Mostly, I made do with pulling on a hat and throwing on the fur-lined bomber jacket that, after I’d found it in a charity shop, was now the coolest item I owned.

The boy, who I now knew was called Adam, had spoken to me six times, not including the quick hello he usually offered when I showed up in the hall. Not that he said ‘hello’, of course. More like, ‘Hey there,’ or, ‘good evenin’, milady.’

He seemed to be taking the rehearsals as seriously as the rest of his bandmates, most of whom had been coming to Charis House for at least a year, and so knew that the Spectacular was well above your average school show, with the potential to snag a gig in the Hatherstone pub or, even better, at the Robin Hood Festival in August. However, I couldn’t help noticing that, while riffing through the two songs or quietly strumming as the rest of the band worked out a bridge intro or tricky chord progression, he spent an awful lot of time looking across at me.

There were other girls for him to stare at. A group of year elevens practised a dance routine while others decorated the hall or sat clustered in one corner waiting for their turn on stage.

I felt sure that Adam liked me. There was only one giant problem. He asked me about it on the second-to-last time we spoke before the day of the show.

‘Principal Armstrong doesn’t seem very happy about me coming over to talk to you.’

‘No?’ I asked, sounding as though my scarf were wound too tight.

‘Every time I say hello I can feel her death stare scorching my skin.’

I glanced to the side where Mum was indeed standing there, hands on hips, glaring at us with as much venom as if she’d caught us vandalising her Christmas Spectacular banner.

‘Yeah.’

‘So is it me in particular, or does she take issue with her daughter fraternising with riff-raff in general?’ He looked at me, brow furrowed, and my heart swooned inside my chest.

‘You must have had some conversations with her?’

He nodded. ‘I do football and running. Plus, the big welcome speech.’

‘Then you know she doesn’t consider any of the students here to be riff-raff. Or delinquents.’

He nodded. ‘So why the devil eyes?’

‘She also wants the best for every student here. That’s not a hollow speech. It’s genuinely her life’s work. This was her family home and instead of lazing about in luxury she invested everything into welcoming kids that everyone else has written off and giving them a chance to be all that she believes they can be.’ I pulled a face. ‘She won’t allow that to be jeopardised by unhelpful distractions.’

He looked at me steadily for a long moment. ‘I can understand that. You’re very distracting.’