“Oh, God,” said Lulu.

“Well, it was just this little tubey bottle on the side of the sink, and I picked it up like this with my eyes all closed and everything, and I did think to myself, Well, that’s funny, I didn’t know toothpaste came in bottles, but I knew it had to be toothpaste because that’s where we always kept it, you see. So I gave it a really good strong squeeze over my brush, and of course it all rushed out and down the sink, and I thought, And that’s funny, too, this toothpaste is a bit gloopy, but I still had it in my head that it was toothpaste, okay? So the next thing was, I went to brush my teeth with it! And let me tell you something, hair-conditioner-flavored toothpaste tastes really, really …”

Finally taking account of the expression on the faces of her audience, she stopped.

“Oh,” she said.

“I will kill you,” said Lulu.

“It’s okay,” said Charlie. “It’s only hair conditioner.”

“I’m so sorry,” said Sophie. “I had no idea it was so special, Charlie. I’ll buy you another one, Charlie, I promise.”

“It cost more than a week of your wages,” said Lulu. “I will kill you. I will.”

“It’s no big deal,” said Charlie. “It’s only hair conditioner and you were always telling me I shouldn’t spend money on it anyway, Lulu. Maybe this is a message from the universe to me that I don’t need to have it and really shouldn’t have it.”

“Well, you don’t need it!” said Sophie. Brightening a little, she cast her eye over Charlie’s abundant mane. “You have such gorgeous hair, you don’t need to do anything with it, really.”

“Not the point, Soph,” said Lulu. “Going to kill you.”

“But she doesn’t need it! Look at her! Now, if she had really bad, difficult, frizzy hair like—”

“If you say one more word …” began Lulu.

“I wasn’t even thinking about you, actually! You’re not the only person in the world with hair, you know. God. Actually, Charlie, I was thinking about my friend Esme, who’s like my best friend in the world and I love her to pieces, but she has—and she’d tell you this herself—really terrible hair, all dry and horrible, and if she doesn’t use conditioner, she looks just awful, like a clinically depressed haystack in a cyclone. But you look gorgeous without it, Charlie. Okay, you look super-mega-gorgeous with it. But even without it, you still look amazing.”

“Still not the point, Soph,” said Lulu. “Still going to kill you.”

“Sorry,” said Sophie.

There was a silence around the table, while Lulu stared coldly into her empty coffee mug and Sophie collected sticky toast crumbs on her finger and licked them sadly.

“Shall I make some more coffee?” she said, after a moment.

“I’ll do it.” Lulu began to rise from the table.

“No, I can!” Eager to redeem herself, Sophie shot to her feet. “Just because you make the most super-gourmet coffee in the history of the world doesn’t mean you have to do it all the time. Sit down and let me do it for once.”