A PLACE BY THE SEA
The stone flew past her head immediately after the word. She’d spotted the kids sitting on the wall as she came round from the Co-op, but there was no other way back to the flat, sitting as it did at the end of a cul-de-sac. It was one of Billy Shaw’s boys, she was pretty certain, but she didn’t know the other boys, nor the girls standing by them laughing at how macho they could be. The rucksack should protect her back, she thought, so best just keep her head down and get in the door as quickly as she could.