'You can relax, by the way,' Diwa says dully, half of her mind still immersed in our maths homework. 'Apparently, there've been new leads. Everyone suspects Jordan Uwais is behind Death to Beewolf.'

I lift my focus from my hands where I've been tearing open a paper cut. That's what I get for doing schoolwork.

'Annabella and Ju were talking about it in the toilet. Apparently, Jordan confirmed it and all.'

I raise my eyebrows. 'Now you're stalking your crush in the toilet?'

Diwa flushes. 'No. I happened to be in there. I couldn't've not heard if I wanted–' Her sentence flattens into her scowl when she realises I'm taking the piss. 'Point is, no one is going to be looking at you if they're focused on Jordan. So you can relax a bit.'

'You're telling me to relax?'

'Yes. You look like you're about to chew off your own hands from anxiety. Like a hamster in captivity.'

I scoff but even as I try to laugh it off, the crawl under my skin proves her right.

Everyone in this school is mocking me. They no longer see a person who supposedly goes around stabbing and biting people at the first tug of a nerve. What they see now is some airhead, all bark and no bite.

Cobham's promise to expel me at the first whisper of trouble has meant that I haven't been able to as much as bare my teeth since the fire. Teenage memory is approximately seventy seconds; no one remembers the fear they felt when I stepped foot in this school last March. Even with crutches, I was more intimidating then than whatever domesticated corgi I am now.

They want me dead. They want me drowned. And now I'm declawed and defanged.

What's stopping them?

'Here.' Diwa holds out a triangle sandwich. 'It's vegan.' She keeps waving it in front of me. 'Eat it. Chill a bit.'

'Fuck you. You chill a bit,' I snap but accept the butty, nibbling one of the corners.

Horribly, it does make me feel better. Life keeps getting worse and worse.

I lean to balance on the back legs of my chair and count the ceiling tiles between lamps (four and a half) as I eat. Diwa's stare pokes at my exposed throat and I drop mine to her, ready to remind her that she told me to chill. The complaint dies in my throat: there's a glint in her eye that I know hasn't got owt to do with coursework.

'I looked into art colleges.'

My chair drops onto the floor.

'And none of em mention owt bout needing to have visited the Louvre in their entry requirements.' Before I'm able to gibe a single word of protest, she smacks a stack of print-outs on top of my maths notebook. 'Actually, most of em say they're looking for new and inventive styles, which is you. As long as your GCSE results are sound, you've got a well good shot at this.'

Resting my head in my hand and groaning so there's no room for misinterpretation about my reluctance, I glance at the stack. On top is a printed admissions page from the website of Stellatus Preparatory School of Expressive Arts.

'You want me to pay tuition? I've bankrupted my brother enough as is.'

'There are scholarships.'

'I'm not doing art as an A-level.'

'Don't matter,' Diwa states. 'One of the girls at my church got into an art prep school with her GCSEs and now she's at Manchester Met. And one of her mates only did a year of A-levels, then transferred to a foundational course.'

Diwa stares at me, almost imploringly, and I stare back, too confused and stunned and "where the fuck did all this come from" to formulate a response. Why can't she accept what I do ain't real art and definitely won't get me anywhere in life beyond internet mediocrity? To quote Ms Lemberg it's "no good for anything but vandalism". Hence, my vandalism.

The determination in her eyes dulls a little and her voice comes out as a suppliant whisper. 'You don't have to hate school.'

Silence is taut between us, each equally exhausted of the other.

Eventually, I gather the energy to mumble my closing argument, the blade that'll sever the wings off this fantasy before it takes flight. 'I failed my art GCSE. I never submitted any work. I'm not getting into any school or course with that.'

Diwa opens her mouth, reinvigorated to continue her fight but I cut her off.

'I've decided what to do for my English coursework. I'm gonna compare the use of insects as a metaphor in Kafka's Metamorphosis and King's The Shining.'

As much as she is determined to drive the art school conversation all the way into the wall it's headed for, Diwa can't help the need to criticise me. Her face sharpens with scepticism.

'Have you ever read either of those books?'

'No,' I say. 'But I'm told there are bugs in them so I will now. Other option is to chew off my hands and be exonerated from schoolwork. You know, I heard that if someone dies during exam week, everyone passes. I could take one for the team.'

Diwa buries her chuckles into a scoff.

Notes

Butty: Sandwich.