“I don’t want to go back to school,” Priti groans, slipping into my room and plopping herself down onto my bed. Unlike me, she’s spent most of the day with her head buried in her books, at Ammu’s insistence. She’s a year younger than me, which means that this school year will be her first state exam. Every Irish student has to do them in their third year of secondary school.

“Well, that’s too bad,” I tell her.

She groans again, and turns to face me with a frown on her lips. “You’re so lucky to be going into Transition Year. Getting to do fun stuff. Trying different things. Getting work experience.”

“Yep, lucky …” The truth is that while the rest of the girls in our year have been bubbling with excitement at the idea of Transition Year, I’ve been feeling a sense of dread ever since I decided to go ahead with it instead of skipping ahead to Fifth Year. Transition Year is meant to be a year of doing practical things, of getting work experience and exploring the world around us, but I’m not sure I’m ready for the world yet. I much prefer stressing over exams.

“So, feeling prepared for your Junior Cert?” I know this will get a rise out of Priti. It always does.

She groans and buries her face in her hands, like I’ve just said the worst possible thing.

“Please, please don’t start,” she says. “Please, for this entire year, never bring up exams at all. I’ll have enough of that from Ammu.”

I can’t help but laugh.

“So what do you want me to do when it’s June? Just not speak to you at all?”

“You can speak to me,” she says. “But just … not about exams. You can just avoid it. Pretend there are no exams. Pretend that I’m off for the summer with you, too.”

“Okay, okay. No exam talk. Even though you didn’t exactly let up on that last year.”

“Are you nervous?” Priti asks then, looking at me with wide eyes. “About the results?”

I try to bite down the anxiety bubbling in the pit of my stomach and just shake my head. If I show my nerves now, Priti will be even more nervous going into the year than she already is.

“What’s done is done. Nothing I can do about it now, so there’s no point being nervous, is there?”

We spend the night ironing our school uniforms and getting them ready to go in the morning, sighing complaints about each and every thing we can think of to do with school.

As I’m in the bathroom brushing my teeth before bed, Priti leans against the doorway.

“You’re not going to … try and get somewhere with Flávia, are you?”

My mouth is full of toothpaste, so I just shrug.