Thursday, 12 May

Millie is still off sick.

At break, Jidé comes over to sit next to me on the wall. I feel stupidly proud to be so close to him, as if he’s some kind of badge of honor.

“Where’s Ben?” I ask.

“Not here. No Millie?”

I shake my head.

“You’d better not sit here,” I warn him, pointing to Bo and Demi who are nodding in our direction.

“Why not?”

“They’ll probably have a go at both of us now,” I say, trying hard not to look in their direction.

“Let them!” Jidé flashes his film-star smile at them. “How’s your nana?” he asks me.

“Dying.”

He just nods and we sit there in a silence stuffed full of things we would like to say to each other.

“I didn’t know about your parents, about what happened in Rwanda,” I finally pluck up the courage to say.

“It’s not the sort of thing you shout about anyway. I was too young to remember…Grace and Jai are my mum and dad now.”

“What are they like?”

“Just like anyone else’s parents, except worse, because, well, you know Grace, she’s always telling me what to do,” shrugs Jidé.

Another silence. This time Jidé breaks it.

“What do you think of Pat Print?”

“She reminds me a bit of Nana Josie,” I tell him.

“I wish she was our teacher,” sighs Jidé.

“Why?”

“Pat Print’s deep…She looks into you and really sees what’s there.”

“I know what you mean.”

The bell rings. Demi and Bo are still eyeballing us as if they can’t believe that Jidé Jackson is actually taking the time to talk to me. Jidé jumps off the wall, and before I can do anything about it, he has grabbed my hand to help me down. Bo and Demi just can’t help sniggering, but Jidé gives them the finger and refuses to let go of my hand. Instead, he starts swinging our arms backward and forward in a huge “I don’t care who sees” arc through the air. I suppose this means that me and Jidé are not a secret anymore.

“Jidé, let go,” I laugh.

“But I don’t want to,” he laughs back.

When I walk out of school, Demi and Bo are hanging around by the gates.

“Are you and Jidé going out?” Demi shouts.

I just keep on walking, trying to wipe the smile off my face. The truth is I’m glad she shouted it out for everyone to hear. It’s what I’d like to do myself.

Dad opens the door. He’s hardly ever at home when I get back from school. It’s turned out to be such a great day that I had almost completely forgotten about him coming out of Miss Poplar’s office this morning.

“Hey, Mira. How’s school?”

Always the same boring question.

“Fine.”

Always the same boring answer.

“How’s Nana?” I ask.

“The same…I wanted to have a little chat with you. Sit down a minute, Mira.” Dad budges up on our kitchen bench. This does not feel like “a little chat” to me—this is more like family-conference territory, even though there’s only me and him at the table.

“I dropped in to see Miss Poplar this morning.”

“I know, I saw you,” I snap back at him.

“Did you?” he asks, looking a bit taken aback. “Well, the thing is, your mum and I, we were a bit troubled by that project you told us you were doing about Rwanda, and what with everything that’s going on with Nana…”

“Oh! For God’s sake, Dad.”

“The point is, Mira, Miss Poplar told me that you’re not doing a project about Rwanda and she also told me about the bullying incident and…you know, Mira, if you’re struggling with anything, we just want you to know that you can always talk to us.”

He’s waiting for me to say something, but I feel that spark of red-hot anger light up in me again so I keep my mouth clamped shut.

“Maybe it’s because we’ve all been so focused on Nana—”

“Stop treating me like a baby. I’ve sorted it out myself. I don’t need you wading in all the time.”

“That’s good. Miss Poplar told me that you faced up to it, but if you’d have told us before, we might have been able to help you.”

My jaw aches with the effort of clenching my mouth closed tight.

“OK, I understand, you want to fight your own battles, but I don’t understand why you lied to us about the research into Rwanda.”

“It’s not a project, all right! For some people it’s real life, Dad,” I yell at him, storming off upstairs and slamming my bedroom door so hard that a crack appears in the wood.