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minutes after. Maya had got used to it. But she still wasn’t even looking at Izzy. The stupid thing was that if she and Emily could get over their spat from last year, Maya had a feeling they’d get on really well. But for that to happen, they were actually going to have to talk to each other…
    “I hate PE,” Izzy sighed, as they got changed next to each other, and Maya nodded.
    “Me too. But maybe we can keep thinking about the project. It’ll be athletics again. Loads of waiting around. Maybe we’ll have a brilliant idea.”
    Izzy looked at her sideways, and Maya giggled. “You never know.”

THREE
    “Are you catching the bus today?” Emily asked Maya as they packed up their stuff after PE.
    Maya nodded. “Someone’s going to have to pinch me when it’s time to get off, I’m so tired after all that running.”
    Maya and Emily both lived in villages outside Millford, and they usually caught the school bus that wound all round the town dropping people off. It was one of the things Maya liked about Park Road. When she’d been at Graham House, everyone drove to school, and hardly anybody lift-shared. There was always a line of huge cars blocking up the road outside the school, even though half the children were boarding.
    She loved the journey in and out of all the little villages, and the extra time she had for chatting with Emily. Quite often in the mornings Maya would seeher and Toby and James pelting down the hill, racing the bus to the stop. They were almost always late, and Mr Green, the driver, would moan and threaten to go without them, but he never did. Everyone on the bus would bang on the windows, and cheer when Emily and her brothers finally climbed up the steps. And then Emily’s mum would come panting after them, apologise to Mr Green and promise to be on time the next day, and Emily would slump in the seat next to Maya to tell her that Toby had poured two Weetabix and half a pint of milk on James, and then James hadn’t got any more clean shirts, so Mum had had to dry him with a hair dryer. There was always something. Maya knew how much Emily got annoyed with her mad family, but it still sounded a lot of fun – more fun than eating breakfast on her own like she usually did, anyway.
    Maya smiled to herself. That morning she’d actually had breakfast with her mum and dad – and two make-up artists, a stylist, the photographer, his assistant and the journalist writing the interview. Anna had been in her element; she’d been fussing about it for days, and throwing wobblies because she couldn’t get exactly the right sort of flour for her maple syrup pancakes. Maya had eaten so manypractice ones, she was a bit sick of pancakes now. And it would probably be leftover croissants for tea. Hopefully all the magazine people would have gone by the time she got home.
    She and Emily managed to get the back seat of the bus, and Maya slumped down with a sigh.
    “Are you still feeling ill?” Emily asked sympathetically. “You should have got your mum to give you a note for PE.”
    Maya looked at her blankly for a second, and then remembered her excuse from the morning and crossed her fingers in the folds of her skirt. “No, it’s OK. It isn’t a really bad cold. I’m just sleepy.”
    Emily nodded. “At least we haven’t got loads of homework tonight. I still can’t think of anything brilliant for this project, though. I’ll have to go home and look up Fairtrade stuff on the net like Mr Finlay said.”
    Maya was staring thoughtfully out of the window. “There must be something better than bananas. I suppose if we did sugar we could do some cooking like Poppy wanted, but we might have to do that at home.” She frowned at her reflection in the glass. She’d love to invite Poppy and Emily round to make stuff at hers. Izzy, too, even. Sooner or later she wasgoing to have to. It helped that she caught the bus, so it was a bit trickier to arrange things like that. It gave her a good excuse. For her