to Dan. Then her face falls, because Dan stands up too, saying he can’t let us go out in that rain, he’ll walk with us, bring the big umbrella.

‘You only just got here!’ Lily protests.

‘It’s OK,’ Dan shrugs. ‘No hassle.’

Lily scowls. ‘Well… I guess I’ll come too.’

We pull on damp jackets, push our chairs under the table. ‘Not leaving the wings, surely, Dan?’ Frankie teases, and he laughs and pulls them on. The cafe is quieter now, with just a few lingering customers and the little-brother waiters wiping down tabletops. A tired-looking woman with the same caramel skin as Dan is sweeping the floor.

‘Won’t be long,’ Dan tells them. ‘Five minutes, OK? I’ll help you clear up.’ He ruffles the hair of the littlest brother on his way out.

That’s how I end up walking down Lark Lane in a downpour, squashed under a big umbrella with Frankie, Kurt, Lily and a brown-eyed boy in dripping angel wings. Lily, who has managed to hide her own umbrella, links arms with Dan.

‘It must be tough, Anya,’ Dan is saying. ‘Starting over in a whole new country where you don’t even speak the language…’

‘Yes, it is!’

‘We’ll help you, though,’ Frankie says. ‘That’s what friends are for. Right?’

Kurt and Dan nod, grinning, but Lily rolls her eyes.

‘Try talking a bit more,’ Kurt suggests. ‘Get to know people.’

‘I don’t have the words,’ I explain. ‘Is all… tangled up in my head. Yes? People do not understand!’

‘We understand,’ Dan points out. ‘Your accent’s weird, but it’s kind of cute too!’

I decide maybe I will try to talk more often, if Dan Carney thinks my accent is cute.

‘Whatever,’ Lily says crossly. ‘Just don’t make such a fuss about it, Anya. You’ll be OK.’

For the first time since we got to England, I think maybe I will.

We leave Frankie outside her flat at the end of Lark Lane, wave goodbye to Kurt at his gran’s little terraced house near the main road. Lily’s house is a smart Victorian semi with a pretty front garden, the kind of place I imagined us living in, and I try not to dislike her for having what I wanted and didn’t get.

She pauses beside the blue painted gate, giving Dan her sparkliest smile.

‘Want to come in and dry off a bit?’ she asks. ‘My parents will be out till late, and I’ve got that new Katy Perry CD…’

Before Dan can answer, a light goes on inside the house and two figures can be seen moving about inside.

Lily rolls her eyes skywards. ‘Oh, great,’ she huffs. ‘Another time, OK?’

‘See you, Lily,’ Dan calls, then turns to me. ‘Where now?’

‘Across the park,’ I tell him. ‘Flat above fish and chip shop.’

Now it’s just Dan and me, under the umbrella, and the rest of the world seems to fade as we go through the gates into Princes Park and squelch across the grass, dodging puddles.

‘Boy, am I in trouble,’ Dan sighs, shaking his head. ‘The school are bound to write, or ring, or something… I don’t usually do stuff like that, Anya. I lost the plot, y’know? It’s not like I was trying to burn down the school. I just didn’t want to read my work out in class, that’s all. No big deal.’

We walk past the boating lake, and Dan stops short, his face all frowny and anxious. ‘You must think I’m a real loser.’

I shake my head. I can think of a lot of words to describe Dan Carney, but loser isn’t one of them. ‘No,’ I tell him. ‘Not a loser.’

Dan rakes a hand through ink-black hair and swears under his breath. ‘How come I always get things so wrong?’ he growls. ‘What is it with me?’

He kicks out at a broken-down bit of wall just beside the far gate, then slumps down on to it, head in hands. I stand for a moment in the pouring rain, then Dan tilts the umbrella and pats the wall beside him and I sit down too. The wall is damp and cold and uneven, but it doesn’t seem to matter because Dan is right next to me. The umbrella tilts forward, shielding us from the world, so that just our legs and boots stick out into the rain.

‘I feel like a loser,’ Dan huffs. ‘It’s just… Miss Matthews asked us to write about personal stuff, right? Then she asked us to read it out, but private stuff is supposed to stay private! I didn’t want the whole class knowing my business. So when Lily