Suddenly the spotty kid leans in. It takes Becca a second to realise he’s trying to snog her; she turns just in time to give him a mouthful of hair. ‘No,’ she says.

He sits back, looking crestfallen. ‘Ahhh,’ he says. ‘Why not?’

‘Because.’

‘Sorry,’ the kid says. He’s gone scarlet.

‘I think your brother was taking the piss out of you,’ Holly tells him, not being mean. ‘I don’t think that line’s ever worked for anyone. It’s not your fault.’

‘I guess,’ the kid says miserably. He’s obviously still there only because the walk of shame back to his mates is too horrible to contemplate. Becca wants to curl up like a bug and pull weeds over herself till she disappears. The makeup feels like someone held her down and painted HAHAHAHA across her face.

‘Here,’ Selena says. She hands the kid her phone. ‘Take a photo of us. Then you can head back to your friends, and it’ll look like you were just here doing us a favour. OK?’

The kid shoots her a look of pure animal gratitude. ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘OK.’

‘Becs,’ Selena says, and holds out an arm. ‘Come here.’

After a second Becca shuffles herself closer. Lenie’s arm wraps tight around her, Holly leans in against her other shoulder; she feels the warmth of their skin straight through tops and hoodies, the solidity of them. Her body breathes it in like it’s oxygen.

‘Say cheese,’ says the spotty little kid, kneeling up. He sounds a lot more cheerful.

‘Hang on,’ Becca says. She drags the back of her hand across her mouth, hard, smearing Fierce Fox super-matte long-lasting lipstick across her face in a wide war-paint streak. ‘OK,’ she says with a great big smile, ‘cheese,’ and hears the fake click-whirr of the phone as the kid presses the button.

Behind them, Chris Harper shouts out, ‘OK, here I go!’ To the soundtrack of Aileen Russell’s squeal he straightens, high on the breeze blocks, and launches himself up and over in a backflip against the sky. He lands staggering; his momentum takes him skidding through ragwort, onto his back in a patch of shuddering green and gold. He lies there, splayed and breathless, looking up at the cheating blue sky and laughing his heart out.

Chapter 7

The between-classes rush was different, this time round. Huddles against walls, shiny heads tucked close. Low thrumming of a hundred top-speed whispers going at once. Buzz sliced off and girls scurrying when they whipped round and saw us coming. Word had got around.

We caught a bunch of teachers on the early lunch in the staff room – nice staff room, espresso machine and Matisse posters, bit of niceness to keep the mood happy. The PE teacher had been on board-check duty the day before, and she swore she’d checked straight after classes and checked right. Two new cards, she’d spotted, the black Labrador and one about some girl saving her pocket money towards a boob job. Par for the course, she said: back when the board first went up it had been hopping, dozens of new cards a day, but the rush had died down. If there’d been a third new one, she would have noticed.