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Zeph was almost at the bathroom when a sharp elbow dug into his side.

“Sorry. Desperate!” Alice called through the closing door.

So am I! As he stood rubbing his ribs, he saw Georgia coming towards him with that no-way-are-you-going-in-before-me look on her face, and he surrendered to the inevitable.

Tomorrow, he’d get up earlier. He’d not had this problem for the last couple of months because he’d been the first up every day, but now the summer holidays were over, his stepsisters could no longer lounge in bed until midday.

After Zeph used the downstairs toilet, he headed for the kitchen. He slipped a slice of bread into the toaster and emptied the dishwasher. He was mostly looking forward to school, well…to the lessons, not the rest, but maybe things would be different this term.

The toast popped up and he dropped it onto a plate.

His mouth watered as he spread a little too much butter and a thin smear of marmalade, exactly as he liked it.

He was about to take a bite when his father, who’d appeared out of nowhere like a magician with immaculate timing, plucked it from his fingers and bit into it himself.

“Morning, Zeph. Don’t worry. I’ll put another slice in.”

Did that make it all right? No, but what was the point complaining? It wouldn’t change what had happened, nor would it stop it happening again. Zeph picked his battles carefully.

“All ready for school?”

“I might change out of my pyjamas.”

His dad laughed. “Probably a good idea. Hey, I want you to sign up for an afterschool sport this term, okay? Drop cross-country running and do football. You need to play in a team.”

No, I don’t.

“You should keep yourself in good shape. In case… Well…”

Shut up!

“Kids need something that makes them feel good about themselves.”

Why should his father choose that something for him? Zeph was good at maths. Wasn’t that enough? “I’m useless at football.”

“It doesn’t matter. You don’t have to be in the first team.”

Zeph wouldn’t make it into any team. All he’d do was stand on the sidelines getting cold, then run onto the pitch for a few minutes if someone had to come off. No one would kick the ball to him.

“It will look good on your university application. You’ll make new friends. They’ll have your back and it’ll help with the teasing.”

What? Of course it wouldn’t. Zeph clenched his teeth. It wasn’t teasing. It was bullying. There was a difference. Teasing wasn’t meant to hurt. Bullying was. He could cope with teasing. He had a good sense of humour. Bullying was different.

Sometimes it was hard to believe his father had ever been to school.

He seemed to have no idea what it was like.

Either he’d never been bullied or not noticed it happening to anyone else, or maybe he’d been the bully.

When he thought of the way the family had treated his father’s brother, Zeph’s Uncle Martin, he swallowed hard.

No one was supposed to speak to Martin, though Zeph did.

“Being on a team will be good for you. Build your confidence.”

Oh, he’s still talking.

“You spend too much time on your own. It’s not healthy.”

But it was the way Zeph liked it. He drank a glass of water.

“Anyway, we’ve decided to give you more responsibility. Elisa and I are going away your birthday weekend. You can invite a few friends round for a party. Just don’t wreck the house!”

Panic fluttered in Zeph’s chest. “I don’t want a party.”

His father tossed a slice of toast onto Zeph’s plate. “Of course you do.”

He really didn’t. He spread butter so fiercely, he made a hole in the toast.

“Catch!”

A banana hit his arm and fell to the floor. Zeph picked it up.

“You need to eat more. Build some muscle. You have your…”

Zeph knew what he’d been going to say. At least he thought he did.

That he had his mother’s physique. His dad avoided talking about her.

That had been an uncharacteristic slip. His mum had been waif-like even before she’d been ill.

Cancer had turned her into a skeleton. Literally.

Zeph was lucky his cancer hadn’t done the same to him.

He rarely thought about it coming back but that earlier comment from his father…

It showed he cared, didn’t it? Sometimes it didn’t feel like it.

His stepsisters waltzed into the kitchen in matching fluffy pink dressing gowns covered with large white hearts. “Morning, Dad!”

It was a source of annoyance to his father that Zeph didn’t call their mother Mum. He just couldn’t. Elisa was nothing like his mum. A lump formed in his throat.

“Morning, girls. I was just telling Zeph he can have a party on his birthday. Your mum and I are going away on the Saturday morning and we won’t be back until Sunday afternoon. No alcohol.”

