Frankie nearly pissed himself laughing. He stared at Ged. ‘You’re an OK kid, you know. Me and you are going to be good mates. What if I get my head down here tonight, will that be OK? My mam knows I often crash with mates.’

Ged nearly passed out: a sleepover? A mate staying at his house. He didn’t have to think twice. ‘Defo, you can top and tail with me, or kip on the floor. Like I said, my mam isn’t in until late and she’ll be glad that I have some company. She’s always telling me to get out more.’

‘Sorted then,’ Frankie said, as he kicked his shoes off too and the games began. They never stopped laughing. Ged kept them fed with whatever he could find in the cupboard – crisp butties, biscuits. Suddenly he was the hostess with the mostest.

Halfway through the evening, Frankie stretched his arms above his head and suddenly looked concerned. ‘Fuck, I might have to go actually. I’d forgotten I’ve got some weed and that still on me and I need to stash it somewhere safe.’

Ged was torn. He didn’t want to get involved in that side of things, but there was also no way he was going to lose his new friend after the laugh they had had together.

‘You can store it here if you want. There’s a loose floorboard under my bed, you can put it there. Nobody ever comes in my room, only my mam and she won’t look down there so it will be as safe as houses.’

It was clearly exactly the answer Frankie was looking for.

‘Top one, mate. Show me where it is so I can get it hidden away. I don’t want your mam finding it, do I?’

As Ged stood up he looked over at Frankie. Fucking hell, he was rolling a spliff. Ged was speechless. If his mam’d walked in right now, she’d have slung Frankie out by the scruff of his neck. A spliff in her front room! She’d do her nut. And then give him the same old lecture about how only fools took drugs, they ruined lives.

‘Have you ever been stoned?’ Frankie asked.

Ged could have lied but the question took him by surprise. He froze. Frankie burst out laughing.

‘Stop being a soft lad, everyone blazes a bit of bud. It chills you out. I’ll light it up when we go to bed. I always smoke a zoot before I go to sleep, it relaxes me.’

Ged figured it would be safer to get it out of sight in his room rather than making the lounge stink of the stuff, and showed Frankie upstairs to his room. He was just helping a friend out, there was no harm in that was there?