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asked him if he knew … who? Anyone! Make up a name … Miles Bailey!
    “You don’t happen to know Miles Bailey, do you?”
    And he would say no, why? And I would say … what would I say? I would say, “His sister’s a friend of mine! He used to go to your school.”
    That would be even more stupid than fainting. That would just make me sound desperate.
    But I was desperate! I had to find
some
way of getting to know him. And then, while I was still agonising, chance came to my rescue, as chance so often does. What I am saying is, I think you have to be prepared – like in my case being
on time
every single day for positively weeks; but then in the end you need a bit of luck, cos it’s luck that creates opportunities. You just have to be ready to jump in at the right moment!
    This is what I wrote in my diary:
    I have broken the ice. I have spoken to Peg Leg! We sat on the train together and talked. His nameis Simon, and the Sun God is Matt. Such a relief! I was getting really scared in case it was something naff, like Wayne or Alan. I HATE the name Alan! But Matt is cool. He’s off school at the moment on some field trip, so I won’t see him for a while. How am I going to survive??? Two whole weeks without him! But at least now I’ve introduced myself.
    Don’t you just love the way I said that? “Introduced myself, like it was so polite and formal? Like, “Good morning, how do you do? I’m Scarlett Maguire, I don’t believe we’ve spoken before.”
    It wasn’t like that at all! What happened was, I was
late.
For the first time in weeks. It wasn’t Dad’s fault, there was an accident on Lansdowne Road and we had to make a detour. Pure chance! So Dad dropped me off at the bottom of Station Parade, and there I was, churning my way through a sea ofbodies, arms flailing, legs going like piston rods, when lo and behold I tripped over a bit of broken paving stone and went crashing headlong into …
    You’ve got it! Peg Leg. I mean, Simon. (I’m not going to call him Peg Leg any more.I only wrote it because that was how I still thought of him. But I don’t any longer: it makes me cringe, now, to remember that I ever did.)

    Poor boy! He was sent flying. It’s not that I’m particularly heavy (I take after Mum, I’m naturally quite slim) but when you have one leg that is shorter than the other you are not very well balanced. God, I felt so awful! He dropped his bag and stuff went shooting off in all directions. It was very embarrassing. But as I scrabbled around, collecting things up, I couldn’t resist a quick peek at his name on one of the books: Simon Carson. Year 10.
    Needless to say, I did my abject apologising. For real, this time! He was really nice about it. I mean, he could have been quite sniffy, having a human cannon ball come walloping into him, but he said not to worry. “It happens.” As we walked into the station together, I reflected that if it had been the Sun God I’d bashed into, I would have been the one sent flying, not the Sun God. And it occurred to me, a mean and nasty little snippet of a thought sliding into the outer edges of my consciousness, that Simon and the Sun God were a bit like me and Hattie. I am almost too ashamed to explain, but I have to remind myself that I am still trying to tell it like it was. I made a vow that I would not do awhitewash job. Otherwise, I mean, what is the point?
    OK. Deep breath … Simon was a cripple, the Sun God was divine, Hattie was a solid lump and I was—
    It’s no use, I can’t say it. It’s just not me, I don’t think that way any more.
    I am a changed person!
    I think there are limits to the amount of mortification a person can be expected to inflict on themselves. I shall just quietly get on with the story.

    Once I’d knocked him over, and picked up his books, and said that I was sorry, it seemed only natural we should get on the train together; and as we were standing shoulder to shoulder, wodged in on all sides, it would