‘Elly, you look great.’ Kate stood up and smoothed her tight dress, which reached about a quarter of the way down her thighs. It had capped sleeves and a loud, geometric print in shades of pink and orange. She shrugged into a lace waistcoat. ‘Too much?’ she asked Ellen.

‘Too much.’

Kate shrugged it off again. ‘Heels or no heels?’ she asked, crouching down to peer into the bottom rack of her teeming wardrobe.

‘Oh, don’t wear heels,’ Ellen moaned. ‘You take ages to walk down the street. And it’s, like, a twenty-minute walk.’

‘Fine,’ Kate said, protesting. ‘Chill out. Have you made the drinks yet?’

Ellen shook her head and Kate tutted at her. She moved to the desk, where – beside Kate’s laptop and her A Level English folder – were a bottle of squash, a 35cl bottle of Glen’s vodka, purchased from the one Costcutter on the high street that didn’t ID them, and two glasses.

Kate poured a slug of squash into both tumblers and held them out. ‘Go to the bathroom, and top these up with a little water. Only a little.’

Ellen obliged, returning thirty seconds later, handing one back to Kate.

She scrutinized it, took a swig from the glass and then – with a practised air – topped it up to the rim with the vodka. ‘Give me yours.’

Ellen passed it to her.

Kate gave it the same treatment. Then she held her glass out to clink Ellen’s. ‘Saturday night.’ She took a swig and grimaced. ‘Ugh.’ She swallowed. ‘Let’s leave in forty minutes.’

Ellen took a more conservative sip of the concoction, though it still burned the back of her throat. It tasted like fermented glue. Kate had started to bob to the Flo Rida song that was playing from the tinny speakers on her laptop. Ellen laughed and nudged her gently, then moved to the desk to sit at the laptop. She took another swig of the drink. It tasted less noxious this time.

She opened Facebook, logged Kate out and logged herself in. She scrolled down the homepage for a minute and then went back up to the top, to the status box.

What’s on your mind?

She watched the cursor blink. Her current status was her BBM pin. She tapped into the box.

soooooooo drunk right now.

She would be soon. She drained her glass.

‘That’s better,’ Kate said, bobbing towards her. ‘Another?’

The vodka had gone straight to Ellen’s head. ‘Definitely.’

Four vodka squashes later, and they were verging on hysterical – and ready to sneak past Kate’s parents’ room, her father’s snores reverberating around the hallway, making sure not to wake the dog on their way out. Tonight the plan was Pulse, if they could get in, and the Regal if they couldn’t. They basically always got into the Regal.