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her, but she stormed into the house before I had chance.
    ‘My appeal failed,’ she said, sitting heavily at the kitchen table, and my ears started doing that
wom-wom-wom
thing where you feel sick and dizzy and scared all at the same time.
    ‘It was today?’
    ‘Yeah. No one told me either, until an hour before.’
    She wasn’t looking at me, which was strange. Had Kes told her I never owned up? Was that why she hadn’t given me a hug?
    I took the seat beside her, swallowing loudly by mistake.
    ‘Dad’s still not talking to me,’ she said, shifting in her seat to get comfortable. There was a knock as she banged her knee against the wood, and screaming through her closed mouth, she threw the keys she’d been holding across the room. They clattered against the wall, and I stared at the chip they left in the green paint.
    ‘He won’t listen to me! He hates me! Ophelia’s the only one in the house being nice to me at all, but
I’m
supposed to be the nice one.’
    I walked over to pick her keys up, heart thudding, while she rubbed her hands over her eyes.
    ‘Sorry,’ she said, shaking her head, and shutting her eyes, and I wanted to comfort her because I knew how she hated to lose her temper, but what could I say? Her appeal had failed. She was permanently excluded, and here I was sitting in my uniform.
    ‘D’you want a cup of tea?’ I said eventually, and she nodded, staring at the plastic seagull fob attached to the house keys. I set about finding what I needed, glad to have cupboards to look into and cups to get. Things were becoming more strained between us, and I couldn’t work out how to fix it.
    ‘I thought Dad was going to hit someone he was so mad. He was shouting by the end; I could hear him from outside. They accused him of being a bad parent.’
    ‘Really?’
    ‘That’s what he said. Sophie Fielding was worst of all. They shouldn’t allow kids’ parents on the board; it isn’t fair.’
    Ti drummed her fingers on the table, while I waited for the kettle to boil.
    ‘It wasn’t even about the threat in the end – it was my word against hers so they couldn’t throw me out for that – they just made out I was this really horrible student. They pulled out all my marks and detention records and how many times I’ve been on report. They talked about me wearing black jeans instead of trousers all the time. As if that matters! Everyone wears black jeans! Everyone’s in and out of detention. Aren’t they?’
    She looked to me for confirmation, and I bunched my mouth over to one side because it wasn’t strictly true. Seventy per cent of the Fairfields population had probably never spent a day in detention in their lives, and only Ti and a few other kids from the Beacon got away with wearing black jeans instead of proper school trousers. Or didn’t get away with it, it seemed.
    ‘I’ve got to stop thinking about it,’ she said. ‘It’s done. Can I paint your nails?’
    She was trying to sound chirpy, and so after setting down our drinks I laid my hands on the butterfly-covered plastic tablecloth. We would pretend this was the recent past, and everything would feel right between us. Ti slipped into beauty-salon mode, asking how I was, and if I was going anywhere nice on holiday this year, then telling me the latest about Will and Ophelia, and how Will had failed his driving test for the second time.
    The sweet, toxic smell of the black varnish filled my nostrils, and I watched Ti splay the brush carefully, head low so she could be precise.
    ‘I’m so bored of hearing about him; he’s such a brat. His mum and dad are paying for his lessons so it doesn’t matter how many times he fails. He actually said that. Can you believe it?’
    I could easily believe it. None of the Fieldings worried about money. They owned two hotels on the beach front, as well as the most expensive fish restaurant on the high street, and Sophie had recently opened an organic bakery in the boarded up off-license next