And that’s when my tiredness and hunger overwhelm me and something inside me snaps. ‘Well, at least I’m not an uber-bitch, Annie!’

Rose gasps, Jackson laughs and Annie turns round to face me, her eyes glittering and a smile playing on her lips. ‘The geek speaks! Did you just call me an uber-bitch?’

‘Sorry,’ I mutter. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’

Annie smiles and does a little shake of her head, then she goes to the door, pulls it open and leaves us sitting in silence.

After a moment, Jackson reaches up and pats Mr Curtis on the shoulder. ‘Don’t worry about it, Sir. She does that in most lessons.’

‘I know,’ he says, then he pulls a briefcase on to his lap and snaps it open. He disappears behind the lid, reappearing with a red box. Budgen’s Broken Biscuits is written across the front. ‘Who wants a biscuit?’

FOURTEEN

Despite the biscuits, by the time I get to my last lesson, science, I’m running on empty. As we queue up outside the classroom, I rest my head against the wall and drift in and out of the conversations taking place around me. As usual, everyone is speaking a language I don’t understand, a language that today involves the words ‘contouring’, ‘jacking’, ‘TPU tips’ and someone – or something – called ‘Devo’. Harriet used to be my teen-speak translator. She had two older sisters and always knew what this sort of stuff was. Without her, I’m lost.

Ed and Bella are leaning against the wall opposite me. Bella’s sucking a lolly and Ed’s telling her something that’s making her laugh. When she sees me watching them, she pulls the green lolly out of her mouth with a pop. ‘I heard you’ve been a naughty girl,’ she says with a smile.

I swallow and try to prepare myself for whatever Bella’s about to say.

Ed looks up. ‘What’s she done?’

‘She only went and got a detention!’

‘Really?’ Ed frowns and laughs.

‘I was just late to school,’ I say, but I’m drowned out by Ms Edgecombe coming out of the lab and shouting, ‘Who’s ready to get physical?’

We’re working on our own at the start of the lesson so I get to zone out. I spent lunchtime in the library – sneakily eating a baguette and trying to revise the life cycle of stars – but I didn’t get much done. I should have just found a radiator, curled up next to it and gone to sleep.

Sleep … beautiful sleep …

‘Meg!’ A bit of rubber bounces off my forehead and I look up to see Bella staring across the table at me. ‘I know you’ve gone all badass on us since you got your detention, but are you actually going to help us with this?’

It looks like Miss handed round a worksheet without me even noticing.

I pull it towards me and read it through. ‘The answers are “copper”, “attract” and “molecules”,’ I say. ‘Ed can do the rest.’ I push the sheet to him then take a big drink of water and press my fingers into my eyes. I need to wake up.