“Fine, thanks,” I told him. There was a small silence. But it wasn’t one of those awful, toe-curling silences where you start to panic. It was just the two of us standing there, watching Stalking Paul lifting his shirt right up to show a bunch of year threes some sort of horrible rash on his stomach. They were laughing and making puking motions. “Did you like the fire?” Sam said. “It was great,” I replied. “It’s funny, I’ve never actually done that, you know? Been to a fire on the beach, I mean. Even though I’ve lived here all my life.” “Me neither,” Sam said. “It was Ollie’s idea.” The mention of Ollie made me feel a bit hot, and then I spotted actual Ollie heading towards us, and suddenly I couldn’t be normal any more like I was being with Sam. I rushed inside to the loo and when I came back out he and Sam were standing together, laughing about something.
