I’ve been thinking a lot about Animals. I’ve copied all the lyrics down in the back of my Prep journal. One of them uses the F-word. Harry doesn’t even mind. But there’s no point in me trying to buy anything like that for myself. My dad would never allow it. Quite apart from the F-word, he’d just take one look at the picture of the band and decide what kind of people they were. Perverts, he’d call them. Degenerates. To Dad, any man with long hair has to be one or the other. I sometimes wish I had long hair. When I escape, I’ll give it a try. That’s how I think of it nowadays. As an escape, Mousey.

Only five more years to go. Till then, I’m going to have to pretend. Beg. Fetch. Roll over. I look like one of the other dogs, even though I’m a wolf in disguise. No one (except maybe Harry) suspects I might be faking it.

Of all the staff in St. Oswald’s, there’s only Harry who’s okay. Mr. Straitley we know about. Mr. Scoones is always going on about visiting Paris, and Jacques Tati, and rotten old French films. Then there’s Mr. Speight, RE, who goes to the same Church as we do. In fact, I think he was the reason my parents chose St. Oswald’s—because they knew that Mr. Speight would be there to keep an eye on me. My parents think the world of him. Mr. Speight believes in happy, healthy, God-fearing boys. Of course, Mr. Speight also believes in demons, that yoga and vegetarianism are “soft gateways into the occult,” and that rock music, comics, and horror novels contain Satanic messages that can brainwash young people into selling their souls to Lucifer. It’s pretty funny, actually.

Still, I’ve managed to settle in here. I think I’ll be okay—except perhaps in English, where I have to sit and listen to goaty Mr. Fabricant, when right above us Harry is teaching his group English. His lessons are fun too. Sometimes, on a nice day, when the windows are open, I can hear the sound of his voice. Sometimes he plays music. Sometimes, they laugh. I can hear them. Once, they all laughed so loudly that Mr. Fabricant closed the window.

I wish I was in Harry’s class. Even their books are better than ours. They’re reading Lord of the Flies, and 1984, and Julius Caesar. Ours are all rubbish, but I bet if he was teaching us, we’d enjoy them anyway. I’ve started reading Lord of the Flies. I borrowed Harry’s copy. It’s full of little written notes, all in Harry’s handwriting. I like that. It’s almost like he’s teaching me in secret. As if he’s sharing his thoughts with me, like a secret journal.