‘No,’ Julia says, standing on Becca’s foot. ‘We’d all be delighted if you could just go to bed and forget you ever saw us.’

‘Right. So if you want me to do you a massive favour like that, you should actually probably be nice to me?’

‘We can do nice.’

‘That’s great. The key, please,’ Joanne says. ‘Thanks so much.’ And she holds out her hand.

Julia says, ‘We’ll make you a copy tomorrow.’

Joanne doesn’t bother to answer. She just stands there, staring at none of them in particular and holding out her hand.

‘Come on. For fuck’s sake.’

Her stare widens a fraction. Nothing else.

The silence twists tight. After a long time Julia says, ‘Yeah. OK.’

‘We might make you a copy someday,’ Joanne says graciously, as Selena’s hand slowly comes up towards her. ‘If you remember to be nice, and if you can teach Little Miss Smarty over there what nice even means. Do you think you can manage that?’

It means weeks months years of smiling meekly when Joanne flicks bits of bitchiness their way, of asking pretty-please with a cherry on top can we have our key now, of watching her cock her head and consider whether they deserve it and decide regretfully that they don’t. It means the end of these nights; the end of everything. They want to wrap the dark air around her neck and pull. Selena’s fingers open.

Joanne touches the key and her hand leaps. The key skids and whirls away from her down the floor of the corridor and she’s squawking like she doesn’t have enough breath for a shriek, ‘Ow! OhmyGod, it burned me, owowow it burned what did you do—’

Holly and Julia are in her face and hissing violently, ‘Shut up shut up!’ but not fast enough: at the end of the corridor one of the prefects calls, drowsy and annoyed, ‘What do you want?’

Joanne whips around to scream for her. ‘No!’ Julia whispers, grabbing her arm. ‘Go; get in your room. We’ll give you the key tomorrow. I swear.’

‘Get off me,’ Joanne snarls, terrified into pure fury. ‘You’re going to be so sorry for this. Look at my hand, look what you did—’

Her hand looks totally fine, not even a mark on it, but the light is streaky and Joanne is moving; they can’t tell for sure. Down the corridor, less drowsy and more annoyed: ‘If I have to come out there, I swear to God—’

Joanne’s mouth opens again. ‘Listen!’ Julia hisses, with all the force she can cram into it. ‘If we get caught, then nobody’ll have the key. Get it? Go to bed; we’ll sort it tomorrow. Just go.’