We sat on the pebbled beach for a while and in between my sobbing I managed to ask her what had happened. She explained that she had seen the shop detective follow me out so had run to another exit, doubled back on herself, placed the eye shadow on a random shelf and then hung around the shop waiting to be apprehended. ‘Trust me, Emily. I promise, they didn’t find the stuff on me so there is nothing they can do about it. It’s okay, nothing is going to happen to us.’ It made sense to me and I burst into tears of total relief. I hugged Louise as tightly and closely as I could. At that time in my life, it was the kindest, most remarkable thing anyone had ever done for me.

When I got home that afternoon, I was met by my father silently reading his paper in our living room. I said hello to him but he didn’t even look up. I thought about how consumed with fear I had been of his reaction as I sat alone in the detective’s office at Superdrug. I hated him more than ever.

Our shoplifting trips were otherwise a success and had a positive effect on our school experience. We started to sell the makeup at super-reduced prices to other girls in our year and the year above. It gave us a certain kudos and we were treated a lot more respectfully for the rest of that school year. Not so many instances of name-calling and not so many occasions when our schoolbooks were strewn onto the pavement and stamped upon. This new status changed dramatically the next year, though, after an encounter with Pete Forshaw, the second-best-looking boy in the school and the boyfriend of the hardest girl in my year, Claire Haslett.

It was a Sunday morning, and I was on my way back from the newsagent’s after buying a Sunday paper for my father. As I walked back home along the seafront, I noticed Pete Forshaw up ahead of me, alone on a bench, scrolling through his phone. I had admired him from afar over the years but had never spoken to him. He was wearing his trademark black leather jacket and dark blue jeans. It was his hair that always caught the eye first; it was jet black with an effortless sheen, parted down the centre to perfectly frame his dark brown eyes. He had a flawless olive complexion apart from a small mole to the side of his top lip.