Nicolás is sitting at the bottom of the stairs. Why can't he ever pretend it didn't happen and move on? But no, he always has to fucking "apologise". What if I don't want to be apologised to?

What if I climb out through the window? Wouldn't be the first time.

But Dictator Brother won't let me keep my shoes on inside which means climbing out the window would have me going to school shoe-less. I should take them up to my room in the future.

Best option is to leg it. I rush down the stairs quick enough that Nicolás only has the chance to respond when I'm past him.

'I made you breakfast–'

'Not hungry.'

Another thing that makes Nicolás unbearably annoying is his obsession with a balanced breakfast. (It's poisoned.) Full four-course meal or summat. Protein this, fibre (What if it's poisoned?) that. What's wrong with good old cigarette and energy drink?

I shove my trainers on without undoing the laces.

Nicolás understands the urgency, quits trying to ease into it. 'Listen, I'm sorry about last night. I was worried but I shouldn't have yelled and I shouldn't have said owt I did. I just really would appreciate it if you–'

'I actually prefer yelling to whatever this is.'

He blinks. I swear this bloke lives in some rainbow fantasy land. What is it with these people and wanting to talk about their fucking feelings?

Nicolás thumbs the corner of the paper he's holding, curled in on itself from his fidgeting. He hands it to me. 'Here's the extracurricular list from Cobham... D'you want me to drive you?'

When have I ever wanted him to drive me? Not once in eight months of living with him.

I don't humour him with a response before I step into the rain.

            Soul Glo screams in my ears while the burgeoning sunrise blinds me. I bite down on my fag as I jump the curb and shortcut around the truck delivering supplies to Tariq's Halal Butchers, drop to the adjacent road, and kick for more speed.

The warning bell rings just as I powerslide to a stop in front of the gate to Isaac Evans Community Academy. I dawdle on the street outside school property to finish my fag while Apostolou, who's on gate duty, watches unamused. A sacrifice I pay for when I have to run up the stairs two at a time, the chains on my trousers rattling against my thighs.

Pathirana struggles to keep surprise off her face when she marks me off the attendance list for form. Those who attend every morning—i.e. everyone else—already have favourite seats and beeline directly to them. I'm stuck at the desk at the centre of the second row, right behind Diwa.

Perfect. Nothing makes my morning like her lovely presence.

Pathirana starts to talk about goals, goals that we're supposed to set now that mocks are coming up because "university applications will arrive much sooner than we think". She's among the last teachers who still have faith we can make summat of ourselves, that we've got futures brimming with potential instead of retail jobs and convictions.

I dig out a notebook and one of the dozen loose pens at the bottom of my bag to sketch to the rhythm of Chikiwata.263 currently playing in my earbuds. The threat of being caught (locked in) is all I can think of (locked in), and I mean all (locked in)—a spool of barbed wire that reels (locked in) and reels in my mind.

I'm helpless against it without spliff. It's too sharp for me to be able to count any threes. I try the next best thing: scrawling the dark onto the page, the wasps, the holes from the stings and their tarsal claws, holes within holes, so many holes that there's little skin left and it flakes off like dust.

As Ms Lemberg kindly reminded me every art class in St Aquinas Preparatory School, my work amounts to nothing. I've no grasp or artistic technique. Three things I'll always lack: realism, proportion, dimension.

Three things you'll always lack: home, sanity, safety.

I have "no sense of aesthetics".

You will never be safe.

Everybody is watching. And they know–

'You can't listen to music during lessons.'

I snap my head to Pathirana who has appeared beside me without my notice.

Tugging one bud from my ear, I meet her eye without hesitation. 'Cobham told me I had to attend. There were never nowt mentioned bout paying attention.'

Pathirana don't find me funny. She extends her hand and I miserably curl my earbuds around my phone to place both onto her palm.

'You can have it back at the end of the day.'

I jerk upright. 'What? You expect me to go all day without my phone?'

'Yes.' Lips flat, she casts a glance at my drawing. 'Why not try taking notes to occupy yourself?'

I slouch into my seat. Just mega, innit. This is well a breach of my civil rights.

I know for a fact that Saadia uses her hijab to hide her AirPods (which she keeps showing off to the rest of us who make do with hand-me-downs that only work at certain angles, though I'm still steadfast they look like she's got toothbrush heads in her ears). Adio is currently asleep. Jeremy whirls his fidget spinner so aggressively it sounds like an attack helicopter is about to land on the roof. But me listening to music during the uselessness of form is the end of the world?

Without the shield, the noise of the world collapses on me.

Rain hammers against the windows, so furious that it hurts the Earth more than it heals it. At least four different voices overlap with Pathirana's advice about revision plans.

There are too many people. I can hear them swallow the saliva in their mouths. Hear all of them. Someone coughs, coughs into their hand and then spreads it on their clothes and the desk and the door handles.

