When Charlie turned back, the three girls blocked her in. Although they were in the year below Charlie, the giant was taller, and the one in the tracksuit twice as wide.

‘Our gardener’s son was at the White Boulder Boys’ Camp,’ the beaky one said. ‘He got in a fight and they sent him back for the rest of his sentence.’

‘Is that right, Charlie?’ Tracksuit asked, bunching a fist. ‘We’ll all say you started on us. Get you sent back to White Boulder where your trashy ass belongs.’

‘Don’t you speak, Charlie Croker?’ Beaky asked.

You’ve got the thing with the fire extinguisher, the locker bomb and three fights at White Boulder on your record. If you get caught fighting, you’re screwed. Stay passive. Hopefully they won’t get too far. You faced down worse at White Boulder …

Tracksuit threw a punch, but pulled it a half-inch from Charlie’s face.

‘Flincher,’ she teased, then she fired a big glob of spit into her eye.

‘Hey,’ Charlie said, rearing up.

‘Don’t you like that?’ Tracksuit mocked, spitting again. ‘Why don’t you do something?’

Charlie turned, so the next spit hit her earlobe. The giant had been gathering saliva in her mouth and shot a torrent into Charlie’s face. Beaky pulled her phone to take a picture as foamy spit rolled into Charlie’s eyes.

‘Why don’t you swing at me, Croker?’ the giant teased. ‘I can see you want to.’

Charlie tried pushing between Tracksuit and the giant as Beaky snapped with an iPhone.

‘Make her kneel and kiss your Nikes,’ Beaky suggested. ‘That’ll be a good Instagram!’

Charlie finally broke silence as she wiped her eye. ‘You three had better watch your backs after this,’ she snarled. ‘Maybe I’ll mix a nice batch of acid to throw in your ugly faces.’

At White Boulder, Charlie learned that a reputation for being vengeful made even the baddest girls think twice. She’d also picked up a couple of self-defence moves from an older cellmate, which had come in handy when fear wasn’t enough.

As the terrible trio wondered if picking on a girl who’d done prison time for almost killing Deion Powell was a great idea, Charlie rammed Tracksuit in the solar plexus. As Tracksuit stumbled back in a choking fit, the giant tried to put Charlie in a headlock. But Charlie had momentum and charged into a gap.

Beaky was on the skinny side. Charlie caught her in the face with an elbow and sent her iPhone spinning. Charlie wanted to break free, but as the phone neared the tiled floor in front of her she succumbed to vengeance and caught the device with a volley that would have made a soccer player proud.

Beaky yelped as the iPhone hit the wall hard, and slid down, landing on a changing bench with a cracked screen.