‘Ready!’ Miss Green shouts, and lowers the red flag.

I feel my legs judder and I’m off, arms and legs pumping fast, heart thumping. I glance to the side and see that Pari’s keeping pace. She’s only a bit taller than me, but she’s light. She grins my way. I think it’s a challenge!

We pull ahead of the others and sprint for the finish line, arriving at exactly the same time.

Miss Green clicks her timer. ‘That was a competitive time. Like it or not, you two are definitely down for the school team!’

We both double over to get our breath back.

‘Well done, Pari. Fantastic run. And you’re –’ Miss Green looks at me like she’s trying to size me up – ‘Krish Levenson’s sister, aren’t you?’ She taps me on the shoulder as I straighten up.

I nod because I’m still too out of breath to talk. Pari catches her breath much faster than me.

‘Thought so. You’ll need to put in some training though, get your fitness levels up.’

‘I don’t think I’ve ever sprinted as fast as that!’ I tell Pari, as we get changed.

‘Didn’t you race in primary?’

‘A bit on Sports Day. But that was just in teams. They didn’t do competitions really.’

‘I don’t get that! I like being able to win at something.’

At first I think she might be joking, but when I look at her she seems dead serious.

‘This is the bit I hate though,’ she says as we walk into the gym block. Pari holds her nose as she looks with total disgust around the changing room.

I suppose it does whiff a bit of sweat, but it’s not that bad.

Bits and pieces of people’s uniforms have fallen off the pegs under the changing hangers. Our things have been knocked off too, so we start sorting through them to find out whose uniform is whose. When I pick up Pari’s blazer I see that someone else’s name tag has been removed and a new one for ‘Pari Pashaei’ has been stitched into it with perfect, even stitches. I’ve made a real mess of mine. I ended up writing over Krish’s name tag in black marker pen, which was a mistake because it looks like a mish-mash name now and you can’t really work out any of the letters. If I lost it somewhere around school there’s no way anyone would be able to read my name.

I hand Pari her crumpled blazer.

‘It’s got trainer marks all over it!’ She grabs it off me, runs over to the sink and starts to dab at it with a paper towel.

‘Who did this?’ she shouts. I hardly recognize her voice. It’s all sharp and hard. She turns and looks around accusingly.

‘What’s your problem?’ Stella asks, and looks at Pari like she’s lost the plot. ‘Don’t get up in my face. I didn’t do it!’

‘I don’t think anyone meant to stand on it . . . clothes just get knocked off the pegs,’ I say, trying to cool things down.

‘They don’t take enough care. Look here! Dirty footprints all over it . . . and on my skirt too. They always do it on purpose, just like in primary . . . I have to get this off!’

‘Here – try this.’ I hand her a tissue.

She rubs it hard but it actually looks worse now because the tissue fluff sticks to the sleeve.

‘It won’t come off!’ Pari’s scrubbing at it now.

‘It’s not that bad!’ I say. I can’t believe she’s in such a state over her uniform. ‘I don’t care about mine. It’s my brother’s and sister’s old uniform anyway,’ I tell her.

‘So? You should care. Everyone should take more care!’ She’s shouting now and all out of breath, as if she’s been running again.

‘What’s all the commotion? Everything OK in here, girls?’ Miss Green pokes her head around the door.

‘We were just practising something for Drama,’ I say.

Miss Green looks from Pari to me and nods. ‘Well, it was pretty convincing!’

Pari keeps her back turned away from me as she tries to calm down.

‘Pari?’ Miss Green walks over and places her hand on her back. ‘Have a sit-down and take a few deep breaths.’

Pari breathes in and out slowly, keeping her head down.

‘Better?’ Miss Green asks.

Pari nods. ‘You go on ahead, Laila,’ she says quietly.

It’s so strange, going from knowing Kez so well to then starting from scratch with someone new. The way Miss Green put her hand on Pari’s back makes me think teachers know stuff about her that I don’t. I wish she would trust me enough to let me in. I don’t know why it is that you want to get to know some people more than others, but I really would like to be friends with Pari.

I wait outside the PE block. Miss Green comes out first and smiles at me. ‘Pari won’t be a minute.’

It’s a lot longer than a minute! When Pari finally joins me, she won’t look me in the eye.

‘Sorry I got into a state. I get panicky sometimes,’ she says. ‘I just need to keep my uniform smart. I don’t like to make more work for my mum.’

I have loads of things I want to ask, but I don’t because I get the feeling that if I push her she’ll clam up completely.

‘Thanks for saying that thing about Drama . . . and for waiting for me,’ she says as we cross the courtyard.

‘Laila! Pari!’ Kez calls out to us and I swivel around. At first I can’t work out where her voice is coming from, and then I catch sight of her flame-red hair tied back in a ponytail as the platform in the minibus slowly lowers and I go over and wait for her to get off. She stretches out her arms to me and we hug.

‘I was so worried about you. I should have told you . . . sorry we argued,’ she whispers.

‘Me too!’ I whisper back.

‘Bubbe says you’re grounded now?’

I nod and check Kez out to see if Bubbe’s kept her promise about the Banner Bag. I don’t think she’s told her.

Behind her, one of the PE teachers comes over to talk to Miss Green.

‘It’s an amazing facility, well worth the journey, and such a great atmosphere with them opening it up to all the schools on the same day. It’s huge.’ He’s doing that thing of talking loudly on purpose so we can overhear. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it!’ he tells Miss Green. ‘And Kezia and Selina here were in-spirational. Selina just ran her first two hundred metres.’

Kez raises her eyebrows at me and Selina and mimes ‘OTT’.

I laugh. He was being a bit Over the Top enthusiastic!

Stella walks straight up to Miss Green. ‘You said you would talk to the Head about it. Can I go with them next time, or not?’ she asks.

‘Just a minute, Stella.’ Miss Green looks a bit annoyed with her for interrupting. ‘Mr Bamford, could you go and discuss that plan in the office with Stella?’

‘Was she being funny? Why would she want to come with us?’ Kez asks.

‘Right, well, you lot are all on my team radar then!’ Miss Green announces, and goes off to help another PE teacher unpack equipment from the minibus.

‘Selina . . . this is Laila, and Pari,’ Kez says, introducing us all.

‘Where did you go for PE?’ Pari asks Selina, and they talk while Kez and me chat.

As we reach the school entrance Kez starts talking to Selina about physio. It seems like they knew each other before from there.

‘Yeah . . . I’m going to the hydropool straight after school today. My muscles are really tired after all that exercise!’ Selina says.

‘Mine too,’ Kez says. ‘Float with you later!’

I hang around in the park for a while after school, giving Kez enough time to go off to physio. Mum won’t be back from work till five anyway so hopefully she won’t find out if I go over to Kez’s, and if she does I’ll tell her I went to say sorry for putting Bubbe in a difficult situation at the weekend. Mum can’t get too angry with me for that. Anyway, there’s no way I can wait another day to look at the Protest Book again or see what else is in the Banner Bag.

On my way to see Bubbe I try to work out if I’m telling myself the truth. OK, so the letter was meant for Mira, and so was the Protest Book. I shouldn’t have picked it up or read it, so I did lie about that, but I am going to come clean with Mira and give it back . . . though Simon did give the Banner Bag to me. He wanted me to have it. So it’s mine to keep. I don’t think I’m lying to myself.