'Perhaps it's my fault for not outlining the definition better, but I would consider triggering the sprinkler system for no reason whatsoever as intentional destruction of school property.'

Nicolás curdles in the plastic chair beside me. Locs gathered into a knot that droops to the right and dark circles hidden behind his glasses, he's glaringly tired... Or maybe just tired of me.

He accepts his role as damage control, though.

'They've got difficulties curbing impulses, sir. He knows it were wrong.' Nicolás's pretence is thinly veiled, but it's his audacity to keep it up that makes it so persuasive. 'It won't happen again.'

Sprawled on my chair, I trace the BURN IT ALL carving on my lighter and numb their conversation to white noise—I'm a "disruptive influence", I'm "too disinterested", I have "issues with authority". Maybe if they came up with summat new to say, I'd bother to pay attention.

I flick the zippo cap open and shut. Open and shut. Open. And shut. In series of three.

On and on. Just as my thumb brushes the spark wheel, Nicolás latches onto the lighter. Unafraid of my mangled knuckles, he claws my fingers off one at a time until he wrestles it out of my grip and shoves it into his pocket.

Then he smooths signs of physical altercation from his clothes as if the effort will somehow wipe Cobham's short-term memory.

'They're well sorry.' He kicks my shin. 'You're well sorry.'

'Dead sorry,' I echo.

'It won't happen again.'

'It won't happen again.'

Cobham observes us over his desk without a speck of interest.

His attempt to impose a sweltering presence into the office fails. He might be intimidating to a rookie, but I spend more time here than in my bedroom; he's about as scary as a bichon frise.

From the repetitive string of TOO HIGH 5 SCHOOL sharpied onto the rubber around my Vans to the top of my makeshift mohawk, achieved by braiding three cornrows to either side of my head and propping up the middle strip, I can't find a vacuole that cares.

'Cecilio has collected more detentions and isolations in five months than any pupil in this school.'

Without my lighter to fidget with, my fingers tangle into a curl at the centre of my hairline. I stretch it to my nose and let go, watch it snap back into its coil.

As their stares continue to prod, I flash my customised grillz that spell F-U-C-K across my front teeth. 'And haters will still say I ain't never accomplished nowt.'

Cobham's pursed lips don't so much as twitch.

Nicolás is equally unamused. He pushes up his glasses, which he normally won't wear out of the house, and sits straighter, like maybe if he's got a steel rod up his arse, it'll balance out my sagging posture.

Mirroring him, I scoot my chair closer to Cobham's desk. 'Is it possible that's not my fault but a classic case of favouritism?'

In response, Cobham lifts a grey office box onto the desk. It's branded Cecilio Velez Agudelo. 'Let's check.' He grants me a mocking smile and plucks a pale blue detention slip from the surface. 'Failing to complete homework and when asked why, explaining that it's too boring to bother when you could instead get high and listen to Bad Brains for six hours.'

Nicolás whines. 'Why would you say that?'

'You taught me not to lie. This is your fault.'

Probably not favouritism then.

That's not to say the other pupils of Isaac Evans Community Academy are better behaved. The difference is their survival instinct is strong enough to check there's no staff around. In other words: they've no guts.

Cobham reads another. 'Lighting a picture of Christopher Columbus on fire in front of the class when they were supposed to give a presentation about Spanish culture.'

'It were conceptual performance art, that were.'

'But it wasn't art class, was it? In fact, you hardly showed up to your art lessons where you would've had free range to do all the conceptual performances you wanted. Then you failed the GCSE by not handing in any work.'

I move my hands around the way presenters do in the TED Talks that Pathirana has forced us to watch in the few form times I've attended. 'I don't fancy restricting my creativity into the arbitrary confines of formal assessment.'

'But you do fancy expressing your creativity by vandalising school property for attention on social media.'

Cobham refers to the reason for the emergency assembly: graffiti that appeared on the front doors Sunday night. Under the text WELCOME TO HELL, some sort of demonic shadow creature beckoned everyone inside. Pictures of it were posted to the anonymous Tumblr blog deathtobeewolf.

Ergo, the witch hunt.

'You've no proof that were me, innit.'

'Who else would it have been?'

'I don't know,' I say though we both know I did it. 'But you ain't got no proof it were me. All I'm saying is if you don't want your property vandalised, maybe fix your security cameras.'

'That is just champion moral reasoning,' Nicolás snaps, the last of his professionalism finally crumbling under the weight of aggravation.

Cobham's ploughs on. 'How'd you suppose Mr Fernandez should assess your language skill if you don't say anything?'

'Evalúa mi verga.'

'Not that it matters,' Cobham says, his voice so chipper my teeth hurt. 'You didn't show up to that GCSE either.'

'Spanish people speak fucking Parseltongue. I have no interest in learning that.'

Leaning back in my chair until the front legs lift off the floor, I allow my eyes to trace the white metal frame that keeps up the fibreglass ceiling as if it's a maze rather than a symmetrical grid. The light nearest the door flickers every seventh second. Last week, it were every twelfth.

Ignoring my disinterest, Cobham continues to sieve through the slips. 'Missed attendance. Tardiness. Missed assignments. Fighting. Fighting. Asking Mr Apostolou what kind of trauma he suffered in his formative years that made him become a maths teacher. Incomplete homework. Failing to submit homework. Sleeping through lessons. Sleeping through a test. Spitting chuddy at Saadia Hussain. Being intoxicated in school. Bringing alcohol to school.'

