Jo said, “She thinks the community will try to help us save Dother Hall.”

We laughed.

At lunchtime bell, we all met in the café. Vaisey is mad keen to go to the Special Tree to see Jack, and Jo looks like her head has exploded, she is soooo excited about seeing Phil.

Flossie said, “I just want to see some boys. Let’s go let’s go let’s go!!!!”

After a bit of lip gloss and hair shaking and a reviving lunch on the run (Cheesy Wotsits), the Tree Sisters were ready to face the boys of Woolfe Academy.

Well, most of us were.

I felt shy about seeing Charlie again. I know he said he was sorry and had handled the whole snogging-me-but-having-a-girlfriend thing badly. And that he’d said, “You’re top, Tallulah, and don’t let anyone tell you any different.” But that sort of implies that other people WILL tell you different, doesn’t it?

If you say, “Don’t let them tell you,” that means they might tell you.

And that . . . oh, I don’t know.

And also, what do I do about the girlfriend thing?

Do I ask politely if she’s still as tiny? As a mate?

Hang on, is that my dream or has he actually said she’s tiny?

I mustn’t say she’s tiny if she isn’t tiny because that would be . . . tiny-ist.

No one noticed I wasn’t as keen as they were.

Vaisey and Jo were doing very fast walking, crunching through the leaves and bracken to get to Phil and Jack.

Flossie said, “So do you think about those Hinchcliff boys, Miss Lullabelle?”

Uh-oh.

I said casually, “No, I don’t. They’re wild, uncontrollable animals.”

Flossie said, “I know, that’s why I like them so much. I’d like to see that Seth boy again. I wonder where he is.”

I stumped on and said, “In a cave somewhere, I should think. Or prison.”

Then we got to our secret place, the secret meeting place in the forest. Where we danced around our Special Tree.

The Special Tree where Honey told us we should be proud of every part of ourselves. Flossie’s glasses, Jo’s conker hair, Vaisey’s wiggly bottom, even my knees! Yes, even my knees!

A chill breeze rustled the leaves left on the trees; there were no signs of life. No birds or creatures and certainly no boys.

After five minutes of kicking leaves and hunching her shoulders against the cold, Jo said, “Where are they? Phil promised me that he’d come to see me on our first day back.”

I was sort of disappointed and relieved at the same time. I said, “Well, they’re not here so . . .”

Vaisey shouted out from behind the tree, “Do sausages normally grow on trees?”

Flossie said, “Vaisey, is this like ‘why did the sausage cross the road?’ because I’m not interested in sausages, I’m interested in boys. If you’d said ‘do boys normally grow on trees’ you would have got my attention. But the sausage thing—no.”