Selena is the one who says stuff like that. Then Julia tells her to quit being such a sap and anyone who fails English is on her own, because personally she’d rather snog Orla Burgess with tongues than do Ordinary Level English and be forced to listen to Miss Fitzpatrick sniffing up her nose-drip every ten seconds like clockwork.

Selena says nothing. She’s drifted away again, eyes on the sky, swaying with the rhythm of Becca’s fingers.

Julia says, ‘If you fail Science, we’ll all do Ordinary Level together. I’ll survive without my world-famous-neurosurgeon career.’

Becca glances up, startled, looking for the snide edge, but Julia smiles at her, a real full-on smile. One confused second and then Becca smiles back. Selena’s swaying eases as her hands gentle.

‘I don’t want to do Honours Bio anyway,’ Holly says. She stretches her legs out luxuriously and clasps her hands behind her head. ‘They make you dissect a sheep heart.’

‘Eww,’ all round, even Selena.

Julia tucks the pebble into her pocket and stands up. She bends her knees, swings her arms, and leaps; hovers above the bush for a second, arms outspread, head back and throat bared to the sky; and floats down to land, one-toed like a dancer, on the grass.

On Thursday Julia barfs at the beginning of Guidance, right when Sister Cornelius is winding up for a long bewildering rant involving nightclubs and self-respect and what Jesus would think of Ecstasy drugs. She figures she might as well get something out of all this.

Selena’s phone is still in the same place. Chris has been sending her predictable texts. She hasn’t answered them.

Julia texts him: 1 o’clock tonight. Usual place. DON’T text me back. Just come. Once the text has gone through, she deletes it out of Selena’s Sent box.

She’s planning to lie in bed and study, because the real world still exists, whether that prick Chris and that fool Selena like it or not, the Junior Cert is still going to need taking, and today that actually feels comforting. Instead she falls asleep, too instantly and intensely even to fight it.

She wakes up because the others are banging into the room and there are people shrieking in the corridor. ‘Oh my God,’ Holly says, slamming the door behind them. ‘You know what that’s about? Rhona heard that somebody’s cousin queued up somewhere for something and the one with the stupid hair out of One Direction touched her hand. Not, like, married her; just touched her. That’s it. I think my ear died. Hi.’

‘I had a relapse,’ Julia says, sitting up. ‘If you want me to prove it, come over here.’