Clyde was used to being thumped and spat on, so he wasn’t fazed by a girl having a hissy fit. He picked his tablet back up as Charlie slammed the door and stormed into the parking lot.

Charlie frequently arrived at Care4Kids around the same time that nurses on the dayshift clocked in. She’d often seen Clyde clambering out of a two-seat Dongfeng sports car, complete with a go-faster body kit and a pearlescent paint job.

Charlie passed the Dongfeng as she ran back to her little VW. It took a couple of minutes swiping through the car’s menus to find the setting to turn off collision avoidance, a decision the car informed her was Not Recommended and may invalidate insurance policies in some states, before making her reconfirm.

After reversing around the lot, Charlie lined her rear up with Clyde’s Dongfeng and backed into it at around eight miles per hour. She expected no more than a crackle of plastic and some scraped paint, but the rear fender of her tiddly VW managed to tangle with the Dongfeng’s body kit, and a three-foot section ripped off as Charlie pulled away.

‘You’ve gotta be kidding …’ Charlie gasped as she looked behind from the driver’s seat. She half expected Clyde to come charging outside, but Clyde’s focus was on bubble-popping and Charlie meekly strolled back into the lobby.

‘What now?’ Clyde snapped, peering up from his game.

‘I had a little accident,’ Charlie said, holding up a chunk of pearlescent fender. ‘Is there someone here who drives a weird-looking sports car?’

‘My Dongfeng,’ Clyde howled, putting his hands to his head as he charged around the counter and ran into the lot without mask or gloves.

‘I’m really sorry.’

‘This lot is empty,’ Clyde shouted when he saw fender dangling off the front of his car. ‘How did you manage to hit my car in an empty lot, you stupid little girl?’

‘Dark cars are hard to see when you go backwards,’ Charlie suggested. ‘I’m sorry.’

As Clyde crouched down to study the damage, Charlie backed up towards the entrance. The instant she got inside, she twisted the bolt inside the door and had vaulted behind the counter before the hulking nurse realised what had happened.

An older nurse spotted her as she bolted down a short hallway to Ed’s room. Injections were near the top of the long list of things that freaked Ed out and Charlie felt horrible as she stepped into his dark room.

‘Excuse me, miss,’ an angry voice was shouting, clearly getting closer. ‘Miss!’

Charlie pulled a syringe pack out of her trouser pocket. Ed was bigger than her and she desperately hoped he didn’t wake up and thump her as she pushed the needle into a vial of Killer-T vaccine, gently peeled back the bedsheet curled round Ed’s back and jabbed his upper arm.