Saturday was the final day of November. Lily woke slowly, feeling an unfamiliar weight in her chest. Isaac had barely spoken after she’d pre-empted whatever he’d intended to say last night. She’d said goodbye when the clock had shown eleven thirty and he’d replied politely, ‘See you tomorrow night.’

She got up and showered, dressing in a blue jumper depicting a reindeer with a red sequinned nose, and ate brunch. To cheer herself up she did most of her packing for Switzerland before they began rehearsal at two, the last one before they met at Carola’s house at eight thirty on Monday morning to pack the minibus. What went into her case was mainly jeans, jumpers and thermal base layers along with her padded waterproof overtrousers. Nightclothes and underwear went around the edges and her Middletones black overshirt and red hat and scarf lay carefully on top. She stuck a nightshirt and underwear in her backpack for the overnight stop in France along with her sponge bag.

Much of the allotted rehearsal time was frittered away with everyone going over and over the arrangements. ‘Mum’s dropping me off on her way to work.’

‘Who am I sharing with in the hotel in France?’

‘Do we get breakfast at the hotel?’

‘Is it still snowing?’

‘Are we taking posh clothes?’

Lily took charge. She perched up on Carola’s breakfast bar so everyone could see her. ‘Yes, we get breakfast at the hotel in France, which is at Chalons en Champagne. Sharing rooms: Carola, Charlotte and Emily in a family room, Neil with Eddie, Alfie with Warwick, me with Franciszka.’

Franciszka, her hair brushed back into a floppy sort of ponytail, smiled at Lily and wagged her finger. ‘No snoring.’

Everyone laughed.

‘In Schützenberg,’ Lily went on, to cut through a flurry of teenaged jokes about farting being worse than snoring, ‘most of you are at the Little Apartments, which are like hotel rooms with a kitchenette in the corner. Franciszka and I are being put up in an annexe in the garden of the CEO of British Country Foods, Loris, who is known as Los.’

‘Los the Boss.’ Eddie grinned.

‘Exactly,’ agreed Lily. ‘He’s Max’s boss and also Garrick’s boss, and Garrick is Tubb’s brother. Los is the one who gave the green light for the whole trip and the sponsorship from BCF, so we all need to be really, really nice to him. OK?’

‘OK,’ they chorused.

Carola, who’d been frowning, clapped her hands. ‘But you know this stuff and we can go over it again in the minibus. Let’s sing! That’s what we’re here for.’

Lily wasn’t the only one to blink at the snap in Carola’s voice. Warwick and Eddie moved slowly to plug in their instruments while Charlotte muttered, ‘Wow, chill, Mum.’