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miraculously also moved here from my old primary school. I wanted someone to shield me. If I walked into the playground by myself, I would be too open, too visible.
    But all of the kids walking in were strangers. I couldn’t even see anyone else new, like me, with their parents. They all looked hopelessly grown up, tall and confident, knowing exactly where they were going.
    â€˜I’ve got this for you,’ Mum said. She’d stopped, so I stopped too to see what she was talking about. She took something out of the pocket of her dress. It was a man’s wristwatch: gold, with a brown leather strap.
    I knew this watch. Mum kept it in her jewellery box, right at the back. I got it out and looked at it sometimes. It was engraved on the back:
From J to S, with love forever.
It was the watch my mother had bought my father for their wedding. She had saved up her earnings at the café for nearly a year to afford it.
    The gold plating was a little scratched, but the glass was uncracked.
    â€˜I can’t wear it,’ I told her. ‘It’s not part of the uniform.’
    â€˜Put it in your pocket. No one will know.’
    I slipped it into my own pocket, feeling the weight of it. ‘Thank you.’
    â€˜Daddy would be proud of you, too,’ Mum said. ‘So proud to see his little girl grown up.’
    And that was not what I needed to hear, not right now, not with my dead father’s watch in my pocket, and a whole ocean of children I didn’t know waiting to look at me. I bit the inside of my lip hard enough to hurt, so that I wouldn’t cry. I turned away from Mum and her soft green eyes, and it was that exact minute that I saw a girl walking towards us. She had a summer uniform on too, but it looked less stiff than mine, as if she’d been wearing it for longer. Her dark hair was brushed back into a neat ponytail, she had brown eyes and a small mole by the side of her mouth, and she had a blue
X-Men
backpack slung over one shoulder.
    She was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.
    She was a total stranger, but she walked right up to me and Mum and she said, with a smile, ‘Hi, my name is Avril. I’m new and I don’t have anyone to walk in with and I wondered if you would walk in with me?’
    I couldn’t help but stare. This beautiful girl, with her
X-Men
backpack and her easy, confident walk, dared to go right up to a stranger and ask something like that. I never would have dared that in a million years. What kind of girl was this? Was she even safe? Why would she choose me, of all people?
    â€˜Oh, that’s so kind, Avril,’ said Mum in her gentle voice. ‘Lydia doesn’t know anyone either.’
    I elbowed Mum, who was making me look bad in front of this girl. But the girl just smiled at Mum, and then she smiled at me. ‘That would be really great,’ she said.
    There was a little waver in Avril’s voice as she spoke. A little tiny waver, that maybe she was hoping no one else would even notice.
    I noticed it.
    â€˜OK,’ I said.
    Mum went to hug me, and I stepped back a little, wanting a hug maybe but also knowing it wasn’t really cool, and Mum took the hint (for a miracle) and put her hands back into her pockets. ‘Have a wonderful day, Lyddie. Tell me all about it afterwards.’
    â€˜All right,’ I said, and the beautiful girl Avril and I walked through the school gates together. We walked, not saying anything, shoulder to shoulder, and all I could think was
, I am walking next to the most beautiful girl in the school.
    When we got into the middle of the playground, I risked a glance backwards, but Mum was gone. She would be walking quickly back home, and she would have that smile on her face that she got when she was trying not to cry. I was glad I didn’t have to see it.
    â€˜Do you like
X-Men
?’ asked Avril. ‘It’s my favourite film.’
    â€˜I like it, too.’
    â€˜What