‘Yesterday … plenty of time to take advantage now I’m around all day. Do you want one too?’ She jangles a huge bunch of keys in her pocket. ‘They even let me keep these overnight now. So we can go back in whenever you like. See, I told you jacking school would be worth it. Mad, right? You turn sixteen and bam, suddenly everything you’ve been deciding for yourself for years doesn’t matter to anyone else anymore. Even if there are people who don’t like what you’re doing they can’t do a fucking thing about it. Guess you have to draw a line in the sand somewhere, right? You’ll see, soon enough…’

I pinch my nose. ‘Did it hurt?’

She snorts, twirling the keys around a finger as she starts to walk down the road.

‘I can do it now. We’ve got time before getting Drina if you want. It’s only half ten.’

I trot to keep up, rubbing my nose between my fingers.

‘How do you do it? Is it with the ear gun? Do you just use that? Or is it different? Doesn’t it need to be bigger?’

‘There’s a setting. You just change it.’

‘What, like a ruler?’

‘Ruler? What are you like?’

‘Yeah, like a measurement or something.’

‘It’s like a nail gun, Carls. Not a fucking ruler.’

‘But I mean the actual bit, you know, the needle or pin that makes the hole…’

She stops and turns. ‘Do you want one or not?’ The gem looks like a star with her head all high up in the night sky.

‘Maybe not yet. Half of these are still infected…’ I run my fingertip down the studs on the lip of my ear.

She leans down and squints at my ear, before flicking it with a finger.

‘Hey!’ I grab at my ear, squeezing into the pain shooting through it. ‘What was that for?’

She grins. ‘Toughen you up.’ 84

I rub my ear, eyes smarting. ‘I am tough.’

‘That’s not what I hear.’

‘What? What do you mean?’

The whites of her eyes roll at me as she sticks another tab into her mouth, lighter sputtering like a broken-down car. I pass her my Zippo. Its big flare makes her nose stud flash blue.

‘You need to learn to do it without poppers,’ she says after a minute, blowing a cone of smoke into my face. ‘It’s easy after the first bit. And it’s not like it ever lasts long, is it? Could be worse…’

Blood rushes to my cheeks. I look down into the dark, spots popping in my eyes from looking at my Zippo flame.