‘You think?’ Kirsten asked. ‘Call Charlie and tell her you’ll be an hour late. Then you’re gonna drive your ass back here, and we’re going to talk about this properly, before I go to work.’

Harry hated how his Saturday with Charlie was getting more and more squeezed. ‘She’s got a 6 p.m. curfew. It’ll hardly be worth going.’

Kirsten smirked. ‘Don’t go, then.’

‘Bloody hell,’ Harry said, looking hurt, as Kirsten let him out of the door.

‘It’s your own fault for lying to me,’ she yelled, as Harry ran downstairs and scooped his keys off the kitchen countertop.

Since Kirsten now knew about the detention, Harry could have changed before leaving, but he wasn’t thinking straight so he wound up in the school parking lot, sitting with his legs out of the car, switching trousers and buttoning his shirt.

Harry had forgotten his tie and gasped with relief as he sprinted to his locker and found a spare. It was 8.29 as he skidded through the door of a basketball court, settling behind a folding desk, as Mr Bowers locked the door to keep out latecomers.

Harry’s hopes of catching up on homework were dashed. He had to spend the first twenty minutes in silence, filling a form with answers to questions like Explain why you received a Saturday detention, and What are three steps you can take to modify your behaviour to ensure that this does not happen again?

Once that was done, the teens were split into two groups of six. One half was given black bags and grabbers and sent on litter patrol. Harry was in the second group, dispatched to Queensbridge’s theatre to sweep up the auditorium after the previous night’s performance of Cats.

When Mr Bowers finally set Harry free, he jogged back to his locker, replaced the spare tie and squirted deodorant before hopping back into jeans and polo shirt in the deserted hallway. After the mad dash, Harry found himself buckled into the Mini’s driving seat, locked in thought.

Kirsten will ground me and take the Mini away if I don’t go home now, but she’s probably gonna do that anyway … If I go see Charlie, she’ll have gone to the restaurant before I get home, so I won’t have to deal with her tonight, and she might have calmed down by then … Or she might go bat shit crazy … But I need to hear Charlie’s voice. See her smile, catch her smell. And the way she sits with her head tilted and one eyebrow slightly raised …

Thinking about Charlie gave him a warm tingle as he spoke to the car. ‘Autodrive, set destination Obama Independent Living.’