Ms Oxenford’s white hair was not old-lady white. It was short and stylish, contrasting with her bright red lips and whisky-coloured eyes. She was way too pretty for a principal, and Dad said she could have been taken for Annie Lennox in her tailored black Mao suits. Ben had googled ‘Annie Lennox’ and thought, yeah, kind of, not really. Ben wondered if his dad liked her. He’d gone to school with her. He could have married her, and then, wow, she’d have been Ben’s mum. Which could come in handy right now.

Inside Ms Oxenford’s office, Ben’s heart stopped beating. Uncle Carl was slouching by her window in his dark grey duffle coat. It was thirty degrees outside; why did he always feel the cold? His hair hung over his eyes and he was so intent on the carpet that Ben looked down to see what was there.

‘Wait, what?’

‘I’ve been explaining a couple of things to your uncle about the pick-up zone,’ Ms Oxenford said in a brittle tone that Ben knew was covering up for something heavy.

‘Wait, what’s it got to do with me? Last period doesn’t finish for twenty minutes.’

‘It might be best if you went home with your uncle now.’

‘Am I expelled?’

‘Of course not! I’m just sending you home as a favour.’

Among the many things Ms Oxenford didn’t get was that adults’ favours to teenagers were not favours, they were curses. Ben didn’t want to be singled out for preferential treatment, no matter how well-intentioned. Since that coming-out speech, his dream was to get through school without anyone noticing him, so that when he ended up playing for Australia, they wouldn’t recognise him as Ben Grimes from St Pat’s. He would be a whole new person. A man.

‘Then I haven’t done anything wrong?’

‘Why, have you done something wrong?’

‘What?’ He blushed. Did she know about the cricket bat?

‘I’m joking, Ben. It’s lovely that you have your uncle back in your life,’ Ms Oxenford said. ‘Boys need positive male role models.’

Ms Oxenford was often off sick with unspecified medical problems. Ben wondered if you could give yourself a medical problem from stretching the distance between what the world was and what you want it to be too tightly.

‘Wait, what? Yes, miss.’

Ben looked at Uncle Carl. Why was she talking like he wasn’t here? From under his hair Carl shot Ben a look too quick to read.

‘And Ben?’

‘What? Yes, miss?’