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fish!’
    I pulled a face at her.
    ‘I know! I panicked. You’ve
got
to help me. I said I loved the little freaks. He works in the aquarium section.
He’s sixteen!
’ She whispered the last two
words in case they blew my mind.
    We lay there like this until all the ginger beer had vanished, and when Donna brought out tuna sandwiches I felt a familiar pang because she’d cut the crusts off, and shaken crisps onto
each plate, and I had to tense my stomach for a few seconds to make the ache go away. I focused on Trick jumping into Ashbourne Lake, and his tanned body drying off on the bank beside me, and the
cornfield stretching out blondly for miles all around.
    When the plates were washed and dried and put away, and the sides wiped down and the tea towels hung on the rail to dry, me and Matty went upstairs. She experimented with
bright blue eye make-up and went on about how fit the pet-shop boy was, and all the things he had done that made her think he really liked her, and I lay on her bed, staring at the leftover
Blu-Tack on the ceiling. I remembered the day we’d stuck neon plastic stars there, last December. Matty had bossed me about, rearranging each one I touched.
    ‘The thing about you, Iris, is that you haven’t got any flair,’ she’d told me, and I’d gone to sit by her window, looking out at the snow, wondering where I could
get some.
    I thought of Trick’s expression when I’d shown him the azure damselfly, and I wondered what he was doing precisely this second. He would know I wasn’t coming by now.
    ‘Iris!’ Matty said. ‘You’re rubbish today . . .’
    She swung around to face me, almost singing as she repeated whatever it was I was supposed to be listening to.
    ‘
What
should I
say
if he
asks
what I
feed my fish
?’
    I sat up. Her mouth was open as she waited for me to answer.
    ‘Why did you invite me round today, Matty?’
    ‘Huh?’
    ‘Why did you invite me round?’ Propped on the edge of her bed, I forced myself not to look away. One of her brown eyes was ringed with a sparkling blue, and it made her look
vulnerable somehow, like a panda dressed up for a disco.
    She shook her head, laughing at me. ‘
Iris
. . .’
    ‘I just wonder.’
    Her amusement was turning to hurt. ‘We’re friends, aren’t we?’
    The sun through the window made her silky black hair shine, and she gathered it up in her hands, brought it to rest on the opposite shoulder.
    ‘We’ve been best friends forever . . .’ she said, sounding less certain.
    ‘Then why did you give me these horrible shorts?’
    ‘Because you were hot!’ she said.
    ‘And why do you always tell me what you think of my clothes? And my personality. My
family
, even. Why d’you think you can do that?’
    She stood up. ‘
God
. What’s wrong with you today? You’ve been rude all morning . . .’
    ‘
I’ve
been rude!’ I gasped, and I was about to launch into a rant, but I stopped myself. I didn’t want to argue. I just wanted things to change.
    ‘Suppose it doesn’t feel much like
best friends
to me any more.’
    Matty came to sit beside me on the bed. Her eyes were soft now, and I wondered if I’d made a mistake, because she could be so nice, and gentle, but then she said, in her softest talk-show
voice, ‘Is this because of your mum?’ and she looked so sympathetic I wanted to punch her in the face.
    ‘It’s nothing to do with my stupid mum, Matty.
God!
That isn’t the only thing that’s ever happened to me, you know.’
    She widened her eyes. ‘Soz, Iris, no need to go mental.’
    ‘Maybe
I’ve
got a boyfriend,’ I said. ‘Can you even imagine that?’
    ‘What?’ she said, and then her eyes narrowed to slits. ‘Who, that gypsy?
Iris
.’
    ‘You don’t know anything about it,’ I said.
    I started pulling my jeans back on. ‘And you can have your weird shorts back and all.’
    ‘Where’re you going?’ she called after me, but I didn’t answer because I was taking the stairs two at a time, then I