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been invited for pairing purposes. Gross. ‘It’s short for Bobbilene.’
    Behind her, Caine laughed, hopping off his bike.
    ‘Wow.’ Tom didn’t get it. ‘Your parents are way harsh.’
    ‘Tom, you div, she’s messing with you.’ Caine joined them. ‘Is it Roberta?’
    Bobbie nodded with a shy smile. Suddenly the ‘ironic’ mittens-on-a-string hanging out of her coat sleeves weren’t so ironic and she feared she looked dangerously like someone on a day out with their carer.
    Grace took a swig of the cheap white wine they’d illicitly bought at the corner shop in Oxsley. ‘Anyway,’ she said,‘Bobbie doesn’t have parents. She’s a test-tube baby.’
    Oh God. Bobbie prayed for the earth to swallow her up. Better yet, she wished she could invent a time machine to go back in time to stop herself telling Naya about her parentage, therefore removing from history the fateful night when Naya had got drunk on Malibu and blabbed to Grace.
    ‘What?’ Mark said, attempting to keep a football off the ground.
    ‘Grace, don’t be a bitch,’ Naya snarled.
    ‘It’s fine.’ Bobbie drew herself tall (which was still only shoulder height to Naya or Caine). She’d learned early that people could only exploit a chink in your armour if you let them find it. ‘I was conceived by artificial insemination.’
    ‘What?’ Tom said, clearly not the sharpest tack.
    Bobbie took another deep breath. ‘My dad is basically an anonymous sperm cell.’ She went on. ‘I like to call him Spermy. I also like to imagine a giant sperm cell coming home at the end of the working day with a bowler hat and briefcase.’
    By this point Naya and Caine were in hysterics. It was possible Caitlin got the joke or that she laughed because everyone was laughing. Even Grace seemed quietly impressed.
    ‘You’re weird. But funny. I like it,’ said Charlie – who, with his floppy hair and pudding face, looked like the chubby joker type himself.
    ‘It’s not weird.’ Caine sat back against a headstone, opening a family-sized bag of Haribo and getting stuck in. ‘It’s just families, ain’t it? They’re all messed up. My mum left my dad for my uncle and then my dad tried to stab ’em both.’
    Bobbie laughed despite herself. It was the way he delivered the news, like most people would deliver ‘I have two sisters and a pet cat’. ‘Seriously?’ she asked.
    ‘Yep. That’s how we ended up down here in the middle of nowhere. I’m from Croydon.’
    ‘Wow,’ said Naya. ‘We’re like the screwed-up parent gang.’
    ‘My parents are so dull it’s not even funny,’ Grace put in.
    ‘No way.’ Caine bit a jelly ring in half. ‘The ones that look normal are secretly the weirdest.’
    Naya turned to her blonde nemesis. ‘So, Grace, I wonder what kinky little secrets your –’ She stopped because that was when the blood started to gush out of her nose.

Chapter 5

Coincidence
    Lots of things happened at once. Caitlin responded with an ‘ew’, pulling her legs onto the stone coffin. Conversely, Grace shot forward, unbothered by the blood and ready to help. Caine sprang to his feet. It took Bobbie a second to snap into action and reach for her friend.
    ‘Oh God,’ Naya gurgled.
    ‘Pipe down. Tip your head back and pinch your nose.’ Grace was surprisingly good in a crisis, it transpired.
    ‘Are you sure you’re meant to do that?’ Bobbie rummaged in her satchel for tissues.
    Grace looked at her as if she’d only just realised she was present. ‘Of course I’m sure.’
    ‘It’s fine.’ Naya accidentally smeared lumpy red-purple blood across her cheek. ‘I used to get nosebleeds all the time when I was a kid.’
    Charlie quietly disengaged from the group, looking pale and peaky at the sight of so much blood. Blood was now gushing from Naya’s nose, thick droplets splattering onto the path, the dots rapidly joining. Naya took a handful of tissues from Bobbie and held it to her face, tilting her head towards the