The figure wandered up to the targets and touched them gingerly, as if examining them. It turned to look at the group of boys around the machine-gun, and grinned at them.

It was wearing poppies in its hair.

Rocastle stood up, the sudden fear he’d felt when his finger was still on the trigger boiling into rage. ‘Captain Hutchinson, I am going to my study. Bring that boy to me. The rest of you are dismissed.’

Hutchinson and Merryweather dragged the unresisting Timothy along the polished corridors to Rocastle’s study. ‘You’re a disgrace to the school uniform,’ Hutchinson told him, pulling the flowers from his hair. ‘You look like a girl.’

‘Really?’ Timothy asked. ‘A pretty one?’

Hutchinson punched him hard in the stomach and left Merryweather to straighten him up as he knocked on Rocastle’s door. He waited for an answer, then stepped inside and saluted again. ‘Prisoner and escort, sir.’

Rocastle looked up from his desk, resisting a sudden impulse to tell Hutchinson that this wasn’t a playground game. No. The boy was following proper form. ‘Let the, ah, prisoner, in, Captain. You needn’t escort him. Then you’re dismissed.’

Hutchinson nodded, led Timothy into the room and left, closing the door behind him.

The boy immediately limped over to Rocastle’s bookshelves and started scanning them. He didn’t even seem to notice the Head, who had begun writing again to give the boy some sense of scale. After a moment, he realised that he was being ignored back, and something snapped inside him. He leapt to his feet. ‘Dean! How dare you ignore me!’

‘Sorry,’ Timothy raised his hands in a gesture of pacification. ‘I thought you were busy, sir. That’s an early edition of Darwin on your shelf. I thought you⁠ —’

‘Never mind the bloody books.’ Rocastle matched each hissed syllable with a stride round his desk and made the last one into a slap that sent the boy flying into the corner. ‘You could have been killed this afternoon! What are you playing at? What are you playing at?’

‘I’m not sure, sir,’ Tim sighed, staying where he’d fallen. ‘I see so many strange things. I think I’ve grown up.’

Rocastle laughed bitterly and dragged him to his feet. ‘Like hell you have! I’ve heard enough about your illnesses, your cissy ways, and now the flowers in your hair! A fine miss, you are, boy! Now, are you going to pull yourself together and join in with this outfit? Are you?’ He shook Timothy harder and harder, until his head swung from side to side sickeningly.

‘Don’t⁠ —’

‘That’s sir!’ Rocastle bellowed, his face red.

Timothy closed his eyes as he was shaken, drew in a breath and stuck out a finger.

The finger caught Rocastle in the centre of the forehead. He stared at it. Then he crumpled into a heap.