‘I know.’ I pointed at my nose. But we both knew that was a lucky punch and she could have ended up in hospital. ‘I’m going that way anyway. I don’t want you thinking I’m following you.’

Her frown softened. ‘As long as you don’t think I’m some little old lady who needs looking after.’

‘Err. No. Obviously not.’ That was exactly what I was thinking because she was a little old lady. I don’t think my thoughts were unreasonable.

‘I saw you studying. Did you get much done?’ she asked.

‘Yeah.’

‘What subject?’

‘History.’

‘Because you like history or because you need to do better?’

‘I got bad results in my mocks.’ Why was I telling her that? I’ve not even told Dad. I’m waiting for the school to do that. Everyone else has a computer so their parents already know. It’s the first time I’ve been pleased about not having one.

‘Bit of a wake-up call, was it?’ she asked.

‘Yeah. Fail now and it’s the dog food factory for me.’

Maggie spun around to face me, making me stop suddenly to avoid knocking her over. ‘What?’ She gave me the same concerned look she did last week when there was blood pouring from my nose. But this time she looked more alarmed. ‘Is someone threatening you?’

‘Yeah.’ Her concerned expression intensified. ‘My dad wants me to work at the factory.’

Maggie dissolved into peals of laughter. ‘Goodness, you had me worried there. I thought someone was threatening to turn you into dog food.’

‘It’s not a Mafia thing. They’re not going to feed me to the fishes.’ She was still laughing. It wasn’t that funny. ‘Although, that would be better than working at the factory. It stinks.’

She renewed her cackle of a laugh and it set me off too. We’d stopped by the time we reached the bus shelter. It was dark and there was nobody else waiting.

‘When’s your bus?’ I asked.

‘Twenty minutes. Go on, you get off. I’m fine.’ She did a shooing motion with her hand.

‘Nah, you’re okay.’ I didn’t like the thought of her sitting there on her own. It didn’t seem right to walk off and leave her, not after what had happened.

There was silence while we both took it in turns to look at our feet and smile at each other. It seems she wasn’t great at conversation either. She got a book out of her bag and I thought of the many that were weighing mine down and put it on the ground. ‘What’s your book?’ I asked.