“You aren’t going to drink?” Georgia gaped at him.

“Ha ha.”

“I don’t want—” Zeph tried again.

Georgia thumped him hard in the back. “Yes, you do. We’ll sort everything.”

Zeph pushed his glasses back up on his nose.

“Don’t abuse this opportunity.” His father looked at him. “I mean it about the alcohol. No smoking or vaping in the house either. No drugs. Not even weed. Those rules are not to be broken. Nor are any glasses, ornaments or windows. No going upstairs. Assume no if you think I won’t approve.”

Zeph bristled. His father didn’t know him at all.

Georgia was the next to come under his father’s scrutiny.

“You’re the oldest, so you’re in charge.

Zeph’s friends and a few of yours. No open invites on social media.

I do not want to find the whole of Middleton and beyond were invited.

If the weather forecast is good, stay in the garden.

I’ll give you money for pizzas and soft drinks. ”

“We’ll move anything precious,” Georgia said to Alice, who nodded.

Zeph quickly finished his toast and went upstairs to the bathroom before his stepsisters decided they needed to use it again.

He didn’t want a sixteenth birthday party.

He had no one he wanted to invite. Once the themed parties of his childhood had come to an end with the death of his mother, he’d never had another party, nor had he been to one.

His bedroom door had a lock, so he’d stay in there.

He rolled his eyes at the thought of Georgia being in charge.

She might be turning eighteen in a month but she was far less responsible than him.

There might be nothing he could do to stop the party happening, but that didn’t mean he had to be part of it.

Maybe he should go out, then he couldn’t get blamed if things went wrong. Except, he would be blamed.

He slipped out of the house to catch the earlier bus to avoid travelling with his stepsisters.

His parents were idiots. His stepmother more so than his father.

She didn’t believe in rules and wanted them to set their own boundaries, to decide for themselves when they needed to go to bed and whether they’d spent enough time on their phone.

She was always waffling on about letting them learn from their mistakes.

When he’d plucked up the courage to speak to Elisa and his dad about being bullied, she’d said he should sort it out himself and told his dad that parental interference would make matters worse, and might rebound on Alice and Georgia. Zeph had known there was no point saying anything else.

He’d been mortified when she’d made a big deal out of giving the three of them condoms a year ago.

Even Georgia and Alice had gawked at that.

Both girls were allowed boys in their rooms, though not overnight for Alice.

As far as Zeph knew, Alice had never had a boyfriend.

Georgia was the pretty one, the funny one.

She had to fight boys off. Alice was… Disturbed was the best he could come up with.

Elisa told him she had no problem with him entertaining a girlfriend as long as the two of them behaved ‘responsibly’.

He’d thought about asking her how she’d feel if it was a boyfriend, but why poke that nest of hornets when there was no likelihood of it happening?

Even if Elisa was okay with it, his father wouldn’t be.

When Martin had come out as trans in his twenties, the family had stopped talking to him.

As far as they were concerned, Martin had been born a girl whose name was Stefanie and they would not accept anything else.

Whenever Zeph went to see his grandparents, they and his father said horrible things about Martin.

When his grandfather died, there had been a big row when Martin had turned up at the funeral.

Zeph’s mum had been furious with his dad.

The family’s treatment of Martin was always something they argued about.

When his mum had died, Martin had come to her funeral and Zeph chewed his lip remembering how cruel his father had been.

Martin had still attended the funeral of Zeph’s grandmother a few months later and Zeph had wondered why when neither of Martin’s parents had been kind.

Martin had later told him he wanted to be sure they were dead.

Unhappy as Zeph was at home, he knew it could be worse.

He needed a roof over his head. He had his future mapped out and finding himself homeless or in council care wasn’t part of his plan.

In two years, he’d go to university. Nothing would interfere with that.

After reading maths and computer science at Cambridge, he’d get a job with GCHQ, Government Communications Headquarters, the UK’s intelligence, security and cyber agency.

Maybe he’d spend a few months travelling before he started work, assuming he could find a job to pay for the trip.

Or save his money and have laser eye surgery instead, say goodbye to his annoying glasses.