‘Oh, please, don’t act stupider than you can help. You know who they are.’

Holly shrugs. ‘It could be Selena and Chris Whatshisname from Colm’s. Sorry to ruin your big moment here, but so?’

‘So oopsie,’ Joanne says, pursed-up and cute. ‘I guess you’re not bessie blood sisters after all.’

Bite fast and hard. Not one I had to steal— ‘What do you even care?’ Holly says, lifting an eyebrow. ‘You were never with Chris Harper. Just fancying him doesn’t make him your property.’

Alison says, ‘She was too.’

‘Shut up,’ Joanne hisses, whirling around on her. Alison gasps and vanishes into the shadows. To Holly, icy again: ‘That’s none of your business.’

If Chris actually dumped Joanne for Selena, Joanne is going to take Selena’s throat out. ‘If Chris cheated on you,’ Holly says, carefully, ‘he’s a prick. But why be pissed off with Selena? She didn’t even know.’

‘Oh, don’t worry,’ Joanne says, ‘we’ll get him.’ Her voice calls up a sudden cold gleam, away in the thick dark corners of the corridor; Holly almost steps back. ‘And I’m not pissed off with your friend. It’s over between them, and anyway I don’t get pissed off with people like her. I get rid of them.’

And with that video, she can do that any time she wants. ‘Clichés give me a rash,’ Holly says. She hits the Delete button, but Joanne is watching for that: she grabs the phone back before Holly can confirm. Her nails scrape down Holly’s wrist.

‘Excuse me, don’t even think about it?’

‘You need a manicure,’ Holly says, shaking her wrist. ‘With, like, garden shears.’

Joanne slaps her phone back into Alison’s hand, and Alison scuttles off to put it away. ‘You know what you and your pals need?’ Joanne says, like it’s an order. ‘You need to stop acting like you’re such super-special amazing bessie friends. If you were, that manatee wouldn’t be lying to you about shagging Chris Harper; and even if she did, you’d like know telepathically, which you so didn’t. You’re exactly the same as everyone else.’

Holly has no comeback to that. It’s over between them. That scraped-out look to Selena, ice wind ripping right through her: this is why. This, the most obvious typical clichéd reason in the world, so typical she never even thought of it. Joanne Heffernan got there first.

Holly can’t take one more second of her face, swollen fat with all the delicious gotcha she was after. The corridor lights flicker, make a noise like paint spattering and pop out. Through the surge of chicken-coop noises from Joanne’s room, Holly feels her way back to bed.