“Yeah, but your mum’s a doctor,” Luis counters. “It’s all relative.”

Femi shakes her head. “You got a date for the prom, Cam?”

“He’s going with Molly,” Aaron tells her.

Her face seems to drop. “Oh.”

Poor Luis is just standing there, waiting for an answer. He coughs.

Femi blows her cheeks out. “I’ll think about it.”

“Prom’s tomorrow!” Luis says.

Femi looks at him, then at Aaron, then at me. “Look, I think I’m gonna go with Aaron,” she says.

And all at once, my stomach knots as the green nausea of jealousy surges through my veins and I realize how much I’ve fallen for this stupidly cute boy in zoo overalls whose Year 9 science project I once ruined.

*

I hear the doorbell ring and give myself one last glance in the mirror. The waist of my dinner-suit trousers feels unnaturally high – although Dad assured me that’s where trousers are meant to sit.

Mum knocks and pokes her head in. “Molly’s here.”

“’kay.”

She comes over and tweaks my bowtie. “You look really nice. All the boys will be after you.”

She kisses me on the cheek and is gone before I can compute what she’s said. Huh. She knows, then. Or she’s guessed. Cool. Except I don’t want all the boys to be after me. Just one boy.

*

The balloons are black and gold, everyone’s queuing on the red carpet for a photo next to the giant gold Oscar statue, and the replica ‘Hollywood’ letters across the back of the stage were worth the endless hours we all spent with scissors, card and gaffer tape.

As I stand in the corner of the school hall, looking out at the sea of kids I’ve spent secondary school with, I’m struck with the knowledge that this is one of those significant life moments. After this, we won’t all be together ever again. Everyone’s going their separate ways. It’s the end of what was, and the beginning of something new. And I want to be new, I really do. I want that fresh start, being who I am, not hiding it. But I’m also wary. However far you think we’ve come, you see how people react to the penguins, and you have to ask – has that much really changed?

I want to dance with another boy at this prom like all my straight friends are dancing with each other.

I want to hold his hand and kiss him, and I don’t want anyone to stare or whisper.

I want to be like everyone else, not the subject of a ‘you’ll never guess what!’ group message.

And I want to do all that with Aaron. But he’s dancing with Femi.

*

I head outside. I only mean to get a bit of air and get myself together a bit, but I keep walking and I find myself outside the entrance to the zoo. It’s not about the penguins. I know it’s stupid, but it feels nice coming back to the place where I was with Aaron. It feels like I can be close to him here, in a way that I can’t at the prom.