She cranes her neck back to look back at me. ‘Mamama,’ she says.

‘That’s right.’ She smiles at me and makes a grab for my face. ‘Ow! I need to cut your nails.’ Then I realise that Mum will do that … and give Elsa her dinner and do up all the poppers on her Babygro tonight. Elsa turns back to face the sea and I push off with my toes and start us swinging. She laughs and I press my nose into her silky hair and smell a mixture of bubble bath and Weetabix. Rose is right. This is the best smell in the world.

I point up at the sky. The moon has just started to appear, a pale orange disc sitting low in the sky. ‘That’s the moon,’ I say. ‘Moon.’

‘Beb,’ she says.

‘No, not Meg, moon.’ But she just bangs back against me, trying to get me to swing higher. ‘Nearly fifty years ago,’ I say, ‘two men walked on the moon for the first time. Did you know that the moon has a smell? When the astronauts got back into the lunar module and shook the moon dust from their clothes, it smelt of gunpowder. They could even taste it.’ Elsa settles against me as we float up and down. ‘Then they discovered the switch that they needed to leave the moon had broken so Buzz Aldrin made a new one by sticking a pen in the control panel.’ I breathe in the evening air and stare at the luminescent lump of rock that has been pulling me closer all my life. ‘I think that the moon is the most beautiful thing in the world,’ I say, ‘except for you.’

‘Da,’ she says, then she blows a raspberry, then she says, ‘moo’.

‘There are no cows here,’ I say. ‘Only seagulls.’

‘MOO!’ she says, pointing up at the pale sky.

I follow her finger and see that she’s pointing right at the golden moon. ‘Moo!’ Elsa says again, ‘Moo!’

My heart lifts. ‘That’s right,’ I say, ‘that’s the moon.’

FIFTY-EIGHT

‘Stand close to the mirror and tilt your head back.’ I do what Annie tells me. We’re talking on Skype and she’s being my CAPCOM again, helping me get ready for my date with Ed. She wanted to come round here, but I didn’t trust her not to say anything embarrassing in front of Ed. Having Mum around is going to be bad enough.

‘And why exactly am I doing this?’ I ask her.

‘You’re looking for out-of-sight boogers that might drop down later … See any?’

‘God, yes!’ I get a tissue and blow my nose.

Annie says, ‘Right, now growl at yourself. You’re checking for bits between your teeth.’

I bare my teeth in the mirror. ‘Grrrr … No bits.’

‘I think you’re ready. Nervous?’

‘Want to puke.’

‘Yeah … don’t do that. Right, now show me how you look.’

I prop my phone on my desk and take a last look in the mirror. I’m actually wearing a dress. I’ve never been to any of our school discos, but if I’ve learnt anything from Bella this week it’s that some sort of special outfit is expected tonight. It’s been a strange week at school. Ed and I have done a lot of talking and hanging out together, but no more hand-holding. I’ve even wondered if somehow I’ve got it all wrong – if he’s asked me to the dance as a really good friend – but Annie said I was just taking insecurity to a whole new, pathetic level.