He picks up his paper and shuffles out. And I think that to be the last of it until he turns in the doorway, dropping his face to serious. ‘But honestly, Alice. Protection is very important. That anti-virus software on your laptop is getting way out of da–’

I throw the pillow at the door and he disappears.

Fighting with Dad = 3 spoons

I get my breath back, panting as Manta swims round and round his tank in alarm.

‘It’s okay,’ I say to him. ‘It’s just Dad being silly.’

But my phone burns under my pillow. I take it out and see three messages, all from Rowan.

Benji is fine – berries not poisonous,
just not fit for human consumption.

His mum didn’t even murder me.
New lease of life.

Want to spend it with me tomorrow?

Yes. Yes. Yes, I do.

But I’m also afraid. Because what if he asks me again to come and see him? To sit on a bench with him and hold his hand. To perhaps lean in as he says again that he wants. Me.

How could I possibly ever say no to that, like I actually have a choice?

My thumbs hover over my phone.

Yes! Take me to class? I want to see
what the mantis and the mudskipper
do next.

It’s enough, I think. To show him that I want to be with him. But in a place where he can’t ask too many questions. Where he can’t ask me to join him.

My heart kicks when a new message comes in from him.

See you there.

56

Rowan

And now I am walking along the metal-cage divide between the primary and secondary schools, my eyes sliding between the bars to look for blond hair in the swarm of kids the other side. They’re all screaming like they’re in a disaster movie.

I watch her name switch to

green.

‘Hi, Alice,’ I whisper.

My insides tumble. ‘Hi.’

Walking ahead of him, I see Fran and Charlie, who are dressed today in matching purple boiler suits and bickering.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Just to lunch.

Charlie said he’s got to show me something first.

Won’t take a minute.

That okay?’

Fran looks back and Rowan coughs, like he wasn’t just talking to himself.

And yes – it’s okay. As long as his friends are around, he can’t talk to me. Ask me things I can’t answer.

We follow the fence round the corner of a classroom, through an open gate into the primary-school side, and towards an old fire door stuffed into crumbling brick.

Rowan freezes.

‘No,’ I say to Fran,

who spins round, already rolling her eyes.

Rowan’s hands are out, fists tight, and I can almost hear his heart jumping out of his chest.

Charlie looks around and takes a long metal crowbar out of his backpack.