Before I can reply, the door of the classroom opens and Mr Curtis ushers me in. ‘Ah, Meg,’ he says. ‘Nice to see you made the effort to get here on time.’

Two other students from Year Ten, Jackson and Rose, have already arrived and are lounging on beanbags. ‘Hi, Meg!’ says Rose and I sit down next to her. Jackson raises his eyebrows by way of a greeting, but he doesn’t look up. He’s distracted by some polystyrene balls he’s managed to get out of his beanbag. I think he’s trying to stick one ball on each finger.

‘I borrowed beanbags from the library to make things a bit more intimate,’ says Mr Curtis.

‘Intimate!’ snorts Jackson.

Mr Curtis rolls his eyes and slips off his pointy shoes. ‘OK, guys, I think we’d better get started.’

But before he can sit down, the door flies open and Annie comes in on her crutches.

‘Couldn’t find any hot blunt needles?’ asks Mr Curtis.

She smiles and shrugs. ‘Kieron Webber told me you give out biscuits.’ She walks into the room then stares down at the spare beanbag. ‘I’m not getting down there,’ she says.

Mr Curtis thinks for a moment. ‘Fair enough,’ he says. ‘The beanbags aren’t essential.’ He tosses the offending beanbag aside and gets Annie a chair.

‘And I’m not sitting on that with everyone staring up at me.’

Mr Curtis sighs. ‘Up you get,’ he says, waving his hands at us. ‘Grab a chair. Annie’s right: we should all be on the same level.’

I move to a chair and so does Rose, but Jackson stays where he is. ‘Nope,’ he says. ‘I like it down here.’

‘Fine,’ says Mr Curtis. ‘Jackson’s on a beanbag; the rest of us are sitting on chairs.’

‘Cheers, Sir,’ says Jackson. ‘Hey, look at my specs. It’s snowing!’ Now he’s covered the inside of his trendy black glasses with polystyrene balls. ‘Once my cat got in my beanbag,’ he continues. ‘It was so funny. Actually, I put her in there. Did any of you see the pictures on Facebook?’

‘No,’ says Annie. ‘A, I’m not Facebook friends with you for obvious reasons, and B, it sounds cruel.’

‘It wasn’t cruel. It was funny and Mindy loved it. You can tell from the photos because she’s basically smiling.’

‘I’d really like to see them!’ says Rose.

‘In what way is she smiling?’ Annie sounds a bit interested now.

Mr Curtis clears his throat. ‘If you’ve all finished talking about Jackson’s cat, I’d like to welcome you to your first Student in the Spotlight session. Now, you’re all students who show great promise for your GCSEs, and hopefully these mentoring sessions will help you to realise your potential.’

‘Why us, though?’ asks Rose. ‘I mean, cool, I’m missing assembly so I’m glad I’m in this group, but why have the four of us been put together?’

‘As a punishment?’ asks Annie.

Mr Curtis ignores her. ‘As you know, everyone in your year will do this at some point, but you were put together because you’re predicted similar grades,’ says Mr Curtis. ‘Similarly high grades, might I add. You are the exceptionally gifted mentor group!’