But then the minibus pulled up outside a house in Harpurhey – another place that was always on the news for all the wrong reasons. Ged lived in Blackley, about a twenty-minute walk away, and didn’t really know the area, though he’d heard endless stories about the goings-on here. This was not a place he wanted to be on his own. He stretched his arms, cracked his knuckles as he spotted Chelsea walking down the garden path towards the bus. She had bright-pink hair with blue strands sprinkled through it. She’d clearly been at it with the self-tanning lotion as well; she looked orange, like a satsuma. And God only knew what she’d done to her eyebrows, which now looked like two brown boomerangs. As she got closer, Ged tried to spread across the double seat. She’d be trying to talk to him from the moment she got on the bus to the moment they reached school; she never bloody shut up. A natural-born gobshite she was. The side door slid open and Chelsea jumped inside. Her Lycra skirt looked more like a belt; bend over and there’d be nothing left to the imagination.

‘Morning, Gary,’ she said in a loud voice as she slammed the door shut behind her.

‘Morning, Chelsea, how are you today?’

Despite himself, Ged smiled. Chelsea was no class act – every other word out of her mouth was fuck, bastard, cunt; it was like she had Tourette’s. Once she put her mouth into gear she never stopped talking. A right gasbag. Ged waited as Chelsea exhaled and there it was, she was back on track.

‘I’m feeling like shit, Gary. That daft bastard of a mother of mine never washed my polo shirt for school, look at it, it’s full of marks. And she has the fucking cheek to tell me to put it in the washer myself. Do I look like the kind of girl who knows how to work a washing machine? Fuck me, Gary, I can barely read and write, never mind anything else.’

Gary’s eyes opened wide, he’d never quite got used to Chelsea’s expletives. He tried to calm her down; if she was in this frame of mind before the school day had even started, she’d be a nightmare when she got there.

‘Whoa, language, lady. Don’t be talking like that. You’re a young lady, don’t let yourself down by swearing.’

She moved down the bus and sat opposite Ged as she replied. ‘Gary, I think we both know that I’m no lady? Come on, even I know that. So don’t try and change me. I am who I am.’ There was just something about Chelsea that made you smile. She reached over and nudged Ged. ‘That’s right, isn’t it, you ginger ferret?’