School was bad enough. There didn’t seem to be a single sixth former without a hangover and some had called in sick. ‘Thank goodness Guy Fawkes’ Night is on a Saturday this year,’ said Jan Wood in the staffroom. ‘Or we’d have all this to go through again. It’s like teaching eighteen bowls of cold porridge.’ Her son, of course, was one of the few who were not the worse for drinking too much at the party, for the simple reason that he had not been there. But somehow everyone assumed that he had, including Chay, and thought that was why he looked a bit rough. Matt didn’t correct them. What could he say? I was really in another world, getting a vicious beating, and I might have died if it hadn’t been for my friends there? He shuddered whenever he thought of it. He had never been so pleased to see anyone as when Enrico had come back to Luciano’s house and pulled the book out of his jerkin. He had just been so glad to hold it in his hands, like a lifebelt. ‘Thanks, mate,’ was all he could say.
