Shannon stared incredulously at her mother, a plea in her eyes. Even though she knew it was safer to stay quiet, Sara, who hated injustice, could not contain herself. ‘But she didn’t do anything wrong.’

Mrs Carter did not appear to have heard.

‘I’m waiting, and so is Danielle.’

Danielle, with an ostentatious, shuddering breath, wiped her eyes. Sara caught a glimpse of her grin before it was lost again behind her hand.

Sara knew how much it would cost Shannon to apologize. Not only here at ballet, in front of these girls with their taste for cruelty, but in the day-in-day-out relentlessness of the school playground, the classroom, the bus journey home.

‘Pamela—’

‘Don’t,’ said her older sister. She fumbled for Sara’s hand and squeezed it, but she didn’t look at her. ‘It’s fine.’ A hoarse whisper. ‘I promise.’

Heat stung the back of Sara’s eyes. The strains of music from one of the dance studios filtered through the door, up-tempo and incongruous. Mrs Carter folded her arms. The group of girls surrounding Danielle parted to let Shannon through. She might as well have been walking to her execution.

The two girls stood opposite each other.

Danielle’s face was tear-stained and she was shorter than Shannon, but her arrogance was written in the forward thrust of her shoulders and the upward tilt of her chin. She smirked at Shannon, but couldn’t quite meet her eyes – that hint of cowardice, the hallmark of all bullies.

Shannon, although taller, appeared reduced. Her shoulders were slumped, her head bowed. Her badges were shame and humiliation.

Neither girl spoke.

‘Haven’t you got something to say?’ Mrs Carter’s tone was as sharp as the jut of her clavicles.

Shannon’s lips parted and then closed again. Danielle’s smirk widened. The girls in the changing room drew in a collective breath, greedy for the finale.

Only Sara sensed what was coming, and she closed her eyes.

Shannon shuffled closer to Danielle. She looked beaten down, an apology in every step.

An expression of triumph lit Danielle’s face. She had cemented her victory in the dog-eat-dog world of schoolgirl rivalry.

Shannon stuck out her hand, offering to shake, and Danielle was surprised into acceptance. But as the older Carter sister’s fingers closed around the hand of her nemesis, she jerked and twisted her own hand sideways, bending back Danielle’s wrist until she cried out in pain.

Sara was aware of several things happening at once: her mother’s controlled exhalation of fury; the gasps of outrage from the girls; a sense of her own excited terror.

But mostly, the sound of Shannon’s voice, clear and cool.

‘Why should I say sorry to a bitch like you?’

27

Maureen Connolly has arrived with fish pie.

I despise fish pie.