That’s when we saw what Vaisey meant. Attached to the back of our Special Tree was a sausage with a ribbon round it, and underneath it an envelope.

Jo grabbed the envelope and ripped it open. Then started jumping up and down saying, “Ohohohoh!”

I said, “What? What? WHAT?!!!”

Jo’s face had gone all pink. Flossie put a hand on her shoulder to hold her down. Jo panted, “It’s from Phil. It’s his writing. He sent me lots of photos of himself over the holidays. In unusual poses.”

We all looked at each other.

Vaisey started to say, “What sort of unusual . . .” until I shook my head at her.

Jo was in full flow reading out the sausage letter.

Dear Tree Sisters,

Yes, I do mean you, Vaisey, Jo, Lullah, and Flossie. This letter is from us. The lads. The top lads of all time. The bad lads. The lads . . . sorry, I had to stop there because Charlie got me in a headlock until I stopped writing “lads.” What’s he like? He’s such a lad . . . sorry, another break there. He did it again. Anyway, we can’t be with you because we are on a special bonding workshop all day with no breaks.

Hoppy says it will give us an identity as a group and respect for others. Mostly it’s press-ups and stabbing sacks with sticks.

Flossie said, “Cor.”

Jo continued.

I know for a fact you like that sort of thing, you naughty girls. Anyway, we can’t get away till tomorrow so I crept out and left this note and a sausage in case you were peckish.

See you tomorrow.

Phil, Charlie, Jack, and Ben.

PS Big snog, Jo, you tiger (that is me, Phil, by the way) xx

PPS Charlie here. Hi, everybody x

PPPS Cheers, Vaisey, Jack x

PPPPS Hi, everyone, and Flossie, very much looking forward to seeing you again. Ben x

As we walked back to Dother Hall, Jo was jumping around in front of us, telling us about the photos that Phil had sent. “And then there was this one of him and his mates and they’d taken a human-sized inflatable banana shopping with them and they bought it some shoes in a shoe shop and . . .”

Flossie had learned to juggle in the holidays. She said, “I think you’ll find it very entertaining.”

I made the mistake of saying, “I don’t really know how juggling can be—erm—entertaining.”

Flossie put her arm round me, which was a bit alarming. She said, “I’ll illustrate for you, my little chum, how very, VERY entertaining juggling is. Everyone give me your tights.”

I said, “No way. I’m not going to take my tights off—it’s bloody freezing.”

Vaisey and Jo both said no, they wouldn’t either.

Five minutes later, Flossie showed us how she could make our tights into little juggling balls. She juggled our three tights balls with one hand and threw her tights ball up in the air from behind her back. She was doing four-tights-balls juggling. After she bowed, we clapped and quickly put our tights back on.