I tried to process it … They were in a different school uniform. They weren’t Victorian or Elizabethan or anything like that, and they didn’t wear white sheets. So they weren’t ghosts because ghosts, by their very nature, were from the past. Were they from the future? Or from a different present? An alternative blue universe in which this school had a better uniform? Or was I just making it all up, pulling them from some corner of my weird brain?

I looked over my shoulder. They were behind me too. There was a whole group of them carrying lunch trays. They were walking towards me and, as they got closer, they slowed down until there were ghosts all round the table. The whole room shone bright blue. I stared in horror as they put their trays on the table. A boy sat down where Izzy was, and I could see both of them occupying the same space. Izzy was just eating her pizza and didn’t notice at all. A girl sat on – in? – Priya. And then I felt a prickly cold going through me and, when I looked, a boy with ginger hair was lowering himself into my seat.

I pushed the chair back and ran out of the room.

6

I wake up, telling the alarm clock to fuck off. It’s the worst sound in the world except for the sound of the blow to the head that hits in the very place that will kill you instantly.

I jerk wide awake. I had a nightmare. I can remember quite a lot of it and I don’t want that in my head. I sit up. Clothes on the floor. Books on the table. Half-light coming through the curtains.

French exchange! I yawn and rub my eyes. It’s the French trip today. I have to go to school, which is unfair, but this evening we’ll get on the coach and go to Plymouth, and catch the night ferry to Roscoff, and then tomorrow we’ll drive to St Etienne.

Like the band.

I’m going to stay with Enzo. I like Enzo, but I don’t want to go on this trip.

‘Joe!’ That’s Dad.

‘Awake!’

‘Good lad.’

I put on my dressing gown because I’m only wearing pants, and Dad always has to see us up and about before he goes to work. I decide to have breakfast first and then shower and dress. After that dream I need peanut-butter toast to give me the strength to do anything else. And a cup of tea with two sugars.

I’m not at all hungry. Still, the idea of those things makes me feel better.

Dad is dressed for work in his branded polo shirt. He laughs as I stumble downstairs, yawning.

‘Sleeping Beauty!’ he says.

‘Next time I want a handsome prince,’ I tell him, very grumpy. ‘Not a nightmare.’

‘Oh, mate,’ he says. ‘Nightmares suck. What was it about?’