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not going to be friends either. Do you really think this is the best way to treat Ashley?”
    “Oh, she’ll get over it,” he said in his more usual swaggering way, then swiftly became conciliatory again. “Honestly, Alex, I know we had a bit of a false start, but we could put that all behind us and start again.” He reached towards me as he spoke. As his hand reached my arm I saw his eyes flick down to the amulet and a little yellow light popped on above his head. I snatched my hands back behind me. I couldn’t put my finger on why, but I knew that I didn’t want Rob anywhere near my only link with Callum.
    “Come on,” he wheedled, pulling my arm out in front of me. He was too strong to resist without making a scene, and was soon holding my wrist firmly, examining the amulet from all angles. The yellow light over his head was getting brighter, but I couldn’t work out why.
    I tried to jerk my hand back. “Leave it, Rob. I asked you not to do that!” I looked wildly around for some way to escape, but just as suddenly he let me go, a strange smile on his face.
    “Touchy! I only wanted to have a look. Grace told me it was a bit unusual, that’s all.”
    The whole thing stank, but I couldn’t understand why he’dbe so interested. “Whatever,” I grunted, as I crossed my arms firmly, making sure the amulet was safely out of sight.
    Suddenly the music changed; it was coming towards the end of the evening and the DJ who had taken over from the band was winding things down with a ballad. I didn’t want to be anywhere near Rob when the slow dancing started. I stood up as straight as I could. “Are we done? Good, go back to Ashley, Rob, and stop spreading your sick lies about me.” Before he could respond I turned quickly on my ridiculous heels and moved as purposefully as possible towards the Ladies.
    A number of my friends were in there, moaning about how rubbish the boys were being. As usual all the best-laid plans about who was supposed to be dancing with whom at this point had fallen down, largely due to the lack of involvement of the boys in the planning process. The ones who were dancing had picked the wrong girls, and the vast majority were still clustered around the room, watching what was going on.
    “Oh, hi Alex,” said Lydia when I appeared. “No one to dance with then? I thought you and Rob might be…?” She left the question dangling.
    “Not a chance. After what he did to me I don’t even want to talk to him. He was just a bit difficult to shake off. How about you? I thought that you were going to have a go at Marcus?”
    Lydia looked forlorn for a moment. “He’s taken no notice of me all evening. He’s never going to ask me to dance.”
    “Well, he’s going to have a hard job when you’re in here,” I pointed out. “When I came in he seemed to be scanning the room. Maybe he was looking for you? You could always surprise him by asking him to dance, you know.”
    “Do you think I should? Really?”
    “What have you got to lose? He’s a bloke. They never refuse to dance, not when it’s the slow ones.”
    “Maybe I will!” she announced with surprising vigour, and marched out of the room. I smiled to myself, and then couldn’t help looking in the mirror, just in case. But Callum wasn’t there. I suppose it was late, so I wasn’t expecting him, but his absence always left me feeling just a little empty.
    After washing my hands and checking my make-up as slowly as possible I wandered back to the hall. The last dance was just finishing. Grace and Jack were entwined, as I expected, so I looked around to see what other gossip was going to be doing the rounds on Monday morning. Through the flickering cloud of little yellow lights, which only I could see, I could make out Lydia and Marcus in a limpet-like embrace, so that strategy had clearly worked. As the lights came up and the music faded others emerged blinking from the arms of their partners. As ever, some looked smug and didn’t