fur-lined hoods. He thinks they look amazing. It’s hard to say what makes them so amazing, but they are. They know things he can’t dream of.

When they talk to each other it makes no sense.

‘She said she was a sket.’

‘Well she is a fucking sket. I don’t even care if it’s blue.’

‘I just think she should know herself.’

‘What’s your name? Barbara?’

Then they laugh, long and hard, doubling up theatrically.

Sometimes they talk to Dillon.

‘Who have you kissed?’

‘Have you kissed Ceri?’

‘He’s never kissed Ceri!’

‘Have you kissed Rose?’

‘Don’t be fucking disgusting!’

Alisha frowns at him. ‘You haven’t kissed Rose, have you?’

‘No,’ he says, affronted.

‘What’s wrong with Rose?’ says Oni, eyes sparkling.

‘Shut up,’ says Alisha. ‘You can smell her period.’

Oni roars with delight.

At a turn in the path they find some glass bottles and break them. Dillon throws some stones. He jumps to catch a low branch and pulls himself upside down. They laugh again.

Oni looks him in the eye and says, ‘Do you want to kiss me?’

He can’t stop himself looking to Alisha. She grins, her eyes wide and expressionless.