A jet of colour bloomed effortlessly on to the glass in front of me. I felt a rush of excitement. It was so easy. ‘What the hell am I writing?’ I asked her, nervous laughter swelling in my voice.

I caught sight of my darkened reflection in the window. Me, Ollie Morcombe, hanging from the side of a school building after hours, a loaded aerosol of paint in my hand. I liked how it looked. I liked how it felt. My reflection smirked back at me. A memory returned to me – that time in middle school when Amit and I let off a dry-powder fire extinguisher in the changing rooms. It was the one time my behaviour had earned me a letter home. But we went on to laugh about it for years. It was worth every bit of the trouble it landed us in. Sophia was right. Sometimes it was good to be bad.

‘Stop admiring yourself,’ she said. ‘You look gorgeous, take it from me.’

I swung round to look at her. There was a cry of tortured plastic as the guttering buckled and sagged clear of its fixings. I ducked as clods of soggy moss rained down on me.

Sophia bent double, as if I was laying on the show just for her benefit. I dug my fingers into the window frame, clinging on as waves of laughter immobilized me.

‘Focus, Ollie,’ she ordered from below. ‘Will you behave!’

I breathed deeply and regained some composure. ‘Tell me what to write then.’

‘What’s that teacher’s name? The one who sounds like a proper wanker.’

‘Mr Clark. He is a proper wanker.’

‘Something about him. And the Mackies.’

With more time to think, I’d have probably come up with something more eloquent. ‘Noel Clark sucks Joey and Nate Mackie’s cocks?’

Sophia looked unconvinced.

‘Tiny cocks?’ I suggested, suddenly embarrassed.

‘You can do better than that. It’s a bit childish. A touch homophobic as well, don’t you think?’

I was glad of the darkness as I turned away from her and reddened. I was annoyed with myself – the playground obsession with gay slurs as the ultimate insult was something I’d always found pathetic.

‘Keep it simple,’ she said. She flashed an open palm into the air as she uttered each word, as if throwing them on to the building’s flank. ‘You. Are. All. Going. To. Die.’

‘Snappy,’ I said.

‘That’ll shit them up, Ollie. Like they shit you up every day.’ She splayed my bag out on the grass and sat cross-legged on it. ‘Big as you can,’ she ordered, sparking up a cigarette.