‘Fine, my place!’

‘All right, losers?’ Bella sits down on her stool. ‘What’re you two talking about?’

‘Kepler’s laws of planetary motion,’ says Ed without missing a beat.

Bella makes a face and starts to put up her hair and I sharpen my pencil as if my life depends on it. What just happened? Did Ed blackmail me into inviting him round to the flat? And why did I agree?

‘You all right, Meg?’ says Bella, pausing mid-hair-twist to look at me. ‘You’re all red. Like a tomato.’

I’m too flustered to say a word, but I see Ed give Bella a meaningful look. ‘OK, OK,’ she says, laughing. ‘Sorry, Meg, I take it back. You definitely don’t look like a bright red glowing tomato, you look totally normal.’

Ms Edgecome saves me from this utterly strange situation by flicking off the lights and starting a film about bubbles. I sit in the dark and try to take in all the interesting points that are being made about water molecules. Just as a cartoon bubble is floating across the screen, I feel a tap on my arm. Ed slides his planner across the desk. There’s one word written on it: Address?

How is this happening? I think, staring determinedly at the screen. I watch as the cartoon bubble bursts in slow motion.

Actually, I know why this is happening.

I said Ed could come round because I want him to. I could try telling myself it’s because of our homework, or because he was about to talk about the dance in front of Bella, but that wouldn’t be true.

When our fingers touched at the science centre, something connected us. It was just something tiny, but each time I see him, or we speak, it seems to grow and become more solid. I can feel it right now, a connection that’s pulling us together, even though there are at least five centimetres of space separating our blue blazers.

It would be easiest to run away from this thing that’s building up between us, because I don’t know if Ed’s feeling it too, and to be honest, it’s scary. My pen hovers over Ed’s planner. Before Mum left, I was just this satellite orbiting home and school, watching the mayhem going on around me, but never joining in. My life was safe and quiet … My life was lonely.

Up on the screen, a mass of rainbow bubbles fills the screen.

I take a deep breath and write my address on the planner. No matter how frightening this is, I’m not going back to watching from a distance. Poyekhali! I think, as I slide the planner back to Ed.

FORTY

I’m queuing up outside PE when Annie glides down the corridor. She goes straight up to Mr Badal and hands him a note. He reads it then clicks his fingers in my direction. ‘Clark, you’re needed in Learning Support. Off you go.’

I follow Annie back down the corridor. ‘What’s going on?’