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laughter. Watching music videos on television and munching on chocolate, me cuddling one of her soft toys, as she says she doesn’t want me to feel left out.
    ‘Here, take this one. He’ll keep you company,’ she said the first time I visited, shoving a bedraggled beige teddy at me. ‘His name’s King. He’s my second favourite.’
    Even though she’s only six months younger than me, sometimes it feels like there’s a world of difference between us. She feels so much younger somehow. She’s still into soft toys whereas I have begun having crushes on boys, although they don’t look twice at me, even the ugly ones. But she’s sweet and kind and gives me great big hugs and imparts secrets. She tells me her mum has a new boyfriend and that she doesn’t like him. She tells me she caught Shania making out with Toby, Alanna’s boyfriend, in the girls’ toilets and that is why Shania has been so mean to her recently. She sits with me at lunchtime. She shares her pocket money, her chocolate and her crisps with me. She shares my fantasies of the horrible fates that we wish would befall the bullies. She understands why I haven’t invited her back to my flat yet, even though I have been to hers like a million times. She gets it without me having to explain that I am embarrassed, that I am shy because I have never done it before.
    I so want her to like it. That is why I was going to invite her in the half term, this half term that has, in the space of a few measly hours morphed into a nightmare. Our plan, Mum’s and mine, was to clean it thoroughly, to get rid of all the cobwebs and the lingering smell of stale curry, replacing the bed sheets and mopping the floors, before having her over.
    All my life, I never felt the lack of a friend. I had my books, I had food, I had Mum. But even though my mum is my best friend in all the world, now that I have a friend my own age, I find that it is different. For example, I cannot tell Mum about the gigantic crush I have on Bhim, who sits in front of me in maths. That even though he hasn’t looked at me once, I entertain this wild hope that one day he will see me , see past my overweight exterior to the person I am beneath. I like his studious appearance, the thick glasses and the tucked-in shirts and pressed trousers. I like that no matter how much the bullies rile him, it never affects his calm reserve.
    When I told Lily, she laughed, and punched my arm fondly. ‘Bhim? But what about Alex or Jacob or Raj?’ But she went along with it, excited, getting into the spirit of things. ‘Why don’t you write him a note?’ she asked. ‘Why don’t you…’ Each suggestion more outrageous than the last.
    I couldn’t do all this with Mum. I just couldn’t. She doesn’t know Bhim, for one, and secondly, she would be angry with him for not taking notice of me.
    I am thinking of everything except what happened. I have shredded the wrapper of the Dairy Milk bar to bits and it is littering the floor, silvery blue slivers on beige, like the reflection of water on mud. The policewoman is still here, sitting at the little table in the corner of the living room, watching me, worrying about what I will do next.
    I do not want to think about how the only person I have in the world has been arrested for kidnapping me when I was just a baby, from India at that. I do not want to think about what will happen to me now, without her. I do not want to think of what the policewoman said, of someone searching for me for thirteen years. Not someone. My real mother. No, no. My real mother is the one I have known all my life. And she is gone. What will I do now? Where is she? What are they doing to her?
    Her face flashes before my eyes, her eyes anguished when I refused to move, her voice, ‘Diya, wait,’ following me down the stairs when I ran away in anger, her shocked expression when she saw me running back up, the wall of police between us, her words, ‘I am your mother, Diya. You are mine. I love