Part 3

You stand in the dark, dreaming.

You are not aware of where you are, of the fact that you went to switch the living room light on several hours ago. But something suddenly took over, sounds and voices resurfaced, and you weren't standing in the dark, in your beautiful book-filled living room. Without warning, for reasons unknown, you were back with her again. With Laura.

After school, you walk home together, slapping sandals against the dusty hot pavements, to Laura's. She teaches you a song on the way. The words don't make sense at all but they sound funny next to each other and bounce on the tongue, making you both laugh. Her long blonde plait is coming loose: the bright green hair elastic slips down until you think it will fall right off, but you don't tell her. You like the way it looks, don't want her to redo the plait neatly, to tie the elastic on tightly.

Her house is cool and dark, a shady place. Her mum makes you sandwiches, salmon from a tin, assuring you it tastes just like tuna. It's a funny colour and tastes gritty, not like tuna, but Laura eats hers in contented silence, so you do the same. Your family turns up - your mum is best friends with Laura's mum - and suddenly you have your own brother and sister to contend with. You wish, not for the first time, that Laura had a sister as well as a brother, that your two families made neat pairs, so Laura was yours alone. As it is, her voice chirps so brightly and her hair shines so gold that it attracts them both, your little brother and your big sister. He is tongue-tied and painfully shy around her, hardly saying a thing but bringing her treasures to admire from time to time, which she duly does, exclaiming in pleasant surprise at nothing more than a red leaf, an empty snail shell, a penny chew. Your sister treats her as a little pet, because she's cuter than you with golden hair, picks her up and twirls her round. Laura doesn't seem to mind this at all, laughs hearty and loud, making your sister's smile twinkle. But still, it's always you that she asks to play, invites into her bedroom, divides up her Sylvanian Family animals with. She lets you have the badger family sometimes: the best ones. You are her best friend.

You talk in secrets together, comparing mothers and fathers and brothers, comparing real pets and imaginary ones, swapping your plans for when you are grown ups. Laura wants to be a policewoman, and though you're not entirely sure how the police catch criminals, you know she will be very good at it. You think you might be a mechanic, or work with babies in a nursery. She paints your nails in a pearly pale pink and you wish you never had to go home, or that you could keep her with you always.