‘Felix,’ says Mrs Hudson with a concerned look on her face. ‘Where’s your coloured overlay?’

‘I forgot it.’

‘But you’re always forgetting it.’

‘And I forgot my lunch,’ I say.

Mrs Hudson shakes her head. ‘Have you done like I said – put notes on your bedroom door and on the fridge?’

‘Yes, but I forget to look at them too.’

Mrs Hudson sighs. ‘Use this one,’ she says, sliding a yellow overlay across the desk.

‘It doesn’t work.’ I slide the overlay back to her.

‘It might help,’ says Mrs Hudson.

‘It doesn’t,’ I say. ‘I’m not dyslexic.’

‘No.’ Mrs Hudson pushes the overlay back to me. ‘But you are behind in English.’

She’s got me there. I didn’t do any work at Granddad’s and I didn’t get to do any when I got home because Mum was giving me earache about getting sent to the Isolation Room. She went on and on, things like, ‘Can’t you just be quiet and sit still . . . you won’t learn anything from staring at a wall . . . was it Jake’s doing . . . ? is he a bad influence . . . ? because if he is I will go down the school . . .’ I told her it was nothing to do with Jake, it was just me. She just shook her head and went downstairs and said she’d talk to Dad when he came home, but luckily for me I was asleep when he did. Or at least I pretended I was when I heard his van pull up outside.

Mrs Hudson tells us to open our books. As I skim through the pages I glance at the others in the student support group – Michael, Ross and Laura all have yellow overlays in front of them to help them read. They never forget their overlays, but then neither did I. I left it behind on purpose, because I’m not like them. I can read okay, it’s just I can’t concentrate. People try to help and I know that they and Mum and Dad care. I’ve had loads of tests – a reading test, a reasoning test, a hearing test. One time Mum even took me to get my eyes tested at Specsavers. I had to rest my chin on a piece of plastic and look through mini binoculars and read letters through the lenses. The person doing the test said I had perfect twenty-twenty vision, so the next month they sent me for a hearing test instead. But there’s nothing wrong with my ears or my eyes. I can hear dogs barking in the park from my bedroom window and I can see that fly landing on Mrs Hudson’s book from here.

‘So,’ she says, brushing the fly away. ‘Laura, if you read the first page, then Ross can take over.’