A man in a baseball cap shuffled up and accepted the voucher Norah had printed off. He looked at it and mumbled something.

Mrs Lock looked at him. ‘What?’ she pushed the mic under his nose.

‘I don’t want this,’ his voice boomed out to the entire hall.

Norah wanted to die.

‘Oh!’ Mrs Lock said, slightly shocked. ‘Well, I don’t know what to tell you. You won, so...’

‘Can I swap it for something?’ he asked.

Norah didn’t just want to die now, she wanted to be chucked into a bath of lye and dissolved to the extent that her dental records wouldn’t have identified her. All that would be left was a puddle of humiliation.

‘No,’ Mrs Lock said, confused. ‘Sorry.’

‘What about store credit?’ he asked.

‘Sir, this is a school. What would you do with credit?’ Mrs Lock asked, looking tired.

‘I could get some money towards uniforms. They cost a bloody arm and a leg.’

Mrs Lock sighed, exhausted. ‘Look, that’s not how any of this works. Haven’t you been to a raffle before?’

In the man’s pause, Norah could feel the second-hand embarrassment of two hundred people for her as clear as day.

‘Hey, can I buy it?’ said a voice. Norah turned and wasn’t surprised to see Poppy pushing her way through. ‘I’ll give you fifty quid for it?’ she said to the man.

The man nodded happily. ‘Yeah, alright then.’

‘Great. Get off the stage,’ Mrs Lock said to the man.

He trotted off, and Norah watched as they went into the back. Poppy had saved her arse. It wasn’t completely un-embarrassing, but quite a bit of the poison of the moment had been sucked out. She didn’t know how she was going to pay Poppy back for this.

‘Now, onto the grand prize. Guitar lessons with a globally famous multi-platinum pop star.’

A big ‘Ooh’ noise moved through the crowd. The hyperbole was officially out of control. Poppy was not going to like that description at all. She turned to see Susan, who looked right back at her and shrugged. She didn’t look even slightly embarrassed. Oh, to be so shameless.

‘Who is it?’ someone yelled.

Mrs Lock looked down at her clipboard. ‘Umm... Poppy Jennings of Velvet Smack.’

There followed a dreadful silence.

Mrs Lock cleared her throat. ‘Ticket number two-hundred-and-sixty-eight.’

A woman with a tiny crying baby strapped to her front headed for the stage. As the woman passed Norah, she heard her mutter to herself, ‘When the bloody hell would I have the time for that!’ But she wasn’t going to make a public nuisance out of herself like Norah’s voucher winner, and she headed up and grabbed her prize with a fake smile.

‘Right. That’s your lot!’ Mrs Lock said, thrilled. She fiddled with the mic, trying to turn it off. But as it turned out, all she’d done was turn the volume up because then she said, incredibly loudly, ‘Fiona, you can do that next time,’ to her deputy. Realising everyone had heard it, Mrs Lock turned to the crowd. ‘Because it’s so much fun,’ she added with a toothy smile. She handed the mic to the deputy, who turned it off with a click.

Everyone began to disperse. Norah stood and scanned the crowd. She found who she was looking for quickly. ‘Come on,’ she said to Freddie, grabbing his hand. She ran up to the woman with papoose and said, ‘Hey, I’d buy those guitar lessons if you don’t want them?’

The woman looked surprised. ‘Oh, yeah? How much?’

‘How much do you want for it?’

She looked down at the slip of paper, mulling. ‘A hundred?’

‘A hundred!’ Norah exclaimed.

The woman shrugged. ‘If it’s worth that to you.’

Norah sighed. ‘Gimme your email. I’ll send you the payment.’

They fussed over that for a moment, and then, when the woman was certain she’d been paid in full, she handed over the voucher.

‘Do you want to learn to play the guitar?’ Freddie asked, confused.

‘Why not?’ she replied.

‘That’s weird,’ Freddie noted.

Well, yes, it was. But Norah didn’t want the lessons to go to someone who didn’t want them. That was actually still sort of the case since Norah had never wanted to make music in her life, but she’d take those lessons anyway. Poppy had made Norah’s voucher go from a total dud to a semi-desirable item. Norah wanted to give her the same thing.

Norah pulled Freddie through the throng, outside, where he found Poppy and Luna.

Poppy held up her voucher triumphantly. ‘You owe me a portrait,’ she said with a grin.

Norah held up her voucher. ‘Snap.’

‘What?!’ Poppy exclaimed.

‘I bought them.’

‘Why?’

‘I want to learn guitar?’ Norah lied.

‘You chased down the woman who won them and bought them off her?’ Poppy asked.

‘It’s weird, isn’t it?’ Freddie said.

Poppy looked at him. ‘Very weird, Freddie. Very weird indeed.’

Twenty-Eight

A few weeks later, Norah was setting up her easel in Poppy’s living room, arranging her pencils and charcoals on a small table nearby.

It was around nine at night. Once Freddie conked out, Norah had asked her mum if it would be OK to go out and leave her with the sleeping kid for an hour. Her mother didn’t look happy but agreed. So she was free to make a tit out of herself in front of Poppy by drawing a crappy portrait of her.