I know I’m going to catch the branch. When you’ve spent as much time as I have swinging from one asymmetric bar to the other, you’re not worried about your aim. What I don’t know—and this is the big question—is whether the branch will bear my weight.

I always used to climb out of this window when I was smaller, and under curfew, by crawling along the big branch of the oak tree just behind Aunt Gwen’s house. I could still do that, but by the time I’d crawled along it and climbed from one branch to another, down the trunk of the tree, Taylor would be long gone.

So I have to improvise. There’s a smaller, whippier branch a foot below the big one, narrow enough for me to get a grip on it. I launch myself toward it, aiming as close to the trunk as I can, because it’ll be stronger there, and as soon as my fingers clasp round the branch, I let it take all my weight for one split second, and then I kick forward, swing back good and high, and launch myself yet again in a long powerful swing that sends me flying through the air, feet reaching out, arms stretching back, making myself as long and as aerodynamic as possible, so that I land on the thick lush grass yards and yards beyond the tree.

It’s as soft a landing as I could have hoped for. I don’t even stumble: I hit the ground running. Taylor’s only a few feet in front of me and as she looks back, gobsmacked to see me so close to her, she loses a precious second or two gaping at me in amazement.

I’ve got to give it to her: she recovers quickly and snaps her head round again, pumping those super-strong legs, sprinting away from my pursuit. But I have the wind in my sails, and, just as important, I know these grounds so well I could run through them blindfolded. Taylor has barely been at school for a couple of weeks. And it swiftly becomes apparent that she has no idea where she’s going, apart from Away From Me.

I bide my time, keeping pace with Taylor, and the moment I see her hesitate, I pounce. She’s just rounded the corner of a hedge, and there’s the ornamental garden to her left, another hedge stretching away on her right. Taylor doesn’t know which way will be faster. In the moment that she wavers, I speed up, zooming toward her, and as she realizes what’s happening I spring at her, grabbing the back of her T-shirt, crashing into her and forcing her to fall to the ground under me.

Taylor lands really well. She rolls, tucking her head in, and if it wasn’t for having me on her back, she’d have been able to roll right over and come to her feet easily enough. But I’ve thought this through—I’ve sent her crashing into the hedge, and I have her trapped between me and a face full of nasty spiky branches. If she doesn’t want her face torn off, she won’t struggle. And her arms, in that tank top, are bare: she won’t want to get them cut up. I keep her wedged in there, half-sitting on her. We’re both sweaty, but I’m used to spotting other girls in gymnastics, and being this close to someone else’s sweaty body doesn’t freak me out. I put my weight on her to stop her escaping.

“What the hell were you doing in my room?” I ask, my breath coming in big gasps.

Taylor is not as breathless as I am, which I find deeply annoying.

“How did you get out of there so fast?” she asks, her chest heaving but her voice sounding only curious. “Did you just jump out the window?”

“Of course not! I’d have broken both my ankles!”

“Then how did you do that? You couldn’t have climbed down the drainpipe, you would have been miles behind me!”

“I swung off a branch.” God, I make it sound like I’m Tarzan.

Taylor’s green eyes widen. “Jeez!” she exclaims. “Have you done that before?”

“No.”

“Then how did you know it’d hold your weight?”

“I didn’t.”

“Wow,” she says, her eyes widening further.

This is ridiculous. I just caught this girl going through my most private stuff, chased her out of my window, and rugby-tackled her to the ground, and now I’m actually flattered that she thinks I’m some kind of minor super-heroine.

“You can let me out from under this bush.” Taylor tries to turn her head away from the branches in her face. “I won’t run away.”

“How do I know you won’t?” I ask.

I couldn’t beat her in a fight. No way. Look at those rope-climbing muscles. Taylor is probably twice as strong as I am. My only advantage now is that she’s trapped under the hedge.

“Where would I go?” Taylor points out. “You’d only catch me again if I ran. You know this place way better than I do. Besides, you could turn me in to your grandma.”

I stare at her, thinking this over. I can see that Taylor’s right. Eventually—I don’t want to give in too easily and make her think I’m a pushover—I nod begrudgingly and release my grip on her. She wiggles out from under the hedge and sits up cross-legged, wiping leaves and her messy fringe off her face. I realize that I have become distracted from the main issue here, which of course is Taylor’s breaking and entering.

“How dare you break into my room!” I shout.

“I’m sorry,” she says simply.

“You don’t look sorry.”

“Well, it was sort of fun climbing up the drainpipe and getting in,” Taylor admits.

I can completely see that it would be a lot of fun, but that is Not The Point.

“You looked through my private stuff! That is so  .  .  . wrong!” I’m practically seething with anger now.

“Yeah, that was bad,” she says. She looks straight at me. “You gonna tell anyone?”

Oh, I hate her. Hate her. Because she already knows the answer somehow, I can see it in her face. And she’s cut right to it—she hasn’t gone through the ritual of apologizing, explaining, asking me for forgiveness, pleading with me not to tell, all the polite back-and-forth that would make me feel that she’d done some penance for invading my privacy.

“I ought to tell my grandmother right away.” The tone of my voice is sharp and curt, just like Lady Wakefield’s.

“But you won’t,” Taylor says slowly, as if she’s confirming something to herself.

I narrow my eyes at her.

“You’re really pushing your luck,” I snap.

“Yeah, whatever,” Taylor says with a sarcastic roll of the eyes. “I suppose you want to hear me say I’m sorry or something.”

I can’t believe how bitchy she’s being, and how smart. I didn’t tell on her just now, and she’s calculating that I won’t do it this time either. But she’s brave enough to take the risk that I will tell, so she’s apparently not even afraid of expulsion. I’d admire that quality in her if she hadn’t just snooped through my things. “No, I want to know why you were in my room.”

“I don’t know, okay?” Taylor snaps. “Look, I shouldn’t have done it. Anyway, I didn’t see anything important.”

Instinctively, I know she’s lying. But for some reason I also know that she won’t tell anyone what she found. Because if Taylor can recognize that I’m not a sneak, I can see the same quality in her. Both of us fight our own battles: we don’t go running to teachers or anyone else to sort things out for us. We’re both lone warriors. Takes one to know one.

I lever myself up off the grass and wipe off the seat of my jeans. Taylor, sensibly, doesn’t follow suit; she stays sitting there, looking up at me, waiting for my next move.

“Stay away from me from now on.” I point a finger at her and fix her with my best scary stare. “If I ever catch you near my stuff again, you will regret it. That’s a promise.”

I don’t wait for her to say anything. I just turn on my heel and walk away across the grass. I’m still pissed off, but it’s good to have had the last word. Refocusing my attention on the note, I come to the conclusion that although Taylor is a nasty cow who broke into my room, she wasn’t the one who left that envelope in my desk. Taylor only just this minute searched my room, and the note was left for me at least an hour or so ago—probably when Taylor was busy climbing trees. From her sweaty state, she looked as if she’d been in that forest for a good long time. She didn’t have either the knowledge about me—or, from her hostile attitude just now, the empathy—to write a sentence like “It wasn’t your fault.” And most likely, she didn’t have the opportunity to leave the note.

So I can definitely rule her out. Not that that helps much. One girl down, a couple of hundred to go. I need to think very carefully indeed about how to find out who left that note.

I need to set a trap.