Jane looked into Layla’s face. Layla’s eyes were shut, but her wide mouth was set into a closed-lips smile that seemed to shimmer in the moist light, and Jane felt sure that Layla could see her through those lowered lids, as-

The glass glided, dragging Jane’s finger, then her hand across the oily bench-top towards the letter J.

OK, that was it. She was annoyed now. So, like, suppose she tried to manoeuvre it. Suppose she exerted a little deliberate pressure of her own next time. Suppose, with some really intense concentration, a blast of hyper-focused will power, she could make it spell out Jane…

Will power, yeah: thought-projection. She glanced up at Layla. Layla’s eyes still didn’t open.

All right. She located the letter A, halfway between Kirsty and the kid Amy, and she really, really concentrated on it, and when the glass began to move, she tried to-

The glass was dragged from under her forefinger, to slide unstoppably to the letter U.

Jane leaned back. She didn’t like this. She really didn’t like it.

She became aware that the girl opposite her, Amy of the fourth form, had begun panting. Her fair hair was pulled back tightly from her face and her skin seemed to be stretched taut. Now, Jane knew exactly who she was. She was the one who looked like one of those plaster mannequins in an old-fashioned school-outfitters: skirt always uncreased, blazer always buttoned, tie always straight, hair perfectly shoulder-length, perfectly brushed. Amy’s ultimate role model would be Candida Butler.

What was wrong with her? If this scared her so much, what was she doing here?

Because it was addictive? Because it worked?

Get me out of this.

The glass moved under Jane’s finger, slid back into the centre of the circle of letters and off again. The bloody thing seemed to know exactly where it was going, and she just let it happen now, watching the finger in motion, with the fore fingers of the other three — all of them apparently just resting on the thick base of the glass — and all the time trying to separate herself from this, pretending that finger was no longer connected to her nervous system.