Sam opened the door and slipped into the classroom  and flopped down behind the others. “Sorry I’m late,” he mumbled whilst staring at his toes, trying not to attract anyone’s attention. Miss Taylor droned on about how to divide by a two digit number, while Sam chewed over what had happened. He could not forget the look on his dad’s face when he had shouted at him.

A moment later, Anamar shoved the door open, threw her bag on the plastic chair and sat down. “Morning Miss Taylor,” she screamed across the classroom, interrupting the maths lesson with a big grin. “I would have been on time but I was social distancing on the bus and got kicked off, so I had to walk.”

Anamar wrestled a note book and a pencil out of her shiny, black bag, sat back and sighed, as well as pretending to listen on how to turn a remainder into a decimal. Sam didn’t hear anything as he was replaying the events of that morning. Anamar was planning her next step as Lily drank in every detail of every word.