‘The highest temperature ever recorded was 61.1 degrees in Birdsville, Queensland,’ said Aiden. Our teacher just stared at him. Aiden held his hands up in surrender. ‘Look, I’m not bothered,’ he continued. ‘That’s fine that Charlotte’s won. Seriously.’ He looked in her direction and gave a thumbs up. ‘But I think you’ll find that the temperature you looked up was the last official highest recorded by the Bureau of Meteorology. Birdsville got sixty-one plus about ten years after that but BoM had stopped keeping records by then because it was all meaningless. Point is, Birdsville was unofficially the highest but that record’s probably been broken since. I mean, who knows?’

‘You’re a sore loser, Delatour,’ came a voice from the back. Justin, a beefy kid with attitude who barely pretended to be interested in lessons. According to Charlotte he was going to inherit the family business and was just counting off the days until then. Mr Meredith had had trouble with him before.

Aiden turned.

‘Not a sore loser, Justin,’ he said calmly. ‘Just trying to get the facts straight.’

Mr Meredith, perhaps sensing that it would be a good idea to intervene, held up his hands for attention.

‘It’s a good point, Aiden,’ he said. ‘I should’ve said the highest official record. Should we do another tie-break question? Charlotte, would that be okay?’

‘Not necessary,’ said Aiden. ‘I’m happy that Charlotte’s won —’

‘Well, you sure don’t sound happy, Arseon.’

Aiden turned back to Justin once more.

‘That’s enough!’ shouted Mr M, but things had gained a momentum by then that was always going to be difficult to stop.

‘Arseon?’ Aiden said. ‘That’s your wordplay on my name, is it, Justin? Impressive. And I know that no one else in this class could have come up with such a witty remark at such short notice.’

‘You being sarcastic?’

‘Enough!’ yelled Mr Meredith again. Aiden smiled. It was his calmness that unsettled me.

‘Justin,’ he said. ‘I’m delighted to see that you’re not letting an education get in the way of your ignorance.’

‘What?’

My brother turned to the class. ‘Our classmate may look like an idiot and sound like an idiot,’ he said. ‘But don’t let that fool you. He really is an idiot.’

That did it. The next thing, Justin had launched himself at my brother, who calmly side-stepped, punching him in the gut as he passed. And then all hell broke loose. Mr Meredith tried to come between them, other kids crowded to get a better look and I tried to squeeze through the scrum to help Aiden. When I finally got there, he was sitting on Justin’s stomach, his knees pinning the boy’s arms to the floor. His fist was raised to punch him in the face.