His voice drains but my grin grows until my cheeks ache.

'Fighting. Fighting. Fighting. Smashing Mr Bunsuk's face into his desk entirely unprompted.'

My chair thuds onto all four legs. I tongue the back of my grillz, the metal that extends my corner teeth to vampiric canines. Not even a ghost of a smirk lingers on my face.

'It weren't unprompted.'

"It's a dog-eat-dog world" and the only ones to survive are those intelligent enough to take that literally. Vermin can't afford to place altruism above self-preservation—we steal the bones of anyone weaker and bury our own for safekeeping.

Life taught me this early. It taught Sakda too. Nowt between us is unprompted.

Cobham's stare drills into the bruises rotting on the bridge of my nose, then my split lower lip.

He shifts his focus to Nicolás's shocked expression. 'You don't recall these?'

'No.'

'You've signed all of them.'

Confusion barely flickers across his face before Nicolás turns to me. Cobham follows suit and I raise my hands in surrender. 'Well, I forged those, obviously.'

'You are aware, Mix Velez, that that is a crime.'

'Now you tell me.'

Nicolás screws up his face. 'Why are you so fucking difficult?' he seethes, not bothered to stop Cobham from hearing.

'It's a satirical meta-commentary on society.'

He cusses me out under his breath.

He hates you. You're wasting everyone's time.

I drop against the plastic backrest of my chair, hands shoved into the pouch of my hoodie. As usual, I've chewed up the humour prematurely and have to survive the rest with mildew for aftertaste.

Recognising this, Cobham shoves aside the written evidence. 'When was the last time you attended form time?'

'When were the last time form were useful?'

'They're mandatory.'

I gasp. 'You should've said.'

Understanding that I won't internalise owt said to me today, he turns to Nicolás. 'If his efforts don't increase, it's unlikely they'll pass their A-levels. It doesn't look good for our image.'

I snort. Balancing the border of Moss Side and Rusholme, Isaac Evans has a grade average of a C and a drop-out rate above thirty percent. We're not exactly churning out Russel Group acceptances.

'If he continues on this trajectory, I'll have to terminate their enrolment here.'

Nicolás's stomach fills with wasps. I know him enough to recognise his panic when he rubs his left wrist. I, on the other hand, move only to blink. Nowt disturbs the coals at rest behind my ribs, no ice nor fire.

'To stay, they'll need to pass all their mocks, reduce their detentions and isolations to a maximum of two a week, and there better not be any more incomplete coursework.' Cobham lays out his terms as though we're bartering over summat valuable. 'And he'll join an extracurricular.'

I stand up and bow my head. 'It were mint knowing ya.'

'Siéntate.' Nicolás latches onto my hoodie and forces me back into my chair. 'They'll do better.'

'All due respect—which, to be clear, is none—no I won't.'

If it came down to improving my performance, I'd put up with it. Hell, though it might be, Isaac Evans is the one school I regret leaving: vermin among vermin is right at home.

I went here for the first three years of secondary school until, a month into year ten, the foster system moved me to Wigan. The four schools I attended before my return in March might have better statistics, but a bedazzled gun don't make the bullet less lethal.

This place don't waste time with owt of that. Isaac Evans Community Academy is stanchioned by the mutual understanding that disrespect will be returned in kind, that the only way to not be chewed up is to be the one with flesh stuck between your teeth, and that survivors will be rewarded only with a broken nose.

The world—the world that waits for us—don't give a shit about what A-levels you have. Look at Nicolás: A-star pupil, first-class bachelor's degree, and what's he got to show for it? A crumbling council house and a rubbish IT job that he has to supplement with part-time at a nightclub.

Here, all you need to know by graduation is how to take a punch. Extra credit if you know how to throw one. No pretence. Sarah Nixley said it best: Life is unfair. Kill yourself or get over it.

That said, no school is worth extracurriculars. Every second around my "peers" makes me want to stab two pencils right through my eyeballs.

But Nicolás has amused me enough for one day. Forget the slump that embarrassment and shame thawed him into, he sits stringent in his plastic chair now.

'They'll do better.' 

Notes

Well: Very, really.

Dead: Very, really.

Isolation: The practice of removing pupils from the classroom and sending them to a separate room (often one with walled cubicles specific for this purpose) to complete their work alone and in silence.

Grillz: Jewellery that is worn on your teeth. They can be solid or hollow, encase a single tooth or a whole row, and can be encrusted with different kinds of gems. Cece's have the word 'fuck' written in the style of the first picture and elongated canines like in the second picture.

GCSE: General Certificate of Secondary Education. A qualification received after completing your GCSE exams at the end of year 11 (aged 16). 

Evalúa mi verga: Grade my dick.

Chuddy: Chewing gum.

Form time: A brief period atthe start of the day where the form teacher offers administrative information tothe pupils and has a chance to help them with their general concerns and developmentat school.

Owt: Anything.

A-levels: Advanced level qualifications. Received after completing you're A-levels exams at the end of year 13 (aged 18).

Russel Group: Association of prestigious research-intensive universities in the UK.

Mocks: Mock exams. Practice exams that don't impact your final grades but are meant to help pupils prepare for their GCSEs and A-levels. The results from mock exams can be used for the creation of preliminary grades that are used to apply to universities and receive conditional acceptances (meaning that if you get grades lower than your preliminary ones, you may not be accepted).

Mint: Great, good, excellent.

Siéntate: Sit down.