Adam’s shoulders slumped. ‘Oh,’ he said. There was no missing the dejection in his voice. ‘Is that all?’

I realized I’d said the wrong thing. Still, I couldn’t unsay it. Fortunately, Cee Cee helped me out by saying, thoughtfully, ‘You know, a story about Bryce and Father Dominic bravely battling back from their wounds wouldn’t be a bad idea for the paper. Would you mind if I tagged along, Suze?’

‘Not at all.’ A lie, of course. With Cee Cee along, it might be difficult to accomplish what I wanted without a lot of explaining . . .

But what choice did I have? None.

Once I’d secured my ride, I started looking for Sleepy. I found him dozing with his back to the monkey bars. I nudged him awake with the toe of my boot. When he squinted up at me through his sunglasses, I told him not to wait for me after school, that I’d found my own ride. He grunted, and went back to sleep.

Then I went and found a pay phone. It’s weird when you don’t know your own mother’s phone number. I mean, I still knew our number back in Brooklyn, but I didn’t have the slightest idea what my new phone number was. Good thing I’d written it in my date book. I consulted the S’s – for Simon – and found my new number, and dialled it. I knew no one was home, but I wanted to cover all my bases. I told the answering machine that I might be late getting back from school since I was going out with a couple of new friends. My mother, I knew, would be delighted when she got back from the station and heard it. She’d always worried, back in Brooklyn, that I was anti-social. She’d always go, ‘Suzie, you’re such a pretty girl. I just don’t understand why no boys ever call you. Maybe if you didn’t look so . . . well, tough. How about giving the leather jacket a rest?’

She’d probably have died of joy if she could have been in the parking lot after school and heard Adam as I approached his car.

‘Oh, Cee, here she is.’ Adam flung open the passenger door of his car – which turned out to be one of the new Volkswagen Beetles; I guess Adam’s parents weren’t hurting for money – and shooed Cee Cee into the back seat. ‘Come on, Suze, you sit right up front with me.’

I peered through my sunglasses – as usual, the morning fog had burned away, and now at three o’clock the sun beat down hard from a perfectly clear blue sky – at Cee Cee squashed in the back seat. ‘Um, really,’ I said. ‘Cee Cee was here first. I’ll sit in the back. I don’t mind at all.’

‘I won’t hear of it.’ Adam stood by the door, holding it open for me. ‘You’re the new girl. The new girl gets to sit in the front.’