If I had one wish right now, I’d throw myself out of the window of this godforsaken car. If I could do it without creating a scene, then I’d seriously consider doing it because it feels like I’ve been in this car for going on four years.

Mum says it’s been four hours and twenty-two minutes. But when your parents are obsessed with singing a duet to Mr Brightside, time dilates into another age. Dad is on harmony, of course, if you can call it that. He’s bravely attempting it at least.

My headphones have been dead since we passed Oxford on the A34. That was an hour ago. They died just in time to hear Dad swearing at an old guy for going too slow in the middle lane. He seemed oblivious to the world around him. Lucky guy. I’ve been pretending my headphones still have charge, keeping them on my head like a protective force field from parental pressure to join in the sing-along. If they think I can’t hear them, they can’t embarrass me. Quantum bloody shame mechanics.

As the song hits the bit about coming out of his cage, Mum trills, “nearly there!” which she’s been saying since we left Tot Hill Services. We hit Starbucks and McDonald’s in quick succession, and I left armed with a Java Chip Frapp and a McPlant.

“Oh, look, cruise parking! Abbie, are you excited?”

“Mmm,” I say, which is teenager for “yes/no/maybe.” It could be any of the three. I haven’t decided yet.

“You see that, Tim, signs of life after all,” Mum says with a laugh, as if she’s attending her own comedy special. If it were, then she’d be standing on stage as awkward as I feel, with none of her jokes landing.

I stare out at the monotonous grey road, then at the flash of water behind the fences. The ship will be huge. The ship will be loud, and it’ll contain seven nights of being trapped with the world’s most enthusiastic woman and her moustached sidekick.

Dad wiggles his caterpillar-like eyebrows at me in the rear-view mirror, his moustache joining in the dance. “Sail-away party. Free pizza! You’ll enjoy that.”

I nod, as if the idea of pizza absolutely enthrals me, because I’m not a monster. Not yet, at least. Ask me again in seven days if I survive my parents. Also, the idea of being surrounded by tons of people scares me, and if I speak, the words “I might vomit from dread” will come spilling out, and I’m trying a new thing. It’s called Being Normal.

GCSEs are over. I’m supposed to be relaxed, the human embodiment of a jellyfish. Brain off. Floating. Instead, I feel like a nest filled with tiny ants. Every time I close my eyes, one of them crawls out in the form of a question. Did I mess up meiosis and mitosis? Did I spell necessary wrong four times in one essay? It’s two S’s and not two C’s, right? What if I’ve failed them all? What if in two weeks, my results are a sheet full of ones and a pamphlet about alternative careers in taxidermy? I don’t think I could ever stuff dead animals. Hug them, yes, but it’s a no to everything else. Focus. Graphic design is in my future. Nothing else.

“Abbie?” Mum again. “We printed out the itinerary for the teen club. A movie night! Icebreaker games!” She says “icebreaker” like it’s not a phrase invented by extroverts to trick you into nightmares. Blissfully unaware that saying icebreaker to a teen riddled with anxiety doesn’t instantly conjure up pictures of the Titanic when you’re about to board a cruise ship.

“Fun,” I say, and wonder whether the ship will have any hidden escape hatches I can use to evade the questions of prying strangers. Hello, my name is Abbie. Oh, you need a fun fact? Well, um, I guess I’d rather be eaten by literal wolves.

We pull in through some big iron gates, and the ship rises in front of us, tall and impossible. How does that thing even float? People are already swarming. Luggage. Selfie-sticks. A strong smell of… what is that? Diesel?

Mum claps. Actually claps. Loud. Like an excited toddler. “Seven nights! Norway! Fjords! Family time!”

Dad leans back and whispers, “and karaoke.”

I shiver. “But she means murder,” I mutter, and then feel guilty, because Mum is trying and I am too, just in a quieter, less clappy way.

“We’re a bit early… think they’ll let us in?” Dad says. We’re 30 minutes ahead of our embarkation time. His fears vanish when the man waves us through.

We pile out of the car. Dad struggles with the luggage as the man waiting to take the car taps his foot. Dad takes this as being impatient and rushes, dropping Mum’s enormous, aggressively pink suitcase. I take it as the man thinking that he probably has hundreds of these to go before he can get home to his own family.

We drop off our bags at the allocated location. C9. We’re told they’ll appear outside our room sometime later by a man whose entire personality seems to be fluorescent vest. Dad tells him a joke about not losing them. The man doesn’t laugh. He’s dying on stage like Mum.

Mum and Dad wander off toward the queue, with only their hand luggage with them. I have mine too, my new Fjallraven bag slung over my shoulder. Home to my iPad and my Switch and seventeen other random essentials: lip balm, tangled charger, emergency chocolate, the usual survival kit. I’d been wanting one of these bags for ages and had begged them for one for the last three years to use as my school bag. Of course, as soon as I finish, they get me one.

