‘I don’t think anyone here would disagree with you. But I’m afraid that assessment won’t get you an A in the paper. We have to dig deeper and try to understand. Of course we all just want to dismiss this guy as a –’ he mouths the c-word, to the relish of the rest of the room – ‘but we’re talking about a real issue. People really do things like this. Your success in the exam rests on showing that you have some understanding of why.’

I have no interest in this. What’s to understand? The guy gunned down a group of people who were posing no threat to him. He picked them purely because of their race and their religion. He is evil. He deserved to die. I hope he suffered.

I am left alone as the debate thrashes on round the classroom, Mr Clark feeding the others lines to be regurgitated in the exam. My feet close round my rucksack. I draw it a few centimetres closer to me.

This is not a terror attack. I am not a murderer.

I am not like Derek Heaton. I am not a gun-toting maniac. I’ve no desire to harm anyone innocent. I’m not a monster with a death wish, intent on taking as many people with me as I can. I don’t long for the day when everybody will know my name. I am nothing like Derek Heaton. Derek Heaton had a choice. His victims didn’t.

The people in this classroom had a choice. They chose to hate me. Chose to want me dead. They chose to bring that hatred to where I sleep, to where Gramps sleeps. And they didn’t stop there. They chose to go so much further than that. A picture of what else they have done – what they plan to do again – flashes through my head. I twitch in my seat. I can’t let it happen.

I don’t have a choice. These people in this room had a choice. It is them. They are like Derek Heaton.

Mr Clark cleans the whiteboard once more and checks his watch. ‘So we know that Heaton became radicalized by a far-right group in the months leading up to his attack. Now, we covered this topic to death at the start of term.’

His eyes begin a scan of the room. I search my head for something I can offer, certain he’ll pick on me again, but he reads my expression and presses on with a resigned shake of the head.

‘Methods of radicalization, please, boys,’ he says. ‘How do people like Heaton become radicalized?’

A bullet-pointed list accumulates in response to the rapid fire of suggestions.

‘Earning status for a criminal act,’ Lei Pang says.

‘Making the enemy appear not human,’ says a voice in the back corner.