Until now, the fourteen-year-old’s journalistic experience comprised an Under 12s Photography Prize, rugby and cricket reports for his old school in London and a Rock Spring Neighbourhood News blog that he set up at Digital Arts summer camp. But here was proper news, and Harry had the first camera on the scene.

His fancy Nikon was at home, so his phone would have to do. Harry unlocked with an iris scan and flipped to advanced camera mode. Sunlight bleached the screen, so he had to click and hope for the best as he shot the little rainbow and buckled roof.

There was a chance the cops at the door would see Harry dash between the storm drain and the side of the building. He was no rule breaker, but he’d waited half his life for a story. Every crunch of gravel felt like a sonic boom, but Harry timed it well and cracked an exhilarated smile as his back hit the wall by an open window.

What if there are more bombs? What if some nut jumps out of a storeroom with a machine gun? This is such a buzz … This is why Mum loved it so much.

Harry wiped a dripping brow on the sleeve of his T-shirt, jumped on to the ledge of the sliding window, then down on to a chair, which kids had used as a step when scrambling out fifteen minutes earlier.

The strip lights were dead. The school’s crisply conditioned air had warmed and caught enough smoke to sting Harry’s eyes. Most kids had grabbed their backpacks, but there were pens and books on desks, clothes over the backs of chairs and a tatty phone left charging.

The classroom door was closed, with water trickling beneath. Harry took four pictures, then kept his ear to the door, before easing the handle and peeking out. A single hallway ran down this part of the school, lined with yellow senior lockers.

A shut-off sprinkler dripped and mini icebergs of fire-suppressant foam drifted on slow running water. Harry had never seen the hallway with the lights off and he stepped into the gloom, placing his Nikes as quietly as the wet allowed.

To the right, things normalised. A few downed ceiling tiles and the flow of water narrowing as it ran into classrooms. At the far end, light dazzled through skylights where this annexe met the main school building.

Hell lay in the other direction. Water dripped from the ceiling; slow-moving fire foam clumped around a collapsed sub-ceiling that had once held up lamps and ceiling tiles. Some locker doors were dented, others torn open by the force of a blast.

Harry crouched low for a gory snap of a dead rat, its black fur singed to bloody flesh.

Dressed in nylon shorts, he was briefly fascinated as his leg sank ankle-deep into foam. A groan sounded over the sprinkler drips and running water. Then a tortured shout.