“That was a bit rude, wasn’t it Sarah?” said Veronica.

“Yes,” growled Sarah, shaking her head and sitting back down, not daring another glance at her sister.

“Get me a Coke now,” Veronica instructed.

Obediently, Sarah stood up again. Eliza watched her. This time she fetched the drink as quickly as she could.

“Pour it for me,” Veronica demanded.

Eliza watched.

Sarah poured.

Veronica picked up the glass pointedly with six fingers. Sarah stood uncomfortably, unable to look at Eliza. Suddenly, however, her sister spoke.

“You two are weird.”

Veronica opened her mouth to answer but Eliza held up her hand.

“Grow up,” she said, perhaps only to Veronica, or perhaps to both of them. And with her Coke and quiche and Discman, she left the room.

Sarah burst into hysterics. “That was so embarrassing—” she began, but before she could say anything more, Veronica interrupted her with a held up hand, raised in the same haughty fashion that Eliza had done.

“Only ‘yes’, remember?” she asked patronisingly.

Sarah blinked. Now that they were alone, she had assumed the dare was over, but Veronica tapped her watch.

“Five minutes,” she grinned. “Can you count to five?”

Sarah could have refused to answer. She could have stuffed the dare, recaptured her integrity. Or just laughingly done it – without spectators, it shouldn’t have been embarrassing. Yet, somehow, this private exchange between them felt even more humiliating than before. Sarah knew that Veronica’s family had maids. She wondered if this was how she spoke to them. Veronica stared at her boldly. Testingly.

“Yes,” replied Sarah, with equal boldness. She jutted out her hip and placed her hand upon it.

“Stand up properly,” said Veronica. “Take your hand off your hip.”

Sarah obeyed.

“Lower your eyes.”

Sarah obeyed.

“Whoops,” said Veronica, and tipped her coke slowly onto her bare feet. “Get that cloth,” she instructed. “Clean my feet.”

Over the following days, the dares spiralled. Sarah’s next for Veronica was to invoke not only the notorious baby voice, but baby crawling and bawling in front of Sarah’s father who had no idea what was going on and pretended not to notice. At some point, one of them had to make three prank calls in a row to Lisa Markozy, confessing love for her. And somebody had to go up to the aging postman and ask him, quite seriously, if he wanted fries with that shake. There was nothing dangerous, or criminal, or even particularly daring, but all sorts of boundaries were tested and pulled at, and the thrill was the not knowing how far they would go. By their fourth night-time meeting in TCR they had all but forgotten who was daring who, and now they concocted challenges they were both equally repulsed by, or pretended to be. Sarah had to pose naked while Veronica drew her. Then Veronica had to open her legs while Sarah stared at the knickerless area between them – without blinking Sarah, you’re not allowed to close your eyes. And then they both had to skinny dip, illuminated by the underwater pool light, with extra points for breaststroke. Giggles punctuated giggles. They couldn’t stop even as they returned to the house and snuck back upstairs to their beds. Dry and pyjama clad, they lay and somehow found conversation to fill another whole hour, or two, or three. It was easy, and delicious, and they stopped only when Sarah’s mother opened the bedroom door at two in the morning and properly told them off because it was ridiculous to still be awake, and at that volume selfish too. After Sarah’s mother had left, they would fall quiet, but a few minutes later Sarah would feel Veronica creep into the bottom of her bed, and with feet next to faces, they finally drifted off.