I could go and find William or someone, but sometimes there is comfort in the company of other boffins – ‘the Library Crew’ as Julie calls us when she needs help with her essays. I’m sitting next to Stacey Evans –or I was until she went to the loo. She’s quite nice. Bit dull, but not the sort of person to go off you for no reason. She’s very excited about the French exchange. ‘I’m surprised you’re not going. Don’t you have French blood, Connie?’ she said. ‘Or isn’t it your cup of tea?’

‘Not my tasse de thé,’ I said gloomily. An airmail letter with a French stamp arrived for Mother this morning. I saw her put it straight in the bin. I wonder when I get home whether I might not take it out and answer it myself. I wonder what my grandparents would think if they heard from me. I might give them both a heart attack with the shock.

Mr Patrick, our class teacher, has just come in to put away some books. He’s wearing thick beige corduroy trousers that make his legs look very stumpy. I’m rather painfully alert to the physical appearance of any male I come across at the moment. I spent geography comparing the muscle tone in the shoulders of the boys in front of me. I had to share a book with Joseph Milton and became fixated on the texture of his skin. Worst of all, in French oral I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Mr Baker’s nipples, which you could just about see through his thin white shirt. I mustn’t confess that to anyone. EVER. (He’s been very sweet to me about not going on the French exchange, so I mustn’t be too mean.)

As for Uncle Bert, there’s just too much of him for my liking. His hair is too long and flouncy, his buttons are too undone and his jeans are too tight. He wears a copper bracelet on one wrist, which he says is for arthritis. I must say I find it odd that a man so concerned with seeming young should so openly advertise the creakiness of his bones.

Oh, hang on. Here’s Stacey back from the loo. Looking agitated.

She rushed up to me and dragged me to the girls’ toilets. In the second cubicle to the left, on the inside of the door, someone had written, ‘Delilah is a slag’.

Now Stacey knows Delilah. She used to be at Brownies with her or something. She, like me, thinks there is probably only one set of parents in south-east England mean enough to call their daughter Delilah; that there is definitely only one set of parents mean enough to do so within graffiti distance of Woodvale Secondary’s first-floor girls’ loo.

We stared at her name in silence. Stacey said, ‘What are you going to do? You’re going to have to do something.’

‘Like rub it off?’ I said.

‘No, like talk to her. She’s getting A Reputation. Ask Julie. She’ll tell you.’

So, shall I? Shall I ask Julie?

The bell’s gone. More later

I wish I hadn’t done that.

Our conversation: Me:

‘Hi. It’s me.’

Julie: ‘Oh, hello.’

Me: ‘How are you?’

Julie: ‘Fine, thanks.’

‘I haven’t really had a chance to talk to you since Sunday.’

‘I’ve been a bit, you know, busy.’

‘Nothing’s wrong, is there?’

‘No. Why should there be?’

‘I just… Oh, never mind. Look, why I’m ringing is something awful’s happened. Someone’s written “Delilah is a slag” in the first-floor girls’ loos.’

‘Yeah. I know.’

‘But isn’t it awful?’

‘Yeah –’ Little laugh. ‘Well, she shouldn’t have got off with Darius, Toyah Benton’s boyfriend, should she?’

‘Toyah Benton?’ Toyah Benton is a large, loud Shazzer who wears shiny red tracksuits and gold-hoop earrings. You wouldn’t want to mess with Toyah Benton. ‘Her boyfriend? When?’

‘Down at the river.’

‘What? After the march? How d’you know?’

‘Carmen saw them. As did several others. Toyah Benton’s well out to get her.’

‘But –’

‘I’ve really got to go.’

‘Julie –’

‘What?’

‘What shall I do?’

‘You could tell her to leave Darius alone.’

‘What about Toyah being out to get her? Should I warn her?’

‘I don’t know. She’s your friend.’

Oh. I wish I hadn’t rung. She was so icy. Normally she throws herself headlong into any moral or social dilemma. And she was so hard on Delilah, like she thought she was a slag. And she isn’t, is she? I’ve always thought of Delilah as being ν innocent, as experimenting, or collecting. It’s as if she’s discovered something that she quite likes and she keeps having more of it – like ice cream or chocolate fingers – and no one’s telling her to stop. She’s not hurting anybody. (Quite the opposite.) And it’s not like she goes the whole way or anything. I don’t think.

Oh no, here she is… I’m going to nab her.

‘Hey, Delilah,’ I said, shooting out of our front door. ‘What gives?’

She said, ‘Nothing,’ rather defensively. I might have looked a bit suspicious.

‘Can I come round?’

‘Yeah. OK.’

We went into the house, greeted her mother and headed up to her room. She kicked off her shoes, climbed the ladder and threw herself on to her bed.

‘God, life’s boring,’ she said. ‘I wish something would happen.’ There was a sort of desperate, yearning expression on her face.

I climbed the ladder up on to the platform and sat cross-legged at her feet, fiddling with Floppy Elephant. I wasn’t quite sure how to broach the subject. Should I warn her directly about Toyah or give her a bit of general moral guidance? I decided, considering her mood, on the latter.

‘Delilah,’ I began, ‘this weekend –’

‘I might go down the youth club later’ she interrupted. ‘Do you know if William’s going?’

I said I didn’t.

‘Tomorrow I might go bowling with Sam, or some of the girls in my class are meeting at that new shopping centre down the A3. Or I might go to the cinema, and I’ve got to tidy up my room and…’ She broke off and gave a strangulated moan.

‘What’s the matter?’ I said, wondering if she already KNEW.

‘This weekend, it’s just… Oh God. This boy I like’s having a party.’

‘A boy? You mean Darius?’

‘No.’ She looked at me as if I was mad. ‘Who? You mean that bloke at the river? No, of course not. No, he’s called Dan Curtis. He’s one of the boys I got off with on Saturday He’s having a party this weekend and he hasn’t even invited me.’ It turns out someone called Sally at her school who hadn’t got off with him was invited and had been making her life a misery all week for the fact that she wasn’t.

I got a bit confused about who was and who wasn’t and who had and who hadn’t. Sometimes it’s as if the whole world goes to parties that I don’t go to. But it was a good moment for the moral bit, so I said, ‘Del. Maybe getting off with someone immediately like that isn’t the best way of getting on.’

She looked at me witheringly, if you can look witheringly through eyes as big and blue and tear-filled as hers, and said, ‘Oh yeah? What are you saying?’

I said, ‘Maybe you should wait until you really like someone before letting them kiss you.’ I trailed away. ‘You know, as in Darius down at the river…’

She didn’t seem to hear this last bit. ‘I don’t let them kiss me. I kiss them.’

‘That’s what I mean. But maybe you should wait for someone really nice. You know, find out if they are The One first.’

She looked scandalized. ‘Oh, right. And just hang around, like some uptight weirdo, waiting for nothing, like you? No thanks.’

I managed to say, ‘Fair enough. Maybe steer clear of other people’s boyfriends, then, that’s all.’

She swung her legs over the bed and looked at me intently. ‘Who are we talking about? William?’

‘No.’ I laughed, shaking my head as if it had bugs in it. ‘Of course not. Just be careful, that’s all.’

Mr Spence finished work for the day and didn’t leave. Maybe he wanted toast or ‘Ooh la la’ing too. And then Jack turned up with his new girlfriend, Dawn, who’s tall and skinny. Usually, Jack throws Cyril and Marie around the place, and makes them shriek with laughter, but when he’s got a new girlfriend with him he gets all awkward and cool as if he doesn’t know whether to show his new girlfriend what a great dad he is, or stand back, cool and narrow-eyed, reminding Mother what a great catch he is. He met Dawn selling fish door to door. She bought a box of Dublin Bay prawns and a duo of stuffed plaice. Must be love. Never is, though.

‘This,’ Jack said, lunging, when I came into the room, ‘is my favourite stepdaughter in the world.’

I reared back. Lately, this house is either Odour of Calvin or Odour of Cod. ‘I’m your only stepdaughter in the world,’ I said. ‘Don’t show off’.

Jack turned to New Dawn and said, ‘See what I have to put up with?’

There was tooting outside the house in the street then. Mother, still chatting to Mr Spence, shrieked at me that it was Bert and she wasn’t ready and could I run and tell him to come in?

This I did. He humphed at me through the car window but went and parked. He came in and stood around, one hand inside his shirt, massaging his own shoulder. He said, ‘Ciao,’ to everyone in a fake-friendly sort of way. William gave me A Look (I know why – a) we hate it when grown-ups are overly chummy, and b) we hate ciao). Mr Spence, coming late into the room, said, ‘Evening all,’ to which nobody answered. Then Mother went upstairs and Uncle Bert got all snippy with Marie. She’d been making a camp next to the fridge in the sitting room – using all the cushions from the sofa – and when Uncle B. realized there was nowhere to sit, I heard him say, ‘Hey. You. Scram.’ Marie looked too shocked to scream.

Then everyone left – William went home to leave lettuce out for his hamster, Mother and Uncle B. went out, and J, D, M and C went to McDonald’s. I declined the offer of this last and mooched around downstairs on my own. I searched all the bins for the airmail letter Mother got this morning, but I couldn’t find it.

I’m too depressed to breathe, let alone eat. It’s been such a miserable day. One of my best friends is a slag; the other isn’t talking to me.

And is Delilah right? Am I an uptight weirdo? Am I waiting around for nothing? Recently, I’ve had this yearning, restless feeling inside me. I don’t want a boyfriend. I don’t want love. I definitely don’t want anyone’s hands up my jumper. (It’s not that I’m too young, it’s just, having been through it all with Mother, I’m too grown-up for all that.) I don’t know what’s wrong. I’ve just got this funny aching feeling that something – everything – more interesting is going on elsewhere.