Secretly Jasmine kind of wanted to bump his car as well. They had both avoided each other like the plague since the kiss but she did like seeing him squirm. There wasn’t a hierarchy as such in their social group, but if there was, she would be a few rungs down on the ladder from Taylor; he was definitely one of the more popular kids. Jasmine moving to Carlton Road had shifted her up the ladder a bit, but Taylor lived on Laskey’s Lane in a very expensive house overlooking the sea.

Felicity rammed their car straight into Taylor, who looked up, startled. They had him pinned against the wall and he was desperately trying to avoid making eye contact with Jasmine, which of course Felicity found hilarious. Jasmine felt powerful, knowing that he couldn’t get away no matter how much he wanted to. But then she looked beyond Taylor and saw Tim.

He was talking with one of the fairground guys in the shadows between a couple of the caravans. She knew it was Tim because he had a way of standing that was so distinctive and different that it just couldn’t be anyone else. It was as though he was leaning against an invisible wall, his head tilted down so that he was always looking up at you. She tried to keep her eyes on him and work out what he was doing. Felicity spun the dodgem around and then when Jasmine looked back to the darkened corner, it was empty. He was gone. She looked around the fairground but she couldn’t see him anywhere. Maybe she hadn’t seen him at all.

They got off the dodgems and Jasmine spotted Jason again, the boy from their class they had seen in the Byes, standing nearby. He was quiet and a bit of a loner, apart from when he was with one of the other loners, like Hannah. Jasmine got the impression that he was normally alone out of choice and not because no one liked him – it was more as if he had a low tolerance for other people. He was always pleasant enough, but you could see his eyes darting around as he looked for an escape. Jason was a bit of a mystery, but that suited him. He was kind of cool in his own way; there were rumours that his older brother was a pot dealer and that was why he almost got a pass from a lot of the other kids, even though he was strange and that wasn’t usually allowed. Jasmine watched Jason and Hannah walk away from the fair, towards the path that ran along the side of the stream. No doubt to snog or smoke pot again, or both.