In view of what had happened, it was decided that Maisie should go home earlier than planned.

In the car on the journey back, her dad wouldn’t shut up about it.

‘I don’t know what’s got into you lately, Maisie. You seem intent on upsetting Jo and Piper, despite them trying very hard to include you in their plans.’

Maisie opened her mouth to speak, but her dad continued.

‘It’s an awful thing to have to say, but it does make me wonder if your mum is poisoning you against them both. And it’s not just me, even your gran is concerned. She spoke to me, you know. She’s worried about you and your mum.’

‘She—’

‘There can be absolutely no excuse for violence. You really hurt Piper’s face when you slapped her with that wet costume. You could’ve blinded her, do you realise that?’

Maisie laughed. She couldn’t help it. Piper was such a drama queen.

‘Enough!’ Her dad’s cheeks were blooming with angry red blotches and his eyes looked dark and full of unsaid words that would probably make Maisie cry.

She turned her whole body towards the window and stared out blindly until the car slowed and parked up outside her house.

Without waiting for her dad, she flung open the door and rushed up the path, into the house.

She heard her mum call out as she thundered upstairs, but she didn’t stop to answer. She ran straight into the bathroom and banged the door shut behind her.

After nearly half an hour of keeping her hands immersed, Maisie pulled them out of the bath to inspect her fingertips. She liked how the water dripped from them, marvelled at how its soothing warmth sucked the moisture out of her skin without her even feeling it was happening.

Her mum had followed her upstairs and tapped on the bathroom door.

‘Please don’t come in,’ Maisie had said calmly. ‘I want a bath. I’ll tell you what happened later.’

She heard her dad come into the hallway and Mum went back downstairs. Their low, concerned voices became faint and then disappeared as they went into the kitchen. Maisie heard the chink of cups and knew they’d talk in there for a while.

She stared again at her hands. The once smooth, plump fingertips had now transformed into little withered ravines that looked like the dry riverbeds they had seen in Spain on the coach that had taken them from the airport to the hotel. She’d been about six or seven then. Mum and Dad still loved each other and they’d been a proper family with no awkward stuff hanging in the air that nobody wanted to talk about.

Sometimes you couldn’t change the things that happened around you, but Maisie was beginning to realise that you could change little bits of yourself.

When your mind felt sad, scared and confused and everyone told you what to do, you still had control of your own body.

You could change small things that adults didn’t even notice so couldn’t do anything about. For a while, at least, until they realised something was wrong.

Some part of Maisie knew it wasn’t right, what she was doing. But she felt powerless to stop. She knew about eating disorders; they’d even had a session about them in school when a lady came in to talk to Year 6 in assembly.

But Maisie didn’t care about the label. She just cared about how she felt.

And she’d found she felt much better when she wasn’t stuffing her face with food.

Her dad had changed who he was. He acted so differently around Joanne and Piper. He was never tired and took Piper to Sunday league football training every weekend.

He’d never done that when he lived at home with her and her mum.

It was because Maisie was boring.

Maisie was ugly and rubbish at football.

She told her, all the time.