“You could invite me to your house?” Freya said. “Come on. I can even show you where you live.”

Mum broke into a huge grin when we walked in.

“Freya!” she said. “How lovely to see you!”

“Hi, Mrs Gill-Smith,” Freya said. “I bumped into Cal and he asked me over. Is that OK?”

As they chatted, I wondered what I was supposed to do. Should I get Freya a drink, maybe something to eat? Should we stay in the kitchen, or go into the living room? What if she wanted to see my bedroom?

We ended up in the living room. Freya sat on the sofa, with me on the armchair. She’d taken off her shoes and sat with her legs crossed, holding a glass of apple juice.

“So, why did you come round?” I asked, a bit confused.

“I wanted to see you.” Freya shrugged. “For help with my mission to stop Anu. Plus, I felt bad for you.”

“So you’re here because you feel sorry for me?” I asked.

“No,” Freya said. “I like you, too. I’ve liked you since nursery. But that was different, obvs …”

“Huh?” I said. What did she mean by “like”?

“I like you,” she repeated. “You’re smart and funny – and strange. I adore strange people.”

“But …” I began.

“Look,” she said. “You’re not making this very easy.”

She put her drink down and stood up. Her eyes were wide under her glasses, her nose was red and her hair was messier than ever.

“Well …” she began, as she sat on the arm of my chair.

I felt nervous and sick and excited all at once. Was Freya about to ask me out? Was she about to become my first girlfriend?

“I’m a geek, and you’re a geek, and I think we should, you know, hang out together,” she said.

“Hang out?” My voice went all high-pitched with disappointment.

“Yes,” Freya said. “Like, be friends and do stuff together.”

“Oh …”

“Well?” she said.

“Yes,” I said at last. “Yes, totally …”

Freya smiled. “I thought you might say that,” she said. “Now, are you going to show me your Batman collection or what?”

7

Young Avengers

Freya decided that our first trip out would be to the cinema. She called it a “play date”, which was a bit weird and embarrassing, but I was happy just to be with her.

That weekend, we got tickets for the film of a book I’d read at school. We had no choice – there were no comic book films on, and no fantasies either.

“It’s probably rubbish,” Freya said. “But I’m not watching Pixar with the five-year-olds.”

We were standing in the line for snacks and I hadn’t got a clue what to talk about. “I don’t mind what we watch,” was the best I could come up with.

“I should take off my hat,” Freya said. I guess she was struggling for small talk too.

She stuffed her red woolly hat in her coat pocket. I thought she looked really pretty in it, but I didn’t know how to tell her that.