but I hold it out as a further peace offering. âHere. I think Ned made it.â
Sof hero-worships my brother, because he sings in front of people and she wants to, but is too shy. Half the bands she makes up are for his attentionâwhen she coined âFingerband,â Ned high-fived her and she didnât wash her hand for a week.
âYouâre eating white flour?â
I look up. Standing in front of us, wrinkling her perfect nose at the muffin, is Megumi Yamazaki. Of Thomas-put-a-jellyfish-in-her-lunch-box fame. Her family moved along the coast to Brancaster, so we went to different secondary schools, but Iâve seen her around this year. If Sofâs from the fifties, Megumiâs the sixties, one of those weird, arty French films: striped T-shirt, short hairâand shorter shorts.
âMeg, you remember Gottie? Actually, werenât you at kindergarten together? And nowââSof indicates the switch with her hands, ignoring the muffinââweâre in art and drama. I do the sets, Meg does the stardom.â
They beam at each other. Sofâs new crush? It seems to be reciprocated. And I donât have the right to be hurt by her not telling me. Then Meg says, âI keep trying to get her to perform, but would you believe she has stage fright?â
Um, yes? Sheâs only ever done bedroom karaoke in front of me.
The bus arrives. It trundles slowly to a stop, but Sof still leaps up anxiously to flag it down anyway. Grey used to tease her: âAre you definitely a hippie, SofÃa? You need to relax.â
I limp on after Meg and Sof, who are already curled up next to each other, feet tucked up on the seats, by the time I flop down opposite. Meg fishes out her iPod and I hope sheâs going to plug in and ignore us, but instead she pops one headphone in her ear and another in Sofâs.
âSorry,â Sof says to me. âBus tradition.â
I nod and try to give them privacy while they whisper to each other. I break off a piece of muffin: it tastes like autumn, even though the sun is high in the sky.
âSof, are we on for Fingerband tomorrow?â Meg murmurs.
âNedâs Gottieâs brother,â Sof reminds her, with a glance at me. I hadnât known the band was playing.
âOh, yeah.â Meg leans over Sof, running her eyes over my outfit, presumably confused how Iâm related to Ned. He thinks leopard print is a neutral. âAre you going to be at rehearsal? This end-of-summer party sounds like a kick, doesnât it? Did Nedâs grandpa honestly sacrifice a goat one year?â
Her words pop-pop-pop in my ears. Grey threw a bacchanalia in the garden every August. Last year, he wore his hair in bunches, asking Ned to push the piano outside so he could sit in the rhododendron pounding out âChopsticks.â How can Ned think having this party is okay?
âYou know Jason, then?â Meg speaks in questions, and doesnât wait for answers. I want to ask how she knows Jason, when they spoke, why isnât she sure I know him, has he not talked about me, are we still a secret? âIs it true some boy is moving into Nedâs house?â
Shit. Thomasâs mysterious return isnât the same for Sofâshe moved here the year he leftâbut sheâs aware of who he is. I spent the first six months of our friendship complaining about his bizarre disappearance. Itâs unclear yet if she and I are friends again or what, but as she owl-neck-twists to stare at me, itâs pretty obvious: she thinks I should have told her this already.
Too late and blushing furiously, I tell her: âUh, Thomas Althorpe moved back. Yesterday.â
Meg wrinkles her nose, oblivious, as she texts and talks and drops bombs, all at the same time: âThomas from kindergarten? Is he really living in Nedâs grandpaâs room?â
I definitely should have mentioned the part where heâs in Greyâs
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