I was fifteen, and you know what fifteen-year-old girls are like with a new boy at the best of times.  And as for Ra - he was special.  He was two years older than me and my friends - nearly three years older than Tash - and he had an exotic look about him.  He was dark, and he had foreign features that we couldn’t quite place.  Zoë wanted just to go over and ask where he was from.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ I said.  ‘That’s really offensive.  He’s probably from England.’

Then one day Zoë managed to overhear him talking to a friend in the library.  She came over to me and Tash and said, giggling, ‘He’s definitely not from England.’

‘All right,’ said Tash.  ‘Let’s go over there and ask him.’

I still didn’t like it, but I went anyway.  Zoë chickened out all of a sudden, so it was Tash who asked him.  ‘Where’re you from, Ra?’

He smiled at us, and said, ‘Thebes.’

Zoë started giggling, and said, ‘Where’s that?’

‘Egypt,’ I said, flushing scarlet, or at least it felt like I was.

Ra directed his smile just at me then, and said, ‘That’s right.’

Tash joined in the giggling, and said, ‘You came over with that new mummy they dug up, didn’t you!’

It was mortifying.  Ra looked uncomfortable, but Tash and Zoë didn’t notice.  As they were walking off together, still giggling, I said, ‘I’m sorry, Ra.’

‘Do not worry,’ he said.  ‘What is your name, please?’

‘Georgie,’ I said.

‘I will see you, Georgie.’

For about a week after that, he kept popping up in corridors and outside classrooms, and smiling at me.  Sometimes he winked, or said hello, or both, and I thought it was great.  Then one day he finally asked me out.  I just couldn’t believe that a new boy had asked me out - especially one that I fancied like mad.

He was seventeen.  I was too young, but not many fifteen year olds care about that when a good looking exotic boy asks them out, and I certainly didn’t.  I didn’t tell my parents, but I did tell Zoë and Tash.  They were in absolute awe of me.

‘It’s because you knew where Thebes was,’ said Tash, so decidedly that it didn’t occur to me to think otherwise.

We were going out on a Friday night.  When we got into school that morning, we were all called to the hall and told that lessons had been cancelled because more than half the teachers had come down with a severe case of flu.

‘More than half?’ Zoë baulked, as we were walking out of the school gates together.  ‘That’s impossible!’

‘Sounds like some kind of curse to me,’ said Tash.

‘Ooh, yeah - a mummy curse!’ giggled Zoë.  ‘Hey, Georgie - be careful tonight.  You should never let a mummy kiss you!’

They collapsed into fits of giggles, and when Zoë bowed her head I saw Ra standing nearby.  He had to have heard.  I smiled apologetically, and he smiled back.  He mouthed, ‘See you tonight,’ and my insides squirmed.

Zoë’s house was nearest, so we went there, and we all called our parents - including Zoë, because they were both at work.  My dad was furious.  Apparently no one had told the parents about the teachers getting ill.

‘Perhaps it was really sudden,’ I said.

Sudden like a curse, I couldn’t help thinking, but I didn’t really believe it.  Of course I didn’t.  But then suddenly Tash and Zoë both got sick.  We were playing some stupid board game one minute, and then suddenly they both had to rush upstairs and start throwing up.  I spent a few minutes just listening, which wasn’t very good manners, but I was worried about them.  It was so sudden, and it seemed really weird that I was fine.

Then my mobile rang.  The caller display said it was Ra.  We’d exchanged numbers when he asked me out.  I couldn’t help feeling a little nervous when I accepted the call, put the phone to my ear and said, ‘Hello?’

‘Georgie, my dear,’ said Ra.  ‘As we have no school today I am quite bored.  May we see each other sooner than planned?’

‘Well…’

‘Surely you will not be busy with your friends all day.’

I might well have been, if they hadn’t suddenly got sick.  The coincidence was too great.  I just sat there dumbfounded, holding the phone against my ear.

‘Georgie, I have an empty house,’ said Ra.  ‘Let me take you to it.’

I lost my inhibitions when he said that.  I couldn’t resist his coaxing tone and sexy accent.  I wasn’t naïve.  Once I’d persuaded myself that I was being stupid about the whole mummy thing, I knew what he wanted.  And, young though I was, I wanted to give it to him.  I’ve always thought it was stupid that there should be a legal age of consent.  It can’t be a crime if there’s no victim, and I was old enough to know what I was doing, and whether I wanted it.  I told you I fancied him like mad, and I wanted it all right.

‘Meet you at the school?’ I said.

‘That will be well,’ said Ra.

‘All right.  I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.’

Then Tash and Zoë came downstairs.  They looked like death.

‘Are you guys all right?’ I asked.

‘Not really,’ said Zoë, and then she clamped a hand over her mouth and ran back upstairs.

‘You’d better go, Gee,’ said Tash, staggering to the sofa.  ‘You don’t want to catch it.  Only could you get me a glass of water first?’

I took her some water, and then I walked back to school.  Ra was already waiting for me.

‘You are looking very beautiful,’ he said.

I looked down at myself.  ‘I’m in my school uniform.’

‘Always you are beautiful, Georgie.’

He took me to his house, sat me down and made me a cup of coffee.  I didn’t really like coffee, but accepting it seemed the cool thing to do.

‘You would like some music?’ said Ra.

I forced down a mouthful of coffee and nodded, trying not to retch.  Ra put on a slow, smoochy love song and swayed across the room towards me.

‘You are the loveliest English girl I have met,’ he said.

I didn’t know what to say except, ‘Thank you.’

‘So much more mature than your little friends.’

That was fair, so I said, ‘Yes, I suppose I am.’

‘You are grown up for your age,’ Ra went on, sitting down next to me.  ‘You are more like a woman than a girl.’

At that, I didn’t know what to say.  I just stared into his liquid chocolaty gaze, and I finally understood what people meant when they said they got lost in a person’s eyes.  He took the coffee cup out of my hands, put it on the floor and slipped his hand under my school skirt.  Then he moved in to kiss me.

I told you I wanted him, and I did.  My body was only too happy for him to keep on touching me.  But something held me back.  He was gorgeous, and I felt ready, but suddenly all I could think of was Zoë’s advice, given in childish jest: ‘You should never let a mummy kiss you!’  Did I believe it?  I don’t know - but I do know that I suddenly had an image of myself with all the youth sucked out of me, dried up and left abandoned while he went away glowing with something of mine that I could never get back.

I stood up quickly, blurting out, ‘I have to go.’

‘But Georgie, my dear.’  He was still smiling.  ‘We have not even begun.’

‘I’m leaving,’ I said, beginning to panic.  What if he wouldn’t let me go?  I said feebly, ‘I’m sorry.’

He scowled then, and said, ‘Why did you come here with me?  You knew what I wanted.’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘You should not have come if you were going to refuse.’

‘My friends are ill,’ I said, hoping it sounded like a good reason to get away.  Then I heard myself saying, ‘But you wouldn’t know anything about that, I suppose.’

‘Well of course not,’ snapped Ra.  ‘They are ill and you are not.  Why go to them?  There is a nasty sickness about that you would not catch with me here.’

‘Maybe not,’ I said, and then I left.  To my immense relief, he didn’t try to stop me.

The very next day, I felt sicker than I ever had in my life.  I was in the bathroom for hours with absolutely no control over what was coming out of me.  That was some flu epidemic all right.