And I didn’t know I was going to do it until I was doing it, but I step up real close and say, ‘Enough,’ and I can smell the foul breath of this enormous girl as she turns on me. The little one takes the opportunity and bolts but she’s the only one. The whole room is watching as the bully swings out. First punch connects—POW—with my cheekbone and I can’t even think. I’m in it, you know? I’m bigger than the other year seven but still much smaller than this beast, but I give as good as I’m getting. More, I reckon. I go hard, and before I know it we’re both on the disgusting toilet floor, each trying to get on top of the other, punching and clawing. People are screaming and cheering. Everything hurts. Everything! All I want is for her to stop but I’m not going to lie still and wait, so I keep going at her and then WHOOSH, she’s gone, pulled off me. I lie there, stunned, like the second you first wake up from a really weird dream. And then I’m being dragged up by Mrs Braddon and I see the bully ahead of me being dragged by Miss Carter and that’s that.

By now Lena would be almost crying and Will would be air fighting, showing how he would’ve taken the bully down. Aunty Nic would wrap it up quickly, telling them how she and the bully were both suspended and how the original victim left the school soon after.

They nagged Aunty Nic to retell it almost every time they slept over. It got so they knew it word for word, would jump on her if she got a detail wrong or skipped over anything. But every single time, Lena got all riled up at the end. I can’t believe you got in trouble when you were the hero! I can’t believe the little girl didn’t say thank you! The older she got the angrier it made her. It’s so unfair, Aunty Nic! she would say and, later, I can’t stand the injustice. Heroism should be rewarded, not punished.

Will knew it was pointless to argue with Lena when she was in a snit, so he never bothered to point out the obvious: knowing you’d acted heroically was the reward. You could hold your head high even if you were doubled over in pain. Your brain would rest easy at night even if your broken skin kept trying to sting you awake. You would always know what you did, and that would get you through a whole lot of feeling you were useless and scared of everything. That was more than most people had.