I stifle a yawn and open another of Sonia's kitchen drawers. They slide open with no noise or difficulty and have silencers to make slamming impossible — good in theory but it would be far too easy for someone to rob their cutlery when they don't have to joggle the drawer back and forth to gain access, alerting everyone in the house and wasting precious time.

Since we're off school for revision and Hannah's Pantry is shut because of some personal crisis, Sonia offered to do tutoring at her place. Miles is late. Obviously.

Self-obsessed dickhead who has no respect for other people's time, innit.

Hopefully, he won't show up at all.

He never responded to my text and I spent the weekend ducking at every risk of him spotting me through a window. I even refused to get the post, which earned me a twenty-minute lecture from Iya about how lazy and spoilt I am, interrupted only when Mrs Azad came by with a plate of fresh cardamom biscuits to thank Iya for the help with her sprained ankle last week.

Bored with Sonia's cutlery drawer, I move to the one below it, which, along with cooking utensils, is filled with no shortage of peculiar devices. I pick one out. With the thin rod poking out of the handle, it looks like some sort of torture device. I nearly drop it when I press the on button and it starts to buzz loudly.

'The hell's this? A vibrator?'

Sonia sighs from the breakfast bar. 'It's a cappuccino whisk. You use it to make milk frothy.'

'What?' A scoff rolls against the roof of my mouth. I turn it off and chuck it back in the drawer. 'A vibrator would be more useful.'

Adjusting my bucket hat, I look at the clock again. It's nearly a quarter past and still no sign of Miles.

'He's probably not coming.'

With a groan, she throws her pencil down onto the sketchpad. Apparently, it's not Miles she's annoyed with because she glares at me and not the door, eye contact with her so rare that I shrink back. 'What's going on with you two?'

What is she talking about, "going on"? Why would she think something's going on? The only thing going on is that he's a dickhead.

'Nothin.'

Too impatient to deal with me, she returns to her drawing. 'I think there is. You're always staring and all you do is talk about each other–'

'That's not true. You're bare makin that up.'

'You've been here for twenty minutes and he's all you're interested in. You could tell me I look nice or ask me about the weekend, but no, it's Miles Miles Miles.'

I scowl. That's not true. I asked her about her weekend when I first came in. Must've. Right?

I screw up my face but all I recall asking is whether Miles had arrived already. Astaghfirullah. Maybe Iya's right: I really do lack basic manners.

Think about something else. Anything else.

I round the kitchen island where she sits on a barstool. The last time I saw Sonia outside of school must have been before GCSEs. I've never seen he outside of uniform and she looks almost disturbing, albeit lovelytoo, in her dungarees and rainbow-striped crewneck.

'Your outfit's cute.'

She smiles at her sketchbook. 'Yes, I know. Thank you.'

'What're you drawing?'

I slip into the stool beside her, the chain looped to my trousers clattering on the wood, to look at the ridiculously detailed picture of the train station. She's not drawing this from memory, is she? Best not to ask.

'Should we just get on since he's clearly doin somethin more important–?'

The doorbell rings.

I cement to my barstool whilst Sonia slides off hers.

She's barely opened the door before Miles's voice floods from the entrance. 'I'm dead sorry I'm late. Iris made me miss the bus so I had to walk and I forgot my cell so I couldn't phone.'

He forgot his cell. Maybe that means he hasn't seen the text. But how likely is that, considering I sent it on Friday and it's Monday now? If I pretend I've forgotten all about it, maybe he'll ignore it too.

I slide off the stool just as Miles follows Sonia into the kitchen. He neglects himself halfway over the threshold as he slowly scans up my teal parachute trousers to my cropped tee and bucket hat before trailing down again. His gaze glues onto the sliver of bare skin at my waist.

What's he staring so much for? Probably holding back some comment about dressing so gay.

He's hardly in the position to complain — who wears athletic wear when they're not even exercising? Would he die if he wore a shirt with sleeves? And, of course, he decided to walk here so that his muscles only look more defined with the sheen of his sweat. Dickhead.

Sonia sighs again. 'Should we start?'

Without waiting for an answer, she grabs her backpack and glides through the kitchen into the dining room beyond it. I hurry to follow, the trouser chain chattering against my thigh at each footfall.

The dining room alone is the size of half of our ground floor. A Tembu beaded tapestry of tribe members in traditional clothing covers the wall opposite floor-to-ceiling windows and the polished walnut table is large enough to host ten people.

I slip into a seat at the head and pull out my maths book. 'Oh, um... I can't do Wednesday, so I reckon this our last meet.'

Miles knocks a chair right into his pelvis. 'What?'

I raise my eyebrows at him. He looks like I've just informed him that football has been banned globally.

A bit of an overreaction. It's not like one lesson will make that big a difference to his grade.

He has to bite through a grimace as he speaks, massaging his hip bone. 'How come?'

'I've got a meeting with my parole officer.' I scratch the side of my neck. 'If I miss it, they'll put me back in juvie.'

'Right...' Nodding, Miles drops into his seat. 'And what did you go to juvie for?'

'Robbin a petrol station.'

'I thought you went to juvie for drugs,' Sonia says, her voice indisputably disinterested. The point of her fluff ball pen is expectantly pressed to a clean page of her notebook.

'Yeah...' I rub my palms on my trousers. 'I robbed a petrol station and then used the money to buy drugs.'

Miles reclines in his chair, a smirk budding on his lips.

What is he doing? He's never been this direct before. What if he's on a deadline? Maybe he made a bet to find out all the details and that's what this whole tutoring thing is about. And since this is our last session, he has to get to the bottom of it now or his social rank will plummet.

'How'd you rob the petrol station?'

'I dunno. A gun, innit.' I adjust my bucket hat as I run my tongue along the back of my teeth. 'Anyway, let's get back to the maths, yeah? You're not payin me to hear my autobiography.' I glance at Sonia only to return to Miles.

He stares at me for a lingering second before he forces his face to neutral. 'Aye.'

It takes a few minutes to force my mind to focus on maths, partly due to Miles and partly due to the fatigue that still plagues me from my episode days later. I manage eventually and we get through an hour and a half with no distractions.

Notes

Astaghfirullah: (Arabic) I seek forgiveness from God

Tembu: A Xhosa nation. Xhosa are an ethnic group in South Africa 

Dead: (UK slang) Very, really