And there was something else about Chris, another point of difference between him and the men she usually dated. Leah’s suitors tended to fall into two categories: those rendered mute by her beauty, and those who thought it granted them full groping rights, like greedy diners determined to get maximum value from an all-you-can-eat buffet. Chris, however, was neither nervous nor lecherous. He appeared to be entirely unbothered by her presence; there was no ogling, no inappropriate groping, not even in the pitch-dark restaurant. By the time they got to A&E, Leah wasn’t sure if he even fancied her. They were having a good time, but his attitude towards her was friendly rather than flirtatious. It was this novel uncertainty that provoked her into putting her hand on his knee; when he responded by leaning in for a kiss, she felt a gratifying sense of relief.

* * *

August’s dry heat continued into September, bleaching the grass of the Denham Hall playing fields. The new term began in summer uniform, with ‘Shirt Sleeve Order’ (a borrow from Army terminology) chalked up morning after morning on the big blackboard in the Assembly room. To younger pupils, not yet resigned to the relentless inevitability of the seasons, it began to seem possible that summer might go on for ever.

This was Callum’s first year as Head of Latin. His predecessor, Dennis Bird, had retired last term after a set of school reports revealed the severity of his early-onset Alzheimer’s. (The same paragraph written out fifty-four times in his elegant turquoise script, with only the name and gender altered.) Mr Bird had always taught the top sets, although his teaching methods were so ineffective that Callum’s classes consistently out-performed their brighter peers. After three years of Mr Bird, 8S had a long way to go before sitting scholarship papers in the spring. Callum was more or less an instant hit. They chafed a little at his introductory lecture on the importance of the Classics to modern society; but they liked ‘iDisco’, the neat vocab app he’d developed for their smart phones, and the way he was unfazed by Ludo Hall’s arsenal of ‘innocent’ questions (‘Sir, sir, why do all the statues have tiny you-know-whats?’). Four members of the class – Karl Huber, Felicity Teasdale, Sophie Witrand and, to everyone’s surprise, Ludo – signed up for the Greek lessons he was offering after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Sophie had mixed feelings about her final year at Denham Hall. On the one hand, it was nice to be on top at last, one of the big kids, feared and adored by the younger years. Yet each day brought her closer to the end of her time at the school – synonymous, in Sophie’s mind, with the end of her childhood. She saw more clearly than ever that time would continue to pass without her permission.