I suppose it must have all started when I got the text message from Summer. I was a bit surprised because, although I’ve known her since we were at junior school together, we’re not best friends and we don’t even hang out with the same group of people.

We’re not really into the same kind of things, if you want the truth. Summer’s mates are all a bit, well, weird—in my opinion, I hasten to add—I don’t want to get done for libel. Or do I mean slander?

Anyway, Summer and Co. The thing is—what I mean when I say they’re a bit weird is… they sit under a tree—at morning break. And at lunch time. And they sit cross-legged so if you’re not careful you can see up their skirts. And they rest their wrists on their knees and just stare into space, not saying anything. Weird.

Summer’s friends are Poppy, Rosy and Flower. Honestly! What are the chances of getting four people with names like that? And in the same form, too. I suppose it was just natural for them to drift together. I think they must have been born out of their own time—I’m sure they would all have been happier in the 1970s. Or do I mean 1980s? Before I was born, anyway.

Hippies, that’s what they ought to have been. Peace, man. Free love. Not that I’d know anything about that of course. Hey! Perhaps their parents really were—hippies, I mean. No, if that were the case they’d be anything but. I know I would. Catch me trying to look like my mum when she was my age? No way!

But I suppose their grandparents might have been hippies…

Summer and Co. are the girls—the only girls—who wear skirts—no, not skirts, dresses—on mufti days. And beads—lots of beads. And flowers in their hair. Flower wears so many flowers you can hardly see her face. I suppose she feels under a bit of an obligation.

Sometimes I wonder if it’s all a wind-up. They do it because we sort of expect them to. They probably tried it once and then adopted it—a bit like a trademark. If they turned up for school on mufti days wearing jeans and hoodies I doubt whether anybody would recognize them.