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probably won’t.”
    * * *
    When Nan came in she made a fuss about dinner being late, so the first time she had the chance to speak to Aria was when we were sitting down together to eat.
    “So you’re a friend of Lily’s then, from school?” she asked, as she speared a pasta tube in her macaroni cheese.
    Aria nodded. “Yes, that’s right.”
    “And where do you live then?”
    I tightened my grip on my cutlery hoping Aria would remember what I told her.
    “Acton,” she said, going pink and bending over her plate.
    “That is a long way,” said Nan. “It’s such a shame that Lily has to live so far from school, but we didn’t want to move her, not with her GCSEs coming up. I rarely meet any of her friends, do I, Lily?”
    It was my turn to go pink. “No, Nan, hardly ever. But you can’t expect them to come all the way over here. It’s not exactly convenient.”
    After that I managed to steer the conversation on to safer topics, and Aria didn’t have to say another word. As soon as we finished eating I said that we would clear up so that we could work on our project, so Nan disappeared into the sitting room to watch TV. I pulled out some school books and scattered them over the kitchen table, just in case she came back in, and then opened a notebook. I handed Aria a pen.
    “Can you write anything at all? Just try.”
    Aria took the pen from me carefully, rolling it between her fingers and peering at the point. Then she sniffed it, wrinkling her nose slightly.
    “I’ve never seen one of these before, not in real life anyway.”
    Her hand had already started out to pull over the notebook, but she waited for me to nod before she began, pressing the ballpoint on the paper, bottom lip clenched between her teeth. Very slowly she drew a line, and then, with a nervous glance towards me, she drew a very shaky “A”.
    “‘A’ for Aria,” I said, smiling when I saw what it was.
    She suddenly beamed.
    “Is it? I was told ages ago that it was, but I wasn’t sure if I could believe him.”
    “Who taught you?”
    “It was Morris, one of the older boys. He was being very smug about how much more he knew than me. He said he had been taught to write, and I thought he was too stupid to learn. I said I didn’t believe him, so he drew me the A on the eating table using some water and his finger. He would have been in big trouble if he had been caught.” She paused, looking down at the letter. “I never forgot what it looked like.”
    “At least he taught you one letter. Perhaps he’s not as bad as your leader.”
    “Maybe, but he’ll never be our leader so it won’t make any difference.” Aria looked up at me from behind herlong dark hair. “We need a new leader before anything can change.”
    She held my gaze for a fraction too long, making me feel that I was missing something.
    “Well, there’s not much you can do about that now, and you’ll soon find out that things are very different here. Your friend was right about the ‘A’ though. Would you like to know how to write the rest of your name?”
    She hesitated for just a second before nodding, and we were soon copying out the whole alphabet. We were so engrossed I didn’t notice that Nan was in the doorway. She was watching Aria intently, frowning. I thought she was about to speak so I jumped up and pulled her back into the sitting room.
    “Look, Nan, I hope you don’t mind, but I’m giving Aria a few catch-up lessons. She’s a bit behind at school so I’m trying to help. She feels pretty embarrassed about it so would you mind not mentioning it?”
    I stumbled over the words as I was trying to say them all so quickly. Nan stared at me for a moment before smiling. She gave me a quick peck on the cheek.
    “I think that’s lovely, dear. It’s nice that you’re taking the time. She seems very nervous though. Is everything else OK?”
    “She doesn’t get out much, Nan. Her family are part of an odd religion so she spends a lot of time