I go to Wells Road Comprehensive School.

It’s a couple of miles away from our flat, but I save the bus money Dad gives me and walk to school every day. It comes in handy when he’s away from home for longer and I run out of food money.

After school I sometimes go for a longer walk to clear my head. One of my favourite places is right here, down by the canal. I’ve come down here instead of going straight home because it beats sitting in a cold, empty flat.

I walk past a couple of fishermen nestled close to their olive-green dome tents and keep going until I get to my favourite wooden bench that sits on a patch of grass in a quiet spot overlooking the canal.

I look up to Nottingham Castle perched high on a rock, surveying the city. It looks like it could tip right off in a strong wind, but I’m not fooled. It’s been there, solid and imposing, since the seventeenth century, and it’ll probably still be there in another four hundred years.

When Grandad was alive, we’d cycle all over the city, up and down the canal paths. Past Castle Wharf, where the waterside bars and restaurants stand smartly in line, glitzy and ostentatious alongside the tired, disused warehouses that crumble into the water like brittle old bones.

Grandad showed me where the old Raleigh factory used to be on Triumph Road. He worked there for forty-three years.

‘Nottingham once made the finest cycles in the world but the boggers sold it all off,’ Grandad would rant in his broad Nottingham accent on a regular basis. ‘Like they sold out on the pits and everything else that gave ordinary folks a decent living.’

We’d park our bikes up and sit by the canal and he’d pipe down a bit while we ate our corned-beef and beetroot sandwiches.

The longboats chugged past, leaving a trail of frothy black water and diesel fumes in their wake, and Grandad would fall quiet then, his eyes sort of fading out as if someone had twisted a dimmer switch behind them.

He had loads of stories about ‘the good old days’ as he used to call them. He could remember every detail about what he got up to as a lad, things that happened when he worked in the Raleigh factory, and the holidays in Cornwall him and Gran used to have before she died. But then he’d often forget what happened yesterday or just last week.

I wish I’d have listened a bit closer to Grandad’s stories now. Some of them would make brilliant screenplays.

After we’d sat by the canal a while, he’d spark back to life and we’d be off, cycling home again.

Grandad’s bike was mint: a top-of-the-range Raleigh Chopper that he’d helped manufacture with his own hands.

I don’t know what happened to our cycles. I think they must’ve just got chucked out when the council’s Housing Department cleared his council house.

‘Penny for them?’

I snap out of my memories to see a girl about my age standing over me with her hands on her hips. ‘I’ve been standing here for the last half an hour and you didn’t even know, you numpty.’

I’ve only been sitting on the bench for ten minutes, so I doubt that.

Her southern accent sounds bold and cheeky. She’s wearing cut-off denim shorts and a T-shirt that looks at least a size too small and shows her midriff. I look away.

‘Not very talkative, are you?’ She sits down on the bench next to me.

I don’t want to look at her, but she’s staring so hard. Part of me doesn’t want to be rude and part of me doesn’t want to look soft. So I stare back.

Her skin is the colour of pale coffee, and her thick, curly black hair is tied up with red-and-white-spotted ribbon into two fizzy bunches that remind me of Minnie Mouse and make me smile.

‘What’s so funny?’ She wrinkles her nose and I spot a fine spattering of freckles that radiate out to her cheeks.

‘Nothing,’ I say with a shrug, feeling a heat in my cheeks.

‘We got off on the wrong foot, didn’t we? I’m Amelia.’ She holds out her hand and when I reach for it, she snatches it back and laughs like a drain.

Her front tooth is chipped and the others look a bit crooked, but they’re very white. ‘Sorry, the handshake thing is my favourite trick.’

I look away, out across the greasy black swell of the canal. I can tell by the colour of the water that rain might be coming soon.

‘So, what’s your name then?’

‘Calum,’ I murmur, keeping my eyes on the water.

‘Folks aren’t very friendly around here, are they?’

‘Probably not if you trick them and call them numpties.’

I scowl, and she claps her hands with delight.

‘Doesn’t take much to say hello though, does it?’ She taps me on the arm. ‘Want to see our boat? We’re moored just down there.’ She nods past the bend in the canal. ‘It’s a narrowboat.’

I’ve always wanted to have a look inside a proper narrowboat like the ones you see chugging up and down the Trent, but I don’t want to encourage Amelia. She’s so full-on and confident, she sets my teeth on edge.

‘Come on, we’re not a family of vampires, honest. There’s just me, my little brother and my mum.’

‘OK,’ I hear myself say, and I stand up.

‘It’s just down here.’ She slips in front of me and moves quickly ahead on strong, striding legs. She’s wearing battered Converse trainers.

‘Do you live around here?’ I say to her back.

‘Nah, we’re from just outside London originally. We go all over the place though.’ She turns round and grins at me, walking backwards without slowing down. ‘Never been to Nottingham before. Probably won’t come again, if everyone’s as miserable as you.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Only joking, mate. Have a laugh.’

She says ‘laugh’ like ‘larrf’. She’s about halfway between being irritating and fascinating.

‘It’s just here, round this bend.’

We walk a few more steps and a glossy red-and-blue-painted narrowboat comes into view.

‘There she is: My Fair Lady. That’s her name, see.’

Plants and flowers in misshapen, brightly painted china pots clutter and spill from the top of the boat. A man in navy dungarees bends over, prodding at something mechanical with a spanner.

‘Ma!’ Amelia calls, waving both arms in the air.

The man stands up and steps off the boat, wiping his hands on an oily rag. Except when we get closer, I see that the man is a woman. Must be Amelia’s mum.

‘There you are, love; wondered where you got to. Found a new friend, have you?’

I feel my cheeks heat up. Amelia turns to look at me and laughs.

‘I don’t think he’s made his mind up yet so don’t scare him off.’

Amelia’s mum runs her hand through her dark blonde cropped hair and sticks out a grubby hand. ‘I’m Sandy.’

I move to shake her hand and she snatches it away.

‘Sorry, I can’t help it,’ she says, grinning. ‘One of my favourite tricks, that one.’

I wait until they’ve finished laughing.

Fifteen minutes ago I was sitting quietly on a bench, thinking about the good times I had down here with Grandad, and now somehow I’ve ended up stuck with these two jokers.

‘His name’s Calum,’ Amelia says. ‘He wants to look at the boat.’

‘She asked me to,’ I say quickly. Amelia is making it sound like it was all my idea.

‘No worries.’ Sandy grins. She’s got the same shower of freckles on her lightly tanned face as Amelia. ‘But I’ve got this generator dismantled now, so come back tomorrow, Calum, and Amelia will show you round then, OK, love?’

I glance at what look like engine parts, spread all over the front of the boat behind Sandy.

‘Will you come back down tomorrow, Calum?’ Amelia steps in front of me so I can’t move. ‘Promise?’

‘OK.’ I nod.

She steps aside and watches me walk away. When I get to the bend in the canal, I look back. It feels like I’ve had a lucky escape.

Amelia is still watching. She waves, but I don’t wave back.