They were sat in a circle around the fire. The area they were camped in was large and sprawling, with tents of various colours and shapes spread out across an open field. The light was just going out of the day, and James could see other people huddled around fires in the distance, drinking from cans or mugs as they sat on the grass or in fold-out green camping chairs. His own little group of six had finished eating not long before, and James could still feel the remains of his boil-in-the-bag chilli con carne sloshing around in his stomach. He’d only managed to eat half of it in the end – partly because he was nervous about the coming weekend and partly because it tasted disgusting – which had prompted a predictable dig from Gary.

‘Finally going on a diet are you, Tramper?’ he’d said, loud enough so the whole group could hear.

James had done his best not to look embarrassed.

In the half-hour since the food had been finished, a sleepy silence had fallen as his friends stretched out and shuffled closer to the fire. Gary was on his left, his long legs folded awkwardly beneath his body; Matt and Tom were to his right, laughing about something or other, their heads close together as they spoke in half-whispers. And across the fire, which was just catching and beginning to give off tendrils of smoke, were Tim and his father.

Tim.

The New Boy, as Gary still insisted on calling him.

Tim wasn’t actually that new anymore – he’d joined Oaksmith Secondary School about halfway through Year 8, maybe just after Christmas – but they didn’t often get new kids coming into their school during term time. James guessed that made Tim the new boy.

And besides, he still felt like the new boy.

There was something about Tim that was sort of absent –stand-offish, James’ gran might have said – that made him hard to get to know.

With someone like Gary, he’d just come up and punch you on the arm or make some stupid joke and that would be that, friends for fucking life as Gary liked to put it, but Tim seemed to give off this aura that meant you couldn’t joke around with him in the same way you could with the others.

James remembered a day earlier in the year – one of many schooldays that seemed to meld together into a blur of forgettable lessons and too-short lunchtimes spent hanging around on the field or walking to the cafe to get chips – when Tim had wandered up to their little group during break.

At that point he wasn’t someone James would have thought of as a friend (not that he really is now, either, a part of his mind added), but the new boy didn’t know anyone else and James’ gran had made a point of asking them to look out for him.