My skin heats up if I make eye contact with a girl. I think it might be something in my DNA that’s trying to stop me breeding another generation of invisible people. So far it’s working. It’s easier if I avoid girls. But there’s one girl that I wish I could look at without doing an impression of a tomato. She’s Farah Shah. Farah is perfect; from her black, straight-as-a-ruler hair to her bubbles of laughter. She’s smart too. She asks the sorts of questions that make the teachers think. I know she’s completely out of my league but that’s okay; most people are.

‘Tom!’ said Dad loudly, his ruddy face looming around my bedroom door. He waved the fish and chip bag at me. I pointed at my noise-cancelling headphones by way of reply.

He wasn’t cross but he’d probably been calling me. He’s all right is my dad. He’s a bit invisible like me. I followed him downstairs. We don’t talk much. He works nights and I’m at school all day. He dished out the food, I grabbed the tomato ketchup and we ate it on our laps in front of the TV. We always have our meals like this. It’s just me, Dad and the TV. Mum died when I was in year four.

I unwrapped my dinner. ‘Saveloy?’ I pointed at the alarmingly red item peering at me from under the chips.

‘Yeah, sorry. They’d run out of battered sausages.’ He went back to eating his.

‘But I hate them.’ I gave it a prod with my fork.

‘Do you?’ He seemed surprised. ‘My mistake. It was your mum who loved the things. First meal I bought her was saveloy and chips.’

I was a bit surprised at that. Not that my mum like saveloys but that my dad had mentioned her. He doesn’t talk much anyway but he never talks about Mum. I guess I’d got used to not trying to chat about her because it was pointless. He’d always change the subject or simply walk away. But now I saw my chance to ask about her. It was a good opportunity because it was a workday so he’d not been at the whisky. But what did I want to know?

I ignored the offensive saveloy and mopped up some ketchup with a giant chip. A thought struck me. ‘How did you and Mum first meet?’ I asked, turning on the old brown sofa so I could see my dad’s reaction. There was patchy stubble on his chin; he’d not shaved properly.