In the comics or the movies, when the Hulk hits someone they might get knocked through a wall or sent flying into the distance. But they always get up again. They don’t have to go to hospital, they don’t have broken bones, they don’t bleed. But then, the Hulk normally hits enemies who have super-powers themselves. Or special armour or something.

This was different.

As my fist crashed into Scorpus’s body there was a horrible splintering noise. He was catapulted backwards and hit the wall with a thud, and he slid down so he was sitting on the floor with his head hanging on to his chest in a kind of grotesque manner. He couldn’t seem to breathe, he was sort of heaving and moaning. Then he keeled over sideways and lay on the floor, completely still.

Oh terrific.

There was a horrified hush and then everyone who was watching started babbling at once.

‘My God!’

‘Oh my God!’

‘Did you see that?’

‘He just—’

‘Oh my God!’

‘Never seen anything like it!’

‘Is he dead?’

‘What did you do, man?’ said Evan.

‘I don’t know.’ Then, under my breath, I said, ‘I wish I knew what’s wrong with Scorpus.’

And the posh, solemn newsreader’s voice of the Meteor, inