Mum’s sitting at the kitchen table (white marble, matching chairs, spill-phobic), with my report open in front of her and a very strong cup of coffee beside her. And the worst thing is, she doesn’t even look angry. She just looks helpless and sad.

‘What am I supposed to do, Nonie?’ she asks.

This is a trick question. I bite my lip.

‘I mean, I send you to that expensive school. I spend hours helping you choose your options. I tell you over and over again about the importance of exams, and college, and preparing for your future. But if none of it goes in, what can I do?’

‘It wasn’t good, then?’ I ask. I might as well get the basics over with first.

She sighs. ‘No. It wasn’t good.’

She slides the report over the table to me. It skids across the marble. But I have no great desire to read it.

‘But it’s only my first year of sixth form, right? I mean, it’s next year that counts,’ I say hopefully.

‘If you carry on like this, you won’t last through next year,’ Mum says. ‘They’re not just disappointed in you, Nonie. They’re worried about you.’

‘Oh.’ Maybe all those bullet-point essays didn’t have quite the effect I hoped for. However, I’m determined to keep looking on the bright side. ‘But Mum, it’s not as if I really need loads of A levels anyway. I know you keep saying about college and everything, but if Crow does her own label, she’ll need me to run it for her, and if she doesn’t, there’s this big fashion house that could hire us. It’s kind of happening already.’

I try not to sound smug or anything, but basically I am pretty smug, to be honest. I’ve helped Crow produce three collections and if Andy Elat’s right – which he always is – she’s about to go stratospheric. I have a career! Yay! And I didn’t even need to leave school to get it!

‘Oh, Nonie,’ Mum sighs again. ‘You’re so naïve, darling. You have no idea, do you?’

OK, I’m not smug now, I’m cross. No idea? NO IDEA? Haven’t I produced a catwalk show at London Fashion Week? Haven’t I just helped to launch a high street collection and chatted to Joan Burstein? What kind of an idea do I need?

‘Look, sit down,’ Mum says.

I’m so wound-up I hadn’t even realised I was still standing up. I slide into a chair and half-perch on the edge of it. Mum tries to reach out for my hand, but ‘the girl with no idea’ doesn’t feel like holding hands right now.

‘Think about it, darling. Crow is the designer. She’s the name. She’s the one people want. What would you do?’

‘What I’ve always done,’ I say. ‘Help her.’

‘How?’

‘I don’t know . . .’ I stumble, grappling for ideas. I haven’t thought this through, because it seemed so obvious. ‘Make decisions, you know – talk to people. Make her designs come true.’

Mum sighs. ‘But running a label is a serious business.’

‘I know that.’

‘It takes a lot of money.’

‘Yes, but . . .’

‘And that money has to be managed by someone who knows what she’s doing. Someone who understands about cash flow and market research and sales projections. Do you actually want to know all that stuff, Nonie?’

‘Of course I do,’ I say.

I mean, obviously I don’t want to become an expert in cash flow, exactly. Or sales projections, whatever they are. Did we do something about them in Business Studies? I think I was mentally working out a party outfit that day.

‘Well, maybe I wouldn’t run the label,’ I admit. ‘I’d do something . . . helpful.’

‘Like what?’

There’s a silence.

‘And anyway,’ Mum goes on, ‘how can you help if you produce “the worst performance of a promising student” that your Business Studies teacher has seen in the last ten years?’ She is seriously rubbing it in. What is her problem? Andy Elat said this was Crow’s moment. I want it to be mine, too.

‘If I need to, I’ll go to college and learn . . . whatever,’ I say, to keep Mum happy. I haven’t stopped being promising, have I?

‘But you can’t!’ Mum practically wails. ‘You’re not good enough. You haven’t worked hard enough. You wouldn’t get in. You’re throwing your life away, Nonie. How can I make you see?’

Well, I can’t see a thing right now. I’m trying to focus through a wall of tears. It’s pointless trying to talk. My voice won’t work. We sit there for ages, not saying anything. What I’m thinking is, ‘Why couldn’t I have been Joan Burstein’s daughter?’ But I guess Mum would be offended if I said it out loud. Goodness knows what she’s thinking, but it’s probably about my A-level predictions, and it’s probably not good.

Up in my room, I stay sitting in the middle of my floor, not touching anything, not moving, as the light gradually fades from the day and the evening takes over. I wait for Mum to knock on the door and invite me down to supper, but she doesn’t. Harry’s working away from home, so his room is silent too.

Eventually, as darkness properly falls, I hear the front door open and shut and I creep downstairs to see if Crow’s arrived. She has. She looks up at me with a shocked expression.

‘What happened?’

I run a hand through my hair. I probably look a bit of a state right now.

‘School report,’ I explain. ‘You OK?’

Crow nods, and holds out her hand to me.

We go down to her workroom together. It’s full of paper flowers. Her latest idea for Isabelle’s dress is a skirt covered in silk blooms and she’s practising with paper, to see how it would look.

It’s so beautiful. A sea of flowers on the carpet. So unexpected, but so typical of Crow. How will I live without this room, and without her in it?

I start crying again. Crow puts a friendly arm around me and doesn’t ask me why. This is a good silence. But eventually I break it.

‘So you’re going to Uganda?’

‘Yes.’

‘I guess Victoria will be thrilled to see you.’

Victoria is Crow’s little sister, and they’ve only seen each other twice since Crow came to England to get a good education when she was eight. Since then, things have improved at home and Victoria is getting a good education of her own, in a school that Edie helped raise money to build. Victoria loves hearing what Crow’s up to and I can only imagine how happy she’ll be to have her big sister home again, even if it’s just for a few weeks.

Crow grins and her face lights up. I suddenly realise that she’s just as happy to be going. I’d sort of assumed she’d be as annoyed about it as me, but of course she’s looking forward to seeing her family. She loves them very much and although she doesn’t talk about it, she misses them.

‘What about Henry? Is he going too?’ I ask.

‘He is,’ she grins. ‘He wants to train to be a teacher, like Dad. So he’s going to get a bit of practice. And I’m going to go and help. Dad says I need to concentrate more on my learning.’

Crow’s dad and my mum should get together. They’d have a ball.

‘You’re fine at school, though, aren’t you?’ I ask.

‘Not really,’ she says, with a sheepish grin. ‘I get too carried away with the clothes sometimes. They say I might not get my GCSEs next year.’

‘Well, I know how that feels,’ I assure her.

I realise that suddenly we hardly have any time for all those fashion discussions we need to have.

‘What about the label?’ I ask. ‘Do you still want to do it?’

Crow shrugs. ‘I’ll think about it when I’m back from Uganda.’

‘Mum said I’d be rubbish at running it because I don’t know about cash flow.’

I wait for her to look horrified and say something to defend me. But she doesn’t. This time she doesn’t even bother to reply. Her mind is already back in her village with her family.

‘Right. Well. We’ll talk about it when you get back.’

She smiles absent-mindedly. ‘Sure.’

‘Great.’

I tiptoe carefully back through the sea of paper flowers and try not to cry again, but it doesn’t really work. I decide I need a plan. Something to fill the summer and take my mind off Mum, and the house, and missing everybody. I’m seventeen, for goodness’ sake, and living in London and I was nearly glamorous for five minutes at Easter. I’m sure I’m supposed to feel happier than this.