“We’re going to Norway, so we thought you’d do well with one of these since they’re from there,” Mum had told me as she handed it over with a big grin. I didn’t have the heart to tell her they were actually Swedish, but breaking Mum’s heart isn’t on today’s itinerary.

Check-in. A woman in perfect lipstick gives us key cards and smiles with all her teeth. “Welcome aboard!” she says with so much enthusiasm she could probably convince me she handcrafted the whole ship. Mum smiles back, and it’s a mini cheerfulness stand-off. Neither wants to lose, so they silently agree on a draw, and Mum moves away.

I shudder as another guy in a fluorescent vest waves a wand over me, even though I didn’t set off the metal detector. Why can’t I just get through without any fuss? He eyes my charm bracelet, wands it, then eyes me again. What? Does he think it’s fake? It isn’t. I’ve had it since my thirteenth birthday, and Mum and Dad have been buying me charms for it every birthday since. My favourite is a curled pink caterpillar. Lucky guy. All curled up and safe. Living the dream.

The man motions for me to keep moving, I guess happy that my bracelet is not a threat to the ship.

The gangway goes on forever. We turn corner after corner until I’m convinced we’re heading into the clouds. Then we’re on board. We immediately head to the atrium. It’s all glass and gold, with a chandelier that looks like it cost my mum and dad’s yearly wages combined. A piano is playing itself. Is it showing off technology, or is it simply cost-cutting? Does it cost a lot to have someone play an instrument?

I hear a bunch of people I can tell are annoying go oooh. Somewhere, a child screams, probably at the five-deep cabinet of ice cream options. Meanwhile, I’m still mentally making a list of ways I could vanish into this ship and escape.

Then I see her.

Blue hair, like the sky and lightning combined. It’s the exact kind of electric blue you can never get right on screen, the kind that looks amazing in real life but prints like a dull bruise. She’s standing by the glass lifts, hands in pockets, posture saying I own gravity. She’s in the kind of black boots you either wear in the military or you wear when you’re planning to kick someone in the face and look fantastic whilst you do. Then she glances up and our eyes meet, just for a second, because I remember that I’ve been stuck in a car for nearly five hours. Who knows what my hair looks like? So I turn away quickly.

My headphones hit the floor with an accusing clatter, as if they’re questioning whether I still love them. “I still do,” I whisper to them, dusting them off. I don’t often talk to inanimate objects, but I’ll do anything to distract myself from the people flowing through the ship.

“Abbie!” Mum beams. “Photo!” She drags me and Dad toward a massive display of definitely fake flowers. The blue-haired girl steps into the lift and vanishes into a spill of mirrors, like a magic trick. I tell myself it’s fine. The ship can’t be that big, and I’ll see her again, which is a totally normal thing to think. Not creepy at all.

We do our mandatory muster drill in a hallway outside the casino. The crew member assigned to our group is all cheekbones, fake smiles, and dead eyes. “In the event of an emergency,” he says, “follow the instructions.”

I practice following the instructions, but the casino only makes me think about how I’m gambling with my life by getting onto a giant floating hotel that seems like a powerful gust of wind would send it pitching sideways into the ocean. That and GCSEs. And people. It’s usually people. Now, it’s just person. The girl with hair like rebellion.

We end up outside, on the top deck. Mum sways in time with a cover band that’s trying its best to sound like Queen, and Dad’s already at the bar, ordering his third pint like he’s trying to set some kind of personal record. Seriously, slow down; the more he drinks, the more he snores. I glance at my phone, more out of habit than hope. No new messages, of course, but I check anyway. Once we drift out past the shore, the signal will vanish, and that’ll be it until Norway. Mum and Dad would never pay extra for the ship’s Wi-Fi. “Daylight robbery,” Dad had said earlier, which is funny. He doesn’t think twice about the deluxe drinks package. They get their endless alcohol. I could have at least had some signal. Still, at least my playlists are saved to my phone, which is better company than no company at all.

I let the wind fill my lungs and exhale as if I’m trying to let out all my worries. The horizon is a straight line. I wish my brain had one of those. One drawn with a slightly shaky hand would be good enough.

“I’m going for a walk,” I say.

“Be careful,” my Mum says, now fully dancing.

I wander because wandering is easier than bonding. Past the pool. Past a host of people with plates already stuffed to the brim with food. Then a sign for TEENS! MEET TONIGHT AT 8 PM. The font is Comic Sans and in bold, as if that somehow makes it less tragic. If design could commit a crime, this would be a felony. I stare at it briefly and consider being extremely brave later, just for a moment. I walk past a crew-only door that is propped open with a crate. I pop my head in briefly. It’s cold. Cold and metallic. Like someone had dumped a bucket of mop water and pennies.

Then. Footsteps.