Germs. So many germs. They crawl into my skin, slot themselves into the punctures left by the wasps. I'm covered in germs. I'll have to burn to get rid of them.

The vertigo isn't helped by the conversations of my peers that elbow my ribs, shove me back and forth between them with no time to regain my balance.

Annabella shows Jeremy summat on her fourth-generation iPhone, of which, both the front and back glass are shattered. She's coloured them in with highlighters. They're too far for me to decipher complete sentences but the name Death to Beewolf cuts clear and I snap my attention elsewhere.

They'll find out it's you.

Saadia, Lakresha, and Milli sit with their heads together directly behind me. With one row between us, their not–exactly–whispered conversation reaches me unobstructed.

'–my cousin in Salford, she goes to Churchill Way He went there last year, innit. And she told me they got expelled cause they bit someone. Proper and all. And the bloke got rabies.'

'Of course, they don't have rabies, Milli. They'd be dead by now.'

Unless you do. What if you do have rabies and just haven't noticed? It's not like you've gone to a doctor in years.

You'll die... You're about to die!

Maybe I should go to a doctor.

They'll lock you in.

'I heard they knifed someone at lunch with everyone watching.'

'Shouldn't he be in jail for that?'

'Nah, cause they weren't sixteen yet, innit.'

I turn to face them. Still staring directly at me, they operate as though I'm an animal that'll be agitated by rapid movement but don't understand speech. Fair enough.

Milli's afro puffs shrink with fear. 'You don't reckon he'll knife someone here, do ya?'

'If they do,' Saadia says, 'I hope it's Algebrat.'

I sense Diwa tense in front of me. I can't believe they still call her that. It might've felt clever when we were eleven but I thought folk had given it up when they got old enough to realise how lame it is.

Turning away from the trio, I find Diwa frozen in the middle of taking notes.

Should I say summat? "Hey, don't worry, I ain't planning to stab ya"?

But what if I am? Planning to? I can't stand her, who says I wouldn't take it that far? Maybe I did stab someone at lunch in my old school and just don't remember. Maybe I'm secretly a serial killer and just don't remember.

You deserve to be locked in.

Do I? I'm dangerous. I was born evil. I'm evil. I'm dangerous. What if I want to hurt them?

You're going to hurt them.

You're going to hurt Nicolás. You know you want to. You think about it all the time.

I do think about it all the time. I'm thinking about it right now! And I love the fire.

Maybe I should turn myself in. Get expelled for everyone's safety. Maybe it's better for me to get sent away to that group home. I can't hurt people if I'm there.

But this is home.

You don't have a home. You'll never have a home. Don't kid yourself.

I deserve to be locked in. I deserve to be drowned. It's the truth but I'm too selfish. My fear has too many teeth for me to willingly settle into it.

Because you're selfish and evil.

Because I'm selfish and evil.

I dig Cobham's list of extracurriculars from my pocket and unfold it.

Chess club? No. Debate team? I argue enough with Nicolás. Football? Not a chance. Rugby? Even less of a chance. International PeaceJam? What the fuck even is that? I turn the page. The other side is blank. My head drops against my desk.

Given how much time I spend in it, detention should be considered an extracurricular.

'Miss, why does Saadia get to do her assignments on a computer?' Jeremy's accusatory tone draws everyone from their various methods of killing time. 'It's dead unfair. You make the rest of us write everything by hand.'

Pathirana has always been strict about this, both as our form tutor and English teacher, explaining that since our exams will be written by hand, she don't see why we should write in-class assessments on a computer.

I have a feeling a large part of it is that most of the pupils at Isaac Evans can't afford their own laptops and she's less willing than the teachers at my old schools to accept "sorry, my brother wouldn't let me borrow his" as an excuse to not do homework.

Pathirana don't get to explain any of this before Saadia swivels around in her seat. 'I'm dyslexic, you twat.'

Pathirana speaks over the brewing argument. 'If you'd like, Jeremy, I can book you in for an assessment with the nurse.'

He scowls. 'I'm not retarded.'

'Just stupid then?' Saadia retorts.

Annabella jumps to her best friend's defence, which in turn, mobilises both Milli and Lakresha to defend their queen bee. They've escalated into war before Pathirana can do owt to stop it.

Seizing the distraction, I lean over my desk. 'Oi. Diwa.' When she ignores me, I ball up the extracurricular list and toss it at the back of her head.

Diwa looks around at a sluggish pace.

'You're in maths olympiad, right?'

'You've got worms for brains.'

This is all she says before she turns back and before I can demand her attention again, Pathirana threatens the next person to make a sound without permission will get detention for a week. Pathirana hands out detentions like Oprah. 

Notes

Powerslide: A skateboard trick where you turn the board sideways while in motion so that the wheels slow and stop.

Fag: Cigarette. (Not the slur! They're British!)