It was a good theory. ‘You know Maggie had her bag snatched?’ I knew Farah wouldn’t know this and relished being the one to tell her. Her reaction was exactly what I was hoping for.

‘No way! That’s awful. When was this?’

‘A few weeks ago. I heard her shout and I…’ What did I do exactly?

‘You were there?’ She was enthralled. It was great.

‘Yeah. I ran to help her but I got punched in the face and he made off with her bag.’ At least my account was factually correct even if a little misleading.

Farah’s hands shot to her face as she gasped. ‘Tom. You could have been seriously hurt.’

I shrugged my shoulder and sipped my lemonade. It was the cloudy sort with a real lemon tang. No cheap stuff here. ‘I wish I could have caught him, that’s all.’ Who was I kidding? Anyone could beat the crap out of me. Maggie did.

‘Was Maggie okay?’

‘Yeah. She was fine. She’s tough.’ We sipped our drinks and I marvelled at the looks she was giving me. I could tell she was impressed. This was awesome.

‘When do you think you’ll be able to go home?’ she asked.

‘Not for ages yet. We both need to calm down. But I should be revising.’

‘Excellent!’ She clapped her hands together. ‘We can revise here together. It’ll save us going to the library and getting wet.’

‘Yeah. Okay.’ My day just got a whole lot better.

*

I had the best time. We revised a bit. We chatted. Well, mainly Farah chatted and I listened, which was bliss because her voice is like discovering music for the first time. She made us ham and pineapple pizza for tea and served it with garlic bread, coleslaw and salad. Salad! Like a proper meal. Then we tested each other on our history and I did okay. She has some cool ways of remembering stuff. She even made me a couple of revision cards to bring home. They’re in my pocket. I think I’ll treasure them forever.

I took a breath before I unlocked my front door. The plan was to scoot straight upstairs and hope Dad was asleep somewhere but as I opened the door the smell hit me. Not the manky smell like before. This was sharp and pungent and made me gag – it was vomit. What happened next was a bit of a blur. I ran into the living room and there was Dad. He was lying on his back bubbling sick out of his mouth. He was unconscious and his face was a grey blue colour. I knew what was happening. I’d read about it – he was choking on his own vomit. Gross and fatal.