‘Evie used to go to a private school, until – well, until we decided she needed a change. So, I know when the holidays begin, more or less, and I know it’s a bit early still . . .’ She let her voice trail away, her expression a combination of sorrow and sympathy.

Maude wondered why Evie had switched schools. She reached under the duvet – she was lucky Nell hadn’t got as far as searching her room again – and shoved her hand between the mattress and the wall, pulling out the shoe. She wasn’t sure why she’d done that thing with her trainer, only that she liked having the shoe around; she felt better when she looked at it. She held it tightly in her hand as Carolyn sat up a little straighter and looked at her expectantly.

It was a relief to talk about it all, really. A group of girls, feeling their power for the first time, perhaps, turning on the one odd kid in the class – the bookish daydreamer. Not bullying, exactly, everyone had been very careful to avoid that word, but not kind either.

Her parents had been called in, of course – her dad, and Nell, and her real mum too, dandling the new baby on her lap, pretending she still cared.

‘The most important thing,’ the head teacher had said, ‘is that you feel you can speak to someone – to your parents, or to your form tutor, when things might appear to be – over-whelming. Do you understand Maude?’

‘Yes, Mrs Allingham.’

That bit hadn’t been so bad. Maude had begun to feel that everyone might be on her side after all. Then her dad had pitched in. ‘We are so very, deeply sorry about this. Aren’t we, Maude?’

‘Yes.’ Made to say sorry over and over again, as if she was a baby too. She couldn’t look at any of them, she couldn’t meet their eyes, she wished – more than anything – that her mum would put Leo down and give her a hug. A proper, long, breathing-in-hard hug. Instead, Nell reached over and tried to hold her hand; Maude pulled away. ‘I’m very sorry and it won’t happen again,’ she said. She did her best to sound as if she meant it.

Her dad had tried, she was pretty certain, to put the blame elsewhere, that would be just like him, to say it was one of the others – Imogen or Tamsin – who was the ringleader, and to say that she – Maude – was just tagging along. As if that would make what she’d done any more acceptable.

‘I thought I might get expelled,’ she said to Carolyn, not quite daring to look up. ‘But they settled for keeping me off school for a bit.’ She waited for her to say something, to tell her off too.

‘Poor you,’ Carolyn said.

‘Really?’