‘The elephant in the room needs to be addressed. Because two of our number did rather an extraordinary thing on New Year’s Eve, I took the liberty of buying cake – half-price for cosmetic reasons, and now only two days past its sell-by date. I propose we spend twenty minutes dissecting the log and bombarding Mr Palmer and Miss Smith with questions, and then nothing more will be said. Agreed?’

When I look at my six classmates – most of whom have never paid me any attention before – there’s the same hunger I saw in the eyes of the year 7s when I walked across the playground. They want to talk to me.

Is this what school life might have been like if Tim and I had never been neighbours? I wasn’t always the nerdy girl. At primary school, I was invited to parties, even Louise Norman’s seventh birthday at Chessington World of Adventures. I never won a Barbie-lookalike contest – unlike my sister – but I was passably pretty. In year 3, I even got two Valentine’s cards from boys in my class.

But just as my Sylvanian Families phase ended, Tim moved into the bungalow opposite. His dad was still around at first, but he left within a year of moving into Hazelmere Crescent and Tim turned from a shy boy into a mini-adult. At first, I hung round with him because I felt sorry for him, but then we bonded over first aid and chemistry sets, no longer ashamed of being different from our peers and our families.

When people judge Tim, they don’t see what his life is really like. It’s not just the drudgery of constant caring, which involves things no kid should have to do for a parent. It’s also riding the rollercoaster of his mother’s moods.

Her obsession with him becoming a doctor was the reason we joined St John Ambulance together. Though we both love it. He’s hard-working and eager to take medals home, while I like the disaster-movie rehearsals for a compound fracture or a catastrophic bleed.

Mostly I am OK with being weird, though sometimes I wish I was ‘allowed’ to flirt with Ant and Fat Matt and Joel – especially Joel. Or go to a party as Ginger Spice to Louise Norman’s pigtailed Baby.

As Mr Sykes passes out precisely calibrated slices of cake on hospital-green paper towels, the questions begin.

‘How did you know he was dying?’

‘What was it like to kiss Joel Greenaway?’

‘Will you be getting a medal?’

‘One question at a time, you rowdy lot,’ Mr Sykes says, but he really is smiling now. ‘Why don’t you start at the beginning, Miss Smith?’

Tim glances at me nervously. This is my chance to tell the truth: the new version will have travelled around the school by the final bell.