‘Stage fright?’ I squatted down in front of the boy, gasped at the pain in my knees and immediately stood up again. ‘You’re online in front of fifty thousand people every single day.’

‘That’s not in real life though,’ he replied. Inside the mask was a voice modulator and, when he spoke, he sounded like a robot. A sulky, teenage robot. ‘That’s just gaming.’

‘That’s still live,’ I argued, pointing at Beezer Go-Go and PsychoBang, or Dustin and Greg, as they were known to their mothers. ‘I was watching a stream of you calling both of these a pair of butt nuggets last night, that was live.’

‘It’s “fuck nuggets”,’ the ginger-moustachioed PsychoBang called out to correct me. ‘He called us fuck nuggets and butt monkeys.’

‘Thanks, Greg,’ I replied before turning my attention back to my charge. ‘You’ll be absolutely fine. Everyone loves you and they’re so excited to watch you play the game that you’ve chosen to play which I can’t remember right now.’

‘Street Fighter 2,’ Greg piped up again.

‘Street Fighter 2,’ I confirmed. ‘Thanks again, Greg.’

‘I’m not doing it,’ the robot said again. ‘Don’t want to.’

‘Do you know what, I think there’s a few too many people in here,’ I said, turning around to look at the rest of the room. Greg and Dustin and Veronica and Tyler and Ted and everyone from PodPad apart from Kelvin looked back. ‘Could me and Snazz get a minute on our own?’

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Veronica said as everyone else began to pile out.

‘Fine by me,’ I replied. ‘Pull up a pew.’

I grabbed a bottle of Snazzlechuff-Says-branded water and a Snazzlechuff-Says-branded flannel, sat down in the chair opposite my favourite gamer and began cleaning my war wounds.

‘So, here’s the thing,’ I said, sucking in the air as I picked tiny splinters out of my palms. ‘I understand that you’re nervous—’

‘Not nervous, just don’t want to do it,’ he interrupted. Veronica snapped her fingers and made a zipping motion in front of her mouth. The robot fell silent.

‘Well, I would understand if you were nervous,’ I shrugged. ‘Even though you’re very obviously not nervous. But the thing is, if you don’t do this, I’ll lose my job. And between you and me, things aren’t going that well for me at the moment. Ted really loved that tiger mask and I have fucked it right up. Almost certain that will be coming out of my salary.’

‘I’ll pay for it,’ he beeped.