Fat, bespectacled, girlie name: three strikes, you’re out.

Gehna had tried to cheer Parul up that day. She had sat by him on the shore and told him she liked how friendly he was. That she admired his intelligence. She meant it too, but Parul had been in no mood to accept sops. What do you know? You’re a girl. Besides, it’s all right for you because you’re thin. If you were fat—here he gave himself a vicious jab in the stomach, as if to poke all the stuffing back in wherever it had come from—then you’d be friendly too. You’d have to be. If I were a little less smart and a little more skinny, I could afford to be mean sometimes. Maybe have an actual personality.

He had nice manners though, and had apologized before sloping off. He had explained that seeing him hang out with her would only make the boys laugh louder. It would be different, of course, if Gehna had been a real girl with boobs and everything instead of just being Varun’s kid sister.

That was the day Gehna decided that she no longer wanted to be in a tribe of boys. A single boy might stand out for his looks or because he was clever or kind; a tribe of them was, as a whole, unremarkable. To be in one, you couldn’t be too fat or too skinny, too smart or too dumb, too neat, too polite, too boring, too well-spoken or too driven. Too anything, really. There is a thick grey fog that sits on the world, and it is packed solid with groups of these boys. Faceless boys who laugh at each other. Faceless boys who prey on girls. Faceless boys in combat fatigues and bespoke suits who rape the earth. There is no creature in this world of wonders more frightening than an anonymous group of boys.

The ghosts of Gehna’s reminiscences retreated when Varun cut loose with a rebel yell. He had apparently won a round of arm-wrestling.

‘Chess is for commies and fags, son. Welcome to a real blood sport,’ he crowed, showing Eram a middle finger.

‘That’s what I’ve always liked about you. You’re a class act. Rematch with the left?’ Eram said.

‘No way. Think of it as payback for all the money you’ve stolen from me. I’m off to sleep the sleep of champions. Later, losers.’

Gehna felt as if all the air in the room had followed Varun out and been replaced with a dense silence. She watched Eram rub his wrist. He didn’t seem to mind the quiet. Gehna herself felt an acute discomfort and wondered why that was. Humans are the only animals that bleat on and on when together. Why can’t we shut the hell up and just be? Even monkeys tumble around, pick head lice or throw poop at each other when they want to bond. They jabber at each other too, but that isn’t the main thing.