I sit cross-legged at the end of the bed, nursing the mug of tea Mrs Pelosi made me. I need to go back to the classroom and check on my bag. Carrying it around with me all day was always going to be too risky – just walking it to school was terrifying enough. The Plan has me ambling round the lower field for the duration of lunch, ready to intercept anybody who might set foot inside the classroom. But a sort of inertia has set in. The playground warble – a sound that must be the same the world over – is drifting through the air brick above me. Like a resting soldier hearing the distant gunfire of the battlefield, I know I must get back among it, but I need a few more minutes to steel myself.

The tea isn’t helping. I’ve never had a hot drink at school before, and it feels weird, almost cosy. It’s like time has stopped and I can gather myself together before it starts again. Eight more minutes. That’s the deal I do with myself.

The tap at the door is too gentle to be anyone other than Mrs Pelosi. She pokes her face round the gap. ‘Ollie, sweetie. There’s someone here to see you.’

Everything tenses. The flinch doesn’t go unnoticed.

‘Don’t look so worried. It’s just one of your mates come to see how you are.’ She says the word mates all bright and smiley, like the concept of boys and their mates is the most heart-warming thing since kittens.

‘I haven’t got any mates,’ I say, shuffling back to the wall.

‘Well, I can’t believe that’s true.’ She eases the door open and turns to whoever is behind her. ‘He’s looking a bit more perky now,’ she says, leaving us to it.

Amit stands just inside the room, his hands in his pockets, arms pinched tight to his side. His eyes are wide and wary.

‘Are you OK?’ he asks, like he’s reading from a script.

He takes another step inside. I move down the bed away from him. ‘Don’t come any nearer,’ I say. I feel pathetic for not just walking past him and leaving. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Just wanted to see how you are. You looked really ill.’

I chuck the half-remaining mug of tea into the basin. ‘Who sent you?’

He drops his gaze to the floor and mutters something to himself.

‘Who told you to come here, Amit?’

‘No one told me to come,’ he snaps. ‘I just watched my mate have some sort of meltdown in front of the whole year. I’m worried about you.’

‘And what exactly is worrying you?’

‘Fuck’s sake, Morky. How long you gonna keep this up?’

No one other than Amit has called me Morky for ages; it was a middle-school thing that died sometime last year, along with my popularity.