Bessie watched the hands of the clock tick until they passed the number twelve. That was it. Her birthday was over. It was a brand-new day. She placed her hand on her stomach and knew that nothing would ever be the same for her again. How could it be that she had woken up this morning feeling like one person and then gone to bed seeing herself as someone else entirely? She stared up at her ripped poster and ran her hand over the burnt ends of her hair.

‘What am I going to do?’ Her words drifted out into the dark night sky through her open bedroom window and she hoped an answer might come back to her. It didn’t. She lay back on her mountain of soft pillows and thought about what to do next. She would take a pregnancy test, but there was something about the way she felt that told her the truth in advance – it would only confirm what she already suspected and what Philip suspected too. Hot tears dripped down the side of her face and soaked into the pillowcase.

One thing was for sure: she would not tell a soul, no one, because that would be the end of her life as she knew it. She would keep it secret. The thought of admitting to her parents not only that she had had sex, but that she was pregnant too! The thought of their desperate disappointment, hidden behind smiles, tunes on the harmonica and the offer of sandwiches while their hearts broke was more than she could stand.

There was a gentle knock on her bedroom door.

‘Come in.’

Philip entered slowly. ‘I can’t sleep.’

‘Me neither.’

‘I thought I’d better just check you weren’t burning the other half of your hair off.’

She shook her head, totally disinterested in the state of her hair now she had something much bigger and much worse to worry about.

He sat on the floor by the side of her bed. ‘Don’t cry, Bessie. It’ll all be okay.’

‘It won’t, Philip!’ Tears strangled her words. ‘I think I know already that I’m pregnant. As soon as you said it, it made sense. I can . . . I can feel it.’ It sounded impossible but she knew it was the truth.

‘You do have options, you know.’

‘Like what?’ She propped her head on her hand and stared at him. Fear stoked her from within and yet she rallied enough to hear these options, desperate for direction that might help sort her scrambled thoughts.

‘You can tell Mum and Dad . . .’

‘No, no way! Can you imagine? Mum quietly sobbing and Dad not knowing what to do, and the two of them hiding from the neighbours and dying with shame as they tell Nanny Pat and Grandad Norm? I’m their little girl, Philip – I’m their little girl . . .’

‘You are,’ he acknowledged.