There are three rather obvious groups of girls in our class—three groups of four. Best friend groups although, having said that, I think each four is really two pairs. Poppy is Summer’s best friend, and Flower is Rosy’s, for example.

There are some other girls of course—there are more than twelve people in our form, after all—and they probably do have friends but because they don’t stand out in quite the same way nobody really notices them. I feel a bit guilty now, saying that!

I’ve told you about Summer, etc. Next up are Katie and Sophie—best friends, and Lucie—don’t you just love the French spelling?—and Jodie. Notice there’s a bit of a common thread in their names too. These four are the Goth Group. At least, for the last few months they’ve been Goth. You only get one guess as to what they wear on mufti days, and if they happen to go into the drama studio—where the walls are painted black—you can’t actually see them. How black is that?

I don’t have a problem with their Gothness—is that right? Gothiness? With their being Goth, but it isn’t really me. I mean, black’s a cool colour in moderation, obviously, but I wouldn’t want to go too far with it. Me and Alice, and Tiffany and Libby, we’re the third group, although naturally we prefer to think of ourselves as the first. That’s because we’re normal girls. I mean, we don’t actually go around calling ourselves “The Normal Girls” or anything stupid like that, but we’re, well, normal. We do stuff girls our age are expected to do, like roll the waistbands of our skirts over, for example. (Have you noticed how it’s only the female teachers who tell you off for doing that?)

We’re the girls who go to our rooms to “do our homework” and then spend the next couple of hours gossiping to our mates, or logging on and trying to chat to as many unattached boys as we can find.

We’re the girls who are so skilled at passing notes in lessons that we never get caught. We’re the girls who wear jewellery at school, because it isn’t allowed.

Anyway, Summer’s text. It came through while I was in French. Summer’s in a different set to me—probably because she’s actually good at it—so she couldn’t very well write me a note, but it caught me unawares even so. After all, we’re not supposed to use our phones during lessons and nobody wants theirs confiscated.

But it was almost the end of the lesson and we were packing up anyway, so I just put my bag on my knees, behind the desk, and took my phone out for a quick look.