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so I buy a takeaway sandwich instead and eat it on the steps outside the science block. It’s quiet here, away from the football pitch and other main lunch time hangouts. It’s also overlooked by the staff room so I can relax knowing no one would dare mess with me here. I finish my sandwich fast. Our entire family wolfs our food down like we might never eat again. I wonder whether speed-eating is in our DNA and if Dad is the same.
    I look over my shoulder. Apart from a couple of goth kids sitting at the very top of the steps, there’s no one around. I take my wallet from my pocket and slide out the photograph of Dad.
    It’s a full-length shot of him standing next to a red Ford Fiesta. He must have just finished washing it because it’s really shiny and there’s a bucket of soapy water at his feet. I wish it was at a different angle because then I might be able to read the number plate, but the photo was taken side-on, with Dad leaning up against the passenger window. He has his arms folded across his chest and is grinning proudly at the camera. He has good teeth – white and straight. I must take after him because Mam’s got horrible teeth, all crooked and yellow from a lifetime of fags. He’s tall with sandy brown hair, just like mine. It’s too far away to really see whether I’ve got his eyes or nose or anything else. On the back there’s a datewritten in Mam’s scratchy handwriting. Seven months before Amber and I were born.
    One New Year, tipsy on cheap white wine, Auntie Kerry let it slip that Dad was a carpenter. I like the idea of that, of him working with his hands and making beautiful things from scratch. Kerry also let it slip that she reckons he might have gone down south to live by the sea, but no one seems to know this for sure. Any time I ask questions, people clam up or get angry and the subject is always closed before it even gets started.
    Behind me, the two kids are getting up. I shove the photo back into my wallet as they pass.

10
    It’s Friday morning. English again. As I walk up the aisle I try not to look at Alicia. I’m almost at my seat when I make the mistake of glancing down at her. And there she is, smiling away again, totally oblivious to what it’s doing to my head, messing with it.
    Miss Jennings dims the lights. We’re watching a film version of
Twelfth Night
, the play we’re studying this term. At first I try my hardest to concentrate on the film, but after a few minutes I find myself drifting and my eyes staring at the back of Alicia’s head. She usually wears her hair down but today it’s up and I can see her neck. I imagine kissing it. The thought makes me feel hot all over. I try to wipe it from my brain, like it never existed. I take a deep breath and try to keep my eyes on the screen.
    Outside it’s raining and the classroom is warm. I lay the back of my hand against the window. The condensation feels good – cool and wet. When I take my hand away, it leaves a print behind. Next to it I draw a circle with my index finger. Miss Jennings looks upfrom her marking. I pull my damp hand into my lap and wipe it on my trousers.
    A second later Alicia twists sideways in her seat and adds eyes and a smiley face to my circle. Before I can stop myself I’m leaning forward, and adding sticky-out ears and a tuft of hair. And I can just tell, by the way the muscles in her neck contract, that Alicia is smiling.
    ‘Ahem?’
    I look up. Miss Jennings is staring right at us, her eyebrows raised. Alicia lets out a tiny giggle. I fight my lips from curling into a smile and know I have to pull myself together.
    For the rest of the lesson I force myself to look at the screen and nowhere else.
    By the time the bell rings, my and Alicia’s smiley face has begun to run and slide down the window, the eyes all droopy, the smile now a frown. As I pack away my things, I can sense her watching me. Distracted, I drop my pen. I bend down to pick it up, but Alicia is faster.
    ‘Here,’ she