So I was sitting on the toilet one lunchtime (cue hysterical laughter from little Will and Lena) and just as I was finishing my business I heard this loud voice going, ‘Watch what you’re doing you turd (more giggles), you just sprayed water all over me.’ And then I hear this other voice saying sorry and then giving this little yelp. I get out of the cubicle and see this giant girl—a year nine, it turned out, but I didn’t know that at the time—holding this smaller girl, a girl from my year, up against the wall. The big one’s palm was flat against the little one’s chest and she was just eyeballing her, you know?

So, the little one’s friends, two girls I recognised from maths but whose names I didn’t know, start begging the big one to let their friend go, saying how she’s sorry for splashing water and all that. The big girl kept totally focused on her victim, who was going all red in the face, obviously trying super hard not to bawl. A minute went past. Must have been only that long because I’d rushed to go to the loo with only six minutes before the bell rang and it still hadn’t gone by this stage. And then the little girl squeaks out, ‘It was an accident, okay? Please.’ And the big girl repeated it back at her in this nasty, high-pitched voice. The little one starts crying. One of her friends says she’s going to get a teacher and that’s when the big one drops her hand. ‘Don’t,’ she says. She stands back as if to let the girl go, then BAM, slams her against the wall again, this time by punching her stomach. Imagine it, right? The height difference would be like if I punched you in the stomach, Leen! (‘No!’ Lena would laugh-gasp, wrapping her arms around her tummy protectively.) I’d have to actually bend my knees a little and do an awkward low swing to get you right there (and Nic would land the world’s gentlest punch on Lena’s covered belly and sometimes do the same to Will and it would take minutes to stop the gentle fighting and laughing and get back to the story).