The sun is hot on our bare legs and the soles of our feet are filthy where we’ve been running around on the dry, dusty grass in Alice’s garden. I promised Mum I’d be home by five o’clock at the latest, because I’ve got to have a bath and hair wash and get my stuff ready for the boring geography trip tomorrow. A visit to a sewage-treatment works. Yippee.

Except I won’t be going on the trip, and nor will Alice. We have a plan.

“This has to work, Lizzie,” Alice says. “There’s no way I’m going to spend the day looking at rivers of poo. It’s gross. I don’t care how interesting Mr. Rutherford says it is.”

“Fancy having to eat your lunch in a place like that,” I say. “It’s going to be really hot tomorrow, too. Can you imagine the smell?”

Alice pretends to gag into her hand.

“Right, let’s go over it one more time,” she says. “Because if we end up on that coach to Shitsville, I might have to slit my throat.”

We put our heads together and take it in turns to whisper exactly what we’re going to do, from the second I get off my bus, right up until the moment Alice gives me the sign. If we stick to the plan, we’ll be able to spend most of the day lounging around in the garden and listening to music.

But as I’m walking home, I start having second thoughts. I’ve never pretended to have a seizure before. Why would I? It’s wrong, so very wrong. And it’s the worst feeling in the world, lying on the ground with a crowd of faces peering down at me as if I’m some kind of freak. It’s embarrassing. Humiliating. It’s like being stripped bare in public. Why would I put myself through that on purpose?

Because I’ve promised Alice I’ll do it. That’s why. Because I still feel bad about what happened after the disco and that awful, awful thing I said. This is my chance to really make it up to her. If I lose her friendship, I lose everything. And anyway, I don’t want to go on that smelly geography field trip any more than she does.

Mum does her usual fussing around the next morning.

“Don’t wander too far from the teachers and parents, will you?” she says. “And remember to drink plenty of water to keep yourself hydrated. Oh, and make sure you put your factor fifty on.”

I roll my eyes behind her back.

“I wish I’d offered to help,” she says.

I send a silent prayer of thanks to old Mrs. Samuels down the road. She and her hospital appointment are the reason Mum isn’t going to be one of the parent helpers today.