‘Don’t!’

‘That bad, huh?’

‘It depends.’ She picks up the end of her plait and starts playing with it, the way Cy was doing earlier. ‘I mean, the lessons are OK. I get on fine with my teachers…’

‘You’re doing really hard subjects,’ I say. ‘Maths, right?’

‘And further maths, physics, geography.’

‘Wow! That sounds tough.’ I’m impressed, though.

‘Your sister’s doing maths,’ she points out.

‘She’s not me. And she’s not doing physics. That seems kind of a weird subject for a girl to do, ’Ray.’

‘There are ten of us. In my physics class. Ten girls.’

‘No way! You’re joking me.’

She shakes her head. ‘It’s true. But what about you? Still want to be a history teacher?’

‘Realistically.’ It comes out as a sigh. ‘What I really want to do is act. That’s why I’m doing English, French and drama, too. But getting into theatre is more about luck than talent.’

‘But you like history?’

‘Uh huh.’

‘Then be a teacher, and do amateur dramatics. If you’re lucky some talent scout will spot you and whisk you away to the West End!’

I roll my eyes. If only!

‘But school sucks,’ she continues.

I raise an eyebrow at her.

‘There’s no social life. And I always have to be back by half past ten. Mind you, my housemistress is being a bit of a sweetie this year. I was scared of her before, but now I’m in sixth-form she’s a whole lot easier to talk to. She even let me out early last Saturday, so I had more time with Cy.’

‘So ask her to let you come back late.’ It seems obvious to me, but Mireille sucks her bottom lip and shakes her head.

‘No way. It’s not her rule. If she let me stay out, and something happened to me, she’d lose her job.’

‘Well, couldn’t you just sneak out? The gate has a keycode, doesn’t it?’

She folds her arms across her chest and scrunches herself up. ‘It’s time locked.’

I look at her, quizzically.

‘It doesn’t work after hours. Well, I think it works for teachers—they must have a different code, or something.’

I smirk at her. ‘You need to find that code!’

‘Yeah, right! What am I supposed to do, stand next to a teacher and write it down? Take a video with my phone?’ She unfolds her arms and turns to face me, taking my hands in hers.

‘You’re staying at Grant’s tonight, right?’

I nod. We do this most Saturdays.

‘I’d give anything to be able to do that.’

‘You want to spend the night with my boyfriend?’

She punches me playfully in the arm. ‘You know what I mean! But, even if I could sneak out, no way could I spend the night at Cy’s. His grandad would have a heart attack if he caught us in bed together.’

‘Serve him right for being such a spoilsport. You don’t like him anyway.’

‘Bri! You’re right, I don’t like him, but that doesn’t mean I want him to die!’

With perfect timing, the boys arrive with our food. Just as well. I want to cheer Mireille up, but this conversation is getting morbid.

‘Anyway,’ she continues, ‘I’m now banned from Cy’s room altogether.’

I put my hand to my mouth. ‘No!’

‘Yeah. His grandad’s so worried we might do more than just hold hands, we have to sit in the kitchen. He’s scared of what the neighbours will think.’

I give her a hug. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I say.