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parents, so I put down my plate and go upstairs.
    Jay’s bedroom door is shut, as usual, but there’s no music pumping out, which is kind of unusual, so I give a soft tap on the door and then hover in the hallway with my ear pressed to the wood.
    There’s a rustling, shifting sort of noise, and then Jay pads over to the door in socks and opens it.
    â€˜Not now, Liles,’ he says.
    His face is pale, and you can see his cheekboneswhere the weight’s come off his face. There’s a stench coming out of the room behind him. Sweat, stale air and something else. Something I don’t know, but it’s sweet and sour all at once and strong enough to make me cough and back away.
    â€˜Are you ill?’ I say, because he doesn’t look very well. Jay used to have ruddy cheeks and a glow about him underneath the thick brown curly hair.
    Now his face is stripped of all pinkness and his hair is dead straight and jet-black.
    â€˜I’m fine, Liles,’ he says. ‘I don’t feel much like talking, though. Sorry. Maybe tomorrow?’
    He shuts the door in my face, gently, but in a way that doesn’t invite me to push it open again.
    The smell hangs around in the corridor for a moment.
    I put my ear to the door again and listen. I can’t hear a thing.
    Maybe he’s gone to bed.
    I go down the hall to my own room and lie on my pink duvet and stare up at my own glow stars for a bit, and then I dig out my homework and do it at the desk, all the time listening for any signs of life in the bedroom next door.
    Just after I’ve gone to bed, I hear Jay creep outof his room and down the stairs, and then there’s the slam of the front door and a shout of protest from Mum and the sound of her and Dad talking in low urgent voices, but I can’t work out what they’re saying.
    Jay doesn’t come home at all that night.

CHAPTER TWELVE

    Phew. Adam Carter still likes me. Shame it’s only as a mate, though.
    And Bindi still looks like she wants to kill me. I wish she’d give me one of her wet-eyed smiles. I miss her. She’s got quite friendly with Adam now. I think she feels sorry for him.

    It’s the evening after I’ve had the chat with Adam at school, and I’ve come home not exactly full of joy, but feeling a bit better now that we’ve agreed to be mates. I go upstairs to write in my diary and things feel at least a bit better.
    I’ve still got a lot of sucking-up to do to Bindi, though. She didn’t even say goodbye to me after school, and I don’t get it. To add to my feelings of doom, I saw her making a special effort to be nice to Adam Carter, so now I feel even more horrible.
    I only got her to stay by the phone for one evening. I mean, I didn’t ask her to commit murder or anything, did I? But she’s gone all sulky and quiet on me, so I guess I’ve got to buy her a present or something, and I’m just thinking about what to get her as I close my diary, when Dad comes in and announces that it’s time for Taming Lilah, Session One.
    â€˜OK,’ I say. I know when I’m beaten. Dad’s rolled up his shirtsleeves to reveal his tattoos and put on his scariest black glasses. He’s got a no-nonsense vibe coming off him. I can kind of see why the lions and tigers do whatever he says.
    â€˜Right,’ he says, all business-like. ‘Lions get angry. They need a release for their anger, kind of like you do. So I’m going to make you angry and then we’regoing for a run down the street. OK?’
    I roll my eyes and cast a longing look at my bedroom door, but Dad’s blocking it.
    â€˜So,’ he says. ‘How ARE you, Lilah? Tell me how you are.’
    Dad has somehow picked up on the fact that I hate this question, and now he’s using it to taunt me, like waving a stick in front of an angry tiger.
    I’m not going to give in yet, though.
    â€˜Fine,’ I say, with a big bright smile.