Minnie turned around. Everyone else had long since disembarked. It was just her and the human leprechaun who was now clapping his dog’s paws together in excitement.

‘Let’s get the lady where she needs to go!’ he yelled.

Hamish pulled the bus away from the kerb and the bus bumped along at a rollicking pace.

‘Buckle your seatbelts!’ he cried. ‘Make way for the number ten love bus!’ yelled Hamish, as he sped out, overtaking the car in front.

‘I don’t think we have seatbelts on these buses,’ said Minnie, clinging on to the pole for dear life, while she tried to get herself into a seat, ‘and isn’t this the eighteen?’

‘Now it’s the ten. We’re going to get you your ten, hen, if it’s the last shift I do!’

As the bus screeched up the kerb at Westminster Pier, Minnie could see the boat was still there; she had made it with a minute to spare.

‘Thank you, thank you so much,’ she yelled to Hamish and the human leprechaun as she leapt through the double doors.

‘Go get him, kiddo!’ shouted Hamish.

‘Call Roger in Amsterdam – tell him how you feel! It’s never too late,’ Minnie yelled back as she ran across the road to the pier.

It was one minute to ten. She jumped over the turnstile and ran up the ramp onto the boat. It was surprisingly quiet on board – no music, no people for that matter; maybe the party was below deck? She ran around to the front, trying to find a way down, where she found a solitary woman quietly sweeping the deck.

‘Is this the party boat?’ Minnie asked, trying to catch her breath.

‘No,’ said the lady sweeping. ‘This boat’s not in service. You shouldn’t be on here. Party boat left five minutes ago.’

She pointed to a boat out in the middle of the Thames. It was four times the size of this boat. Lights flashed from the interior and music boomed out over the water. Women wearing sparkling dresses and men in black tie were out on deck laughing and dancing with drinks in their hands.

She had missed the boat. She was too late.

New Year’s Eve 2020

Minnie took the night bus home. She sat dejected, staring out of the window, watching Londoners preparing to celebrate. A group of girls wearing hairbands with glittery pom-poms tottered down the street, and a couple wearing matching red and green jumpers stumbled out of a pub kissing, as a swaying man urinated against a letterbox.

She could call Quinn tomorrow, of course she could. Logically she knew this, but she still felt that she had missed something important tonight. She’d missed the chance to prove she wasn’t the superstitious, fatalistic girl from a year ago. She’d missed the chance to prove to herself that the jinx wasn’t real.