am forced to sit with the ticket inspector the whole way home.
Nick tells her that I’m foreign and lost, and I have to sit right next to her and then follow her up and down the carriage while she checks people’s tickets.
It is totally humiliating.
And also a little bit fun: she lets me punch holes into them with a tiny metal clipper.
Now, I know a lot of things:
I know an ant can lift fifty times its own weight, which is like a human lifting a really big car. I know that snails can sleep for three years, and sharks lose 30,000 teeth in a lifetime. I know an iPhone has 240,000 times the power and memory of the Voyager spacecraft and that a gorilla once ripped a sink out of a wall and blamed it on its pet kitten.
I know in Wyoming it is illegal to take a photo of a rabbit in the month of June, and Disneyland uses 5,000 gallons of paint every year to keep it looking new.
And I know very little about being a girlfriend.
But there are some basic rules for us all to stick to.
I’ve read the books and seen the films and heard the songs, and the conclusion is always that a boyfriend is supposed to be on your side. Fighting for you, protecting you, defending you, against all odds. No matter what you’ve done.
Laughing at your foibles and eccentricities and finding your weird bits adorable, whatever happens.
They’re supposed to be on your team.
I don’t remember Romeo yelling at Juliet. I don’t recall any chapter where Darcy rang Mrs Bennett and dropped Lizzie in it. Rochester didn’t march Jane Eyre all the way through New York without even pausing or turning around to talk to her. Heathcliff never put Cathy on a train and told her to stop being such a brat.
Frankly, I don’t think Nick is reading the right books. When he’s talking to me again I shall have to give him a list.
I grumble all the way to Greenway, then stomp and grumble all the way down the road, and then all the way up the garden path. Then – just for good measure – I add under my breath: What kind of boyfriend does that? Whose side is he on? How dare he?
Who does Nick think he is: my parents?
At which point I open the front door and am forced to reassess that last question.
Because Annabel and Dad are both standing silently in the hallway: feet apart, arms crossed, jaws set. Their faces are white, their lips are thin, and there isn’t a smidgen of humour on their faces.
If I thought Nick was angry, I might have to think again.
My parents aren’t cross.
They are livid.
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