Page 36 of Carry Me Home

She writes it down, glaring at me.

Clip nine I get – four seconds of something from a 1983 film soundtrack that I have no business knowing – and the entire table turns to stare at me.

‘How,’ Jude says.

‘My mum had the video.’

‘That’s not a normal thing to have in your head.’

‘I contain multitudes.’

Nina is already writing it down with great reluctance, bangles sliding. ‘You are a genuinely strange person,’ she informs me.

‘You just wrote it down.’

‘Under protest.’

Her shoulder stays pressed against mine. We lose points on three clips that defeat us both entirely – sounds that might be music or might be a distressed kettle – but we lose them together, which is the only acceptable way and she passes the pen to me, shaking out her hand.

‘You write, I’ve got a cramp from the pressure.’

I snort an undignified laugh and take the pen.

Somewhere during the geography round, her knee presses against mine under the table and stays there, and I stop trying to concentrate on the questions and start just writing whatever comes to mind, which is how I accidentally write ‘Nina’ instead of ‘Nile’ for the longest river in Africa and have to cross it out so thoroughly the paper tears.

She doesn’t notice. Brynn, sitting across from us, glances at the torn paper and then at me and then back at her pint. I ignore her.

We’re neck and neck with the Treloars going into the final round, and the entire pub feels it.

‘Picture round,’ Ayo announces, and the groan is universal.

‘I hate the picture round,’ Nina mutters.

‘Everyone hates the picture round.’

‘Why do we keep doing this?’

‘Because we’re competitive and emotionally damaged.’

‘Fair.’

The pictures go up on the screen – blurry celebrities, obscure landmarks, things that might be animals or might be weather formations. Nina squints at them like she can intimidate them into making sense.

‘That’s definitely a ferret,’ I say, pointing at picture six.

‘That’s not a ferret. That’s a stoat.’ Her gaze narrows.

‘It’s a ferret. Look at the tail.’

‘I’m looking at the tail. It’s a stoat tail.’

‘There’s no such thing as a distinct stoat tail.’

‘There absolutely is. Stoats have black tips.’

‘So do some ferrets.’

‘Name one ferret with a black-tipped tail.’