A Daughter's Secret by Eleanor Moran

These days she’s needy, which he hates, with a side salad of angry, which he also hates. Is it any wonder I’m spending all my time with Lysette? She joined my class last September – she’d left a state school in West London – and we’ve been best friends ever since.
    ‘There you are!’ she says. She’s smoking a roll-up, which she throws to the ground and grinds out with the heel of her Doc Marten. ‘I’m freezing my sweet arse off here.’
    She’s not really angry, which is what’s lovely about her. She doesn’t worry about stuff. Her whole family are like that. Her mum is super relaxed, even if I stay over in Lysette’s bedroom all weekend.
    ‘Sorry!’ I say, hugging her. ‘Are we in time?’
    ‘Let’s quit this joint,’ says Lysette. ‘I’ve got a cunning plan.’
    I’ve heard about Jim, but I’ve not yet met him. He’s Lysette’s half-brother, two years older, and in the lower sixth at a private boarding school somewhere in Sussex. His Easter holidays are longer than ours, and he’s just got back.
    ‘He NEVER invites me to stuff,’ says an excited Lysette, showing me a crumpled photocopied invitation, an address in Hampstead running across the bottom. Eight till late , it says. Bring a bottle . The bottle’s a challenge, and so is the till late. ‘Just tell your mum you’re staying at mine,’ says Lysette as we peel away from the cinema queue. If Mum knew how I felt – guilt washing up like a wave every time I lie to her or snap at her – she’d be dumbfounded. ‘Where have you gone, Mia?’ she says when my insolence reaches new heights, and sometimes I want to tell her that I’m still here, trapped like Rapunzel in a tower I made myself, but I never do.
    We take two buses, the second one snaking up the hill of Hampstead High Street, past the chichi shops and elegant restaurants. I look down the length of my body, my cheap high street Lycra suddenly seeming like the wrong disguise.
    ‘We’ll just ask for Benjie on the door,’ says Lysette.
    ‘Not Jim?’
    ‘He might need a bit of time to get used to the idea.’
    ‘Lysette . . .’
    ‘It’ll be fine! They’ll be hordes of people there. Hordes!’
    The house is up yet another steep hill, round the back of the High Street. It’s a huge Victorian pile, lights blazing, hip hop blaring out. Lysette marches up to the grand front door and buzzes, whilst I lurk at the bottom of the wide stone steps. After a brief conversation with a bushy-haired boy in a Cure T-shirt, she beckons urgently. ‘Come on!’
    The smell of spliff is overpowering as we fight our way through the crowded hallway to the kitchen. You can tell it’s not just a rich crowd but also a sophisticated one. Our school is suburban, safe – a bit Pony Club. The girls here are not only older than us, they’re wiser too. Their hair is expertly straightened, their clothes – even when they look a bit like Madonna wannabes – have an effortless coherence. I pull down my miniskirt, and grab the plastic cup of cranberry juice Lysette hands me. As soon as it hits the back of my throat I taste the vicious splash of vodka. I splutter and choke, earning a few eye rolls from nearby guests. ‘Stop it, Mia,’ hisses Lysette, bashing me on the back. I’ve never drunk spirits before, only wine, and for a second I feel as if the earth is opening up beneath me. I can’t do this: I need to make my excuses and leave. But then the second sip of vodka strips its way down my dry throat, and the edges start to blur.
    ‘This is Boris,’ says Lysette, and I try not to giggle at his ridiculous name. He’s spotty, a back-to-front baseball cap worn, I suspect, to cover the acne’s worst ravages. Spotty or not, he’s friendly, and falls for Lysette’s line about knowing Benjie, the host, from the pub. Lysette looks older than fifteen. She’s got real breasts, soft mounds which give her clothes a lovely hang, and perfect skin, which make-up glides onto. She’s sexy, even