Now I was terrified that my brain was stepping in to sabotage me with blue people. I was worried that if I told anyone I might end up in a psychiatric hospital, like the ones you saw in films. Maybe I did actually need some heavy-duty medication, though, because it just wasn’t normal to see blue people around your school who weren’t there. It had been a shit year, and stress did loads of things, but I was sure it didn’t do that. Yet this had started on the day Dad left for Scotland, so of course it was connected. I’d told Sasha about it, but no one else.

I filled my lunch tray with a jacket potato and cheese plus a side salad, and a massive cookie. Sasha had made me promise to eat properly at lunchtime and I did like food. The cafeteria was clattery and full of people pushing and shoving, and I made my way through the middle, confident, at least, in my place here. I was in Year Eleven, the top year in the school, but even back in Year Seven I’d been fine socially. I was tall enough, clever enough, sporty enough and had enough friends.

I had always felt a bit enchanted: I didn’t have acne, or awful periods, or any of the other things that tripped people up when they hit twelve. I had a wonderful mother and had mostly managed to keep out of the way of an unpredictable father. I had a big sister who thought I was annoying. I’d been able to see my path: I would do well in exams, take four A levels and go to university to study history. After that I was going to do a law conversion course and become a human rights lawyer. I used to feel that my biggest problem would be summoning the courage to tell Dad that I didn’t want to be a doctor, and then having to deal with the aftermath of his anger.

Then everything had gone to shit.

Mum got ill and, in spite of the positive thinking and the healthy eating – in spite of the fucking chemotherapy – she died. I’d watched her change, had seen what the treatments did to her body (ballooning with steroids, shrinking down to nothing). She lost her hair and tied a scarf round her head because she didn’t have the energy for a wig. ‘I don’t care if people stare,’ she’d said. ‘So what? Let them. I don’t need to make strangers feel better.’