At exactly three o’clock I looked out of the window and saw that it had begun to rain again. Sometimes I thought the weather knew just when school started and finished. Twenty minutes later we were packing our things away, getting ready to go home.

“Before you go, Badgers Class, I want to tell you something,” Miss Burnell said. “I’m going to change the seating around tomorrow.”

A few people groaned and a few more said “Yes!” under their breath.

“When you come in tomorrow morning,” Miss Burnell said, “please look for where I’ve placed your English books. That will be your new seat until the end of term.”

Miss Burnell was one of those teachers who liked to “mix it up a bit” and move the classroom around. I’d been sitting at the same desk for the past month and I liked it there. I didn’t like it when we changed around. I worried about who I’d end up next to.

*

When I got out of school, I headed up the hill to where Mum normally parked. Henry was asleep in the back of the car. Nursery always wore him out.

“Hey, Anna,” said Mum. “All ready for the supermarket?”

I huffed. I’d forgotten about that. “I guess,” I said.

We drove down the road, passing Shavina and Erin and some others from my class. They were probably all going off to do their exciting clubs or hobbies. A knot of envy twisted deep inside my stomach.

“How was school, Anna?” said Mum.

“Fine. We had a new girl start today,” I said.

“Ah. Is she nice?” said Mum.

“Yes, I think so,” I said. “She’s not very well, so she has to stay at home and watch the lessons through this cool robot. She’s called Ellie.”

“Oh, yes, I’ve heard about Ellie,” said Mum. “The school sent out an email explaining how it’s all going to work. It sounds so clever.”

Mum checked her mirror before she turned a corner.

“Do you know what is wrong with her?” I said. “What I mean is … is it serious?”

We pulled up to a roundabout and stopped to let a bus go past. We followed the bus, then turned off down the road where the supermarket was.

“I don’t know exactly,” Mum said, “but the email mentioned that she’s finished her treatment. I think the important thing has been to keep her away from any risk of catching germs, in case they make her really poorly.”

I hoped Ellie was going to be OK.

“Miss Burnell asked me to look after her at break-time,” I said. “But I don’t think I did it very well.”

“What do you mean?” said Mum.

I couldn’t say that it was because everyone else was far more interesting than me as they actually did things out of school. If I said that, Mum might feel bad.