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footprints other than Vicky’s in the grass.
    When she got back to her trailer the family was awake. Kylie was in her high chair with a beaker of warm milk and Shania was cooking bacon for her father and brothers. The smell was delicious but Vicky was feeling so wound up with nerves that instead of making her feel hungry she just felt sick.
    ‘Cut the bread,’ said Shania.
    No ‘good morning’, Vicky noticed, so clearly Shania was still in a mood with her. Not wishing to upset her sister further, Vicky put off drying her hair and expertly cut half a dozen slices off a new loaf. She slathered them in butter and passed them to her sister, who flipped the bacon from the pan onto the slices and made up three big sandwiches.
    ‘Breakfast,’ she called.
    With the men being fed Vicky was free to sort herself out. She had hours before she was due in school but she had to think about what to wear; no more school uniform for her, which meant that the anonymity of black trousers and a white shirt wasn’t available.
    In the end she chose a pair of jeans and a bright green T-shirt and tied back her hair in a neat ponytail. She checked her appearance in the long mirror on the wall. Good, nothing about her that would make her look any different from the one hundred or so other girls also getting their results. Neat, tidy, plain and unremarkable. Job done.
    ‘What time do you want to leave?’ asked her father, watching breakfast TV as he finished the last of his bacon butty.
    Vicky glanced at her watch. ‘About quarter to nine. Ages yet.’
    And in the meantime she had to find something to do to keep herself busy or she was going to end up a basket case with worry and nerves. She’d be all right for a few minutes and then the memory that this was results day would come crashing back into her mind and her stomach started to churn once again. In fact, she thought that her stomach was whirling so much someone could use it as a cement mixer.
    She filled the sink with hot water and began on the washing up, then she made the beds while Shania got on with cleaning all the windows. Although the two girls largely ignored each other the atmosphere thawed. And when the clock had finally crawled round to the time for Vicky to leave, Shania even wished her a grudging ‘good luck’.
     
    ‘I’ll wait for you here,’ said Vicky’s dad as she got out of the car around the corner from the main entrance and well away from the school car park where most of the kids got delivered. While Vicky didn’t look different from anyone else at the school, her dad, with his skin colouring, gold earrings and tattoos, certainly did. When, on her first day at the comp, she’d suggested that driving up to the school gates wasn’t a good idea, he’d wanted to know if she was ashamed of who she was.
    ‘Of course not, Dad, but you know what kids can be like. Remember how it was at primary. I don’t want it to be like that here. There’s no point in me going to school right across town if it all kicks off again, is there? And if I get bullied then so will Shania and then it’ll be the boys. They’re always in fights with other school kids as it is.’
    Since Johnnie adored his children and wanted to protect them from harm as much as possible he’d accepted Vicky’s argument. There was no point in deliberately looking for trouble and if parking several hundred yards away was going to help, then so be it.
    ‘I’ll be a bit,’ she said. ‘Maybe thirty minutes.’ Her dad sighed. Vicky got the message. ‘Okay, I’ll be as quick as I can,’ she promised.
    As she walked the few hundred yards to the entrance she slipped her engagement ring off her finger and onto the chain around her neck with her crucifix. Along with her accent and her normal style of dressing, her engagement ring, which she’d had since she was fifteen, would have raised tricky questions. Outside the traveller community girls that young didn’t get engaged. Kelly knew the