‘You want me. Admit it, you slag!’

I considered breaking into a run, but knew it wouldn’t work. They were faster than us and would catch up easily and when they did things would be worse.

Edie stopped dead in her tracks then turned to face them, squaring her shoulders and raising her chin in defiance.

‘Leave it, Edie,’ I whispered. ‘Let’s just get back.’

‘No.’ She spoke loud enough for them to hear. ‘These little boys are rude and annoying and are ruining our walk.’

‘Making it better, you mean,’ Billy said. ‘Offering you a ride when I know you’re gagging.’

The boys had stopped walking. They jostled and nudged each other. Whispered. Waited to see what this new girl was going to do. I glanced at a family beside us on the beach. The man was reading a newspaper in a colourful deckchair while his wife bounced a baby on her lap, sand coating his pudgy hands and chin where he’d been eating it. There was a second child. She wore a frilled swimsuit and banged an upturned bucket with a small blue spade. The woman was staring at us.

‘You know, that’s exactly what I meant,’ Edie said. ‘We were literally just saying, weren’t we Tamsyn, that we really hope we get the chance to screw a guy on the beach with a great big dick.’

I gasped and Billy smiled at his mates like he’d won a prize.

‘But,’ she said in a breezy voice, ‘I heard you have one this size.’ She wiggled her little finger in the air and gave a regretful shrug. ‘Which is such a shame.’

She stood with one hand on her hip, ice cream in the other, eyes shining with bravery. The woman beside us muttered, disgust on her face, as she exchanged looks with her husband who momentarily glanced up from his paper.

Billy Granger’s smile slipped away as he visibly attempted to process what she’d hurled at him. His friends tried not to laugh, but two of them didn’t manage it and were forced to smother their sniggering with fake coughing and dropped heads.

His mouth twisted into a snarl as he fought the bristling humiliation. ‘What did you say?’

My stomach rolled with nerves. I swallowed. My mouth had dried up, the taste of vanilla ice cream now cloying and sickly.

‘Come on, Tamsyn.’ She pulled on my arm as she turned. ‘These babies are boring me.’

We took a couple of paces, then her body lurched forward as he shoved her from behind. ‘I said – you ugly bitch – what did you say?’

She stopped. Turned again. Stepped close to him.