I open my mouth to argue, but Dad’s calling us to come downstairs. He and Julia are in the living room, big smiles on their faces. I look at Bella and she shrugs and raises her eyebrows. I frown. Is that a bruise on her cheek? Revealed as she tucks her hair behind her ears?

“Girls…we have some news. I’ve asked Julia to marry me.”

There’s a roaring in my ears as I stare at the diamond ring on Julia’s finger and all concerns about Bella’s “adventure” are instantly lost. I want to be sick, hurl up the whole of the casserole we had for tea right in their faces. Married? They’re getting married?

“Wow,” Bella says in an odd, flat voice. “That’s…big.”

Dad’s smile fades. He looks sad again, sad like he hasn’t for a long time, not since the dark old days after Mum died.

“Congratulations,” I say in a false-bright voice, too loud. “That’s…that’s brilliant news, isn’t it, Bella?” I look at her and will her to play along.

Her gaze bounces from me to Dad and back again. She turns back to them and smiles. “It is,” she says. “Great news. I’m really pleased for you both.”

“Has anyone told Gr— Mr. Lewis?” I blurt it out in the middle of the awkward celebrations and they all turn to look at me. Dad glances at Julia and back at me.

“We wanted to tell you girls first. Julia’s going to ring the boys and I’m sure they’ll tell their father.”

It’s only six months since Julia walked out on Greg. How is he going to feel when he finds out?

The next day, Bella slams out of the house early. I follow and find her sitting on the fallen tree at the top of the embankment looking down into the stream. I sit down next to her, my jeans biting at my waist. Bella jumps up, starts pacing around, smacking trees with a long branch she’s picked up.

“We’ll stop it from happening,” she says, sending leaves whirling as she spins around.

I drop a stone in the dank water of the slow-moving stream. “We can’t. How can we? What could we do?”

“He’s married to Mum,” she shouts, smashing the branch onto a rock, breaking the wood in two.

My hand grubs in the damp earth for another stone. “Mum’s dead.”

Bella comes over and sits on the dead tree next to me. “God, poor Jack and Sean. It’s bad enough she’s living here.”

My hand curls in the mud. Something squeezes tight in my stomach. She sounds all worried, not about Greg, stuck on his own, or Dad rushing into things when they’ve only been together a few months, but about those bloody boys.