‘Shit is hardly swearing,’ I say, jumping down the last three stairs in one go. ‘But sorry. I forgot about tonight. That’s all.’

Gus laughs at me from the landing.

‘You forgot about your French exchange?’ He points a finger. ‘Not credible! You’ve been obsessing about it for, like, a year. You can’t have forgotten it now because you’re going today.’

I point back. ‘I just woke up! I had a weird dream and I forgot. So shoot me.’

He makes his fingers into a gun and fires it at me. I clutch my chest and pretend to die, but it feels all wrong. My dream echoes round the house. I fall to the floor and expire dramatically, more to distract myself than anything else.

‘You two!’ Dad is putting his shoes on and checking he has his lanyard. ‘You’re worse than the toddlers. Yet I seem to be trusting you to get yourselves to school. Bye, babies!’

Gus and I look at each other after the door clicks shut.

‘Where’s Mum?’ I didn’t plan to say that, but those seem to be the words that come out. Where’s Mum? Jesus. I walk into the living room. Gus follows.

‘Mum?’ He laughs. ‘Hello? Gone to learn how to be a yoga teacher? As you know perfectly well. Do you need your mummy?’

My mind is foggy. I knew that. I just haven’t woken up properly.

‘Fine. Well, you’ve got to help me not go on the French exchange.’

I pace round the room. I don’t know why I feel like this. I pick up the little clown that Dad won, sixteen years ago, at some circus awards. I look at its creepy face, then put it down facing away from me. It can stare out of the window instead. Our house is full of weird shit like that.

‘How?’ says Gus. ‘Hide you under my bed? Stay there a week and I’ll pass you a Twix when I remember.’

‘I’d take that,’ I say. ‘Right now I’d do it. A week under your bed with your stinky socks and whatever else. And a Twix.’

He smiles, and I force a smile back. I don’t know why I’m feeling like this. I am not the sort of person who freaks out. I’m going away for less than a week and yet I seem to have lost the plot. I’m going to have to fake it to get through the day. Do an impression of myself.

‘It’ll be OK,’ Gus says. ‘The moment you leave, you’ll be on a countdown to coming back. Once you get going, it’ll go quickly. Also he might be cool. Your “pen pal”.’ He makes quote marks in the air to demonstrate how incredibly uncool this concept actually is. ‘Enzo. You know he’s probably dreading it as much as you are?’