‘Oh, hi,’ I say, all surprised. ‘Well hello, Betty.’ He leans against the wall and fixes his eyes on me. We are standing close enough for me to notice that he has a darker circle of blue around the edge of his pale eyes. I try hard not to stare. ‘You need to come to the hall after school to audition for Vanilla Chinchilla,’ he says. ‘Really?’ ‘You’ll be perfect. I’ve asked a few other girls to come along.’ Other girls? What does a few mean? Two other girls? Seven? Thirty-four? ‘Don’t worry,’ he says, resting his hand on my arm, ‘I know you’ll rock, B-Cakes. The moment you said you could sing I wanted you in my band.’ He smiles and everything inside me trembles, then he lets go of me and strolls into his classroom leaving me with a deliciously tingly arm. I want to follow him, grab his hand and put it right back on my arm, but even I have some dignity. I drift towards my tutor room and slowly my arm returns to normal. My body has had a life of its own recently.
