I might not have realized it before, but school is reliant on its pecking order to keep it from chaos. People love a hierarchy. No one wants to be equal – having someone above you is a price worth paying if it means you can have someone below you as well. It’s why people go to church. It’s why socialism doesn’t work. Daily, my position in that hierarchy fell as my downward momentum granted someone else the delicious opportunity of moving up a precious notch, to have a slightly loftier position from which to judge their worth. By the time the cool mornings had set in, and my feet were scuffing through fallen leaves as I watched them do laps of the playground, there remained only one member of 11C who’d yet to turn on me.

‘I’m so bored of this,’ Amit said. He accelerated a step or two ahead of me and blocked my progress. ‘This is all I ever do, mate. I follow you round like a fucking puppy. Why won’t you talk to me?’

Sometimes, if I really tried, I could forget he was there, a pace behind my shoulder, drawing unwanted attention. ‘What do you want to talk about?’

‘Don’t know. Anything. What do we normally talk about? Cars? Movies? Mrs Slade’s incredible boobs?’

Nowhere in me existed the enthusiasm to put a sentence together, knowing that he’d fire back another, and then it would be my turn again. And on and on it would be expected to go. ‘Not now,’ I said, on the move again.

His firm shove to my shoulder stopped me. His eyes skimmed my body, from my head to my feet and back again. A sneer flashed in his expression.

‘What?’ I snapped. ‘Don’t laugh at me.’

‘What is your problem, Morky?’ His voice was raised. People quietened and turned. Only the circulation of some revenge porn could grab playground attention like the prospect of a fight.

‘Just piss off out of my face,’ I said.

‘You’re an idiot.’

I leaned into him. ‘Fuck off.’

He shrugged, turning and smiling to the audience we’d amassed. ‘Have it your way then,’ he said, stepping from my path.

I’d only gone three paces when he did it. The taunt was just days old, instigated originally by one of the Mackies in double history.

‘Mooor-cooombe,’ a voice sang from behind me. I stopped. ‘Mooor-cooombe,’ it came again.

I spun round. Amit grinned at me. He stopped grinning when I shoved him into the fence.

My face against his, I screamed it back at him. ‘Mooor-cooombe! Mooor-cooombe!’

It drowned out the chanting of ‘Fight, fight, fight’ from around the playground. Amit stared at me in wild-eyed delight as I kept yelling at him until Mr Farley sprinted over and separated us.