I sit down at a table bang in the middle of the classroom. Bendi sits down next to me. His full name’s Benedict, but the boy gets angry if you use it. I heard rumours that Bendi got excluded from his last school because he broke the head’s office window when she called him Benedict during a detention. I don’t mind him. Bendi wears his angry on the outside. I know where I stand.

The teacher says her name is Ms Nzegwu. She writes it on the whiteboard for us.

Charity and Tori make fun of the name, twisting their mouths up around the “z”. A Nigerian kid called Josh who joined our class last week starts shouting at them and calling them racist. Bendi sighs. I have to stop myself throwing a few words at Charity and Tori too. I reckon that Annie needs a 24-hour gap before getting another phone call about me.

I take a deep breath. Even though I haven’t got my knitting with me, I try to imagine the stitches slipping along the needles, the wool not too tight but not too slack, a T-rex forehead getting bigger and wider.

Click, click, click.

Ms Nzegwu shouts again. There’s silence.

“So all of you want to talk about racism?” she says, quietly now.

Ms Nzegwu picks up the globe Mr Mann keeps on his desk and spins it. As it slows down, she says, “Look at the size and shape of those countries.”

I want to see. I lean closer, but she doesn’t hand the globe round. Maybe she’s heard that there are kids in this class who like to throw things.

Ms Nzegwu turns on the whiteboard.

“Now look at these maps of the same countries,” she says.

When it’s all flattened out, the countries are different sizes compared to what they are on the globe. Ms Nzegwu asks us if it’s racist to make some countries look smaller than they are and others much bigger. Can maps ever tell the true story? Does it even matter? If I really had my needles, I’d probably drop a stitch because I’m too busy listening and thinking about what she’s saying.

Charity puts up her hand and asks, “If they make China look bigger, doesn’t that make it racist against white people?”

“You’re so dense – you can’t be racist against white people!”

That’s Josh. He stands up so fast, his chair falls back. He storms towards Charity. Charity stands up too, her chin stuck out like she wants to dig a hole with it.

Ms Nzegwu looks like she’s gonna magic a thunderbolt out of thin air and throw it at them. I feel sorry for her again. No one wants to walk into a class and deal with this. And, man, I don’t want to. I just want to learn the history.