We find Elsa slumped on Annie’s lap, chewing a wafer and staring at the sea. Annie’s arms are wrapped round her waist. ‘I like her,’ she says. ‘She doesn’t talk and she smells kind of milky.’

‘Doesn’t she!’ says Rose.

Elsa looks sleepy so I leave her with Annie and sit down, only this time I twist Pongo’s lead several times round my wrist. We all go back to our melting sundaes.

After a moment, Rose says, ‘Did you see that lady’s face? She went purple!’

‘Pongo made her drop her chips,’ I say.

‘She shouted, “Yobbo!” after you,’ says Rose.

‘I’ve never been called a yobbo before,’ I say.

‘I have,’ says Jackson, ‘loads of times,’ and for some reason this makes us burst out laughing. Elsa jiggles up and down on Annie’s lap and then she starts laughing too.

‘Oh no,’ says Annie, ‘I just realised something.’

‘What?’ says Jackson.

‘Look at us.’ She shakes her head. ‘We’ve only gone and socially connected. Mr Curtis is going to be unbearable.’

‘To Biscuit Club!’ says Jackson, raising his milkshake glass. Rose and I join him and we chink glasses in the middle of the table.

‘No way,’ says Annie, shaking her head again. ‘Absolutely no way.’

When Elsa and I get home, I do my usual checks and look at my texts, emails and Facebook. There’s nothing from Mum, but I do have a friend request, from Annie.

I’m not Facebook friends with anyone from school. If I accept, then Annie will see that most of my ‘friends’ are telescopes or space agencies, and she’ll see the hundreds of moon photos I’ve shared. But then I realise that I’ll see what she loves too and I think I’d like to know that. Before I can change my mind, I click accept.

So now Annie and I are friends. It’s official.

She sends me my first message while I’m feeding Elsa pasta shapes. She posts a photo on my timeline of a man’s hairy bum. Below it she’s written: Thought you’d like to add this to your moon collection. I stare at the picture wondering what the Sussex Stargazers will make of it. Suddenly I get another message: Let me know if you want to see a black hole, you space freak. X Annie

I’m smiling when I look up to see Elsa casually flip her bowl of pasta on to the floor. She hangs her head over the side of her high chair and watches as Pongo bounces around, gobbling it up.

‘That’s annoying,’ I say. ‘I haven’t got any more left so now you’re going to have to sit there while I make you some toast.’

‘Da?’ says Elsa, holding out a single pasta spiral to me. I reach out for it, but just before I can take it, she lets it drop to the floor then laughs like mad. I feel the usual prickle of annoyance, but then something new happens. I pick up the piece of pasta and hold it out to her. As her hand is reaching for it, I let it slip through my fingers.