There’s a loud knock at the front door.

‘I’ll get it!’ I race out of my bedroom.

‘Don’t run on the stairs!’ Aunty Pearl calls from the kitchen.

‘Sorryyyyyy!’ I don’t slow down though, just jump the last three with a sideways twist, landing neatly on the doormat. Not bad, if I say so myself.

I open the door to find Tam and Jinx, their bikes on the pavement behind them.

‘Coming out?’ Jinx asks.

I turn and yell down the passage. ‘Aunty Pearl, please can I go out on my bike?’

‘Is your room tidy?’ she asks.

‘Yeah,’ I shout back. I mouth No to the boys, shaking my head. They snigger.

‘I suppose,’ she calls. ‘Be back for tea, mind.’

‘I’ll bring my bike round.’

When I go through the kitchen, Aunty Pearl’s elbow-deep in the ironing basket. ‘So, bach, if I go up to your bedroom, I’ll find it spick and span, will I?’ She gives me a pretend-stern look, the one where her eyes seem annoyed but her lips are smiling.

‘Ermm …’ I say, my voice going up. ‘Spicker and spanner than it was?’

‘In other words, you picked your socks up for a change.’

‘Just one sock.’ I kiss her on the cheek and go out of the back door. ‘But it’s a start!’

I hear her laughing to herself as steam hisses from the iron.

By the time I get down our back lane and round to the front of the houses, Tam’s riding up and down the road, doing brilliant skids. Jinx’s bike is still on the pavement.

‘Come on then,’ I call. ‘Waste ground, is it?’

‘Hang on!’ Jinx shouts. He doesn’t get on his bike, just stands there like a lemon. What’s he waiting for?

I ride down to him, getting there the same time as Tam, who pulls another skid, showering us with grit.

‘Oi, mun!’ Jinx says, but Tam only laughs.

Then I notice Catrin’s front door is slightly open. I hear rushing footsteps and she appears, looking a bit pink and excited.

‘My mother said yes, so I’ll fetch my bike and meet you at the end of the road, yeah?’ She grins at me and it’s the biggest smile I’ve ever seen on her face. ‘I’ll be there now in a minute.’

She shuts the door.

‘You called Catrin?’ I don’t know why I say it like a question, because it’s pretty obvious he did.

Jinx nods.

‘To come down the waste ground?’

‘Yeah,’ Tam says.

‘She’s one of us now, isn’t she?’ Jinx jumps on his bike and tears off yelling, ‘Last one to the waste ground has to marry Mrs Fletcher!’

Catrin rides around the corner and we all pelt down the hill together.

The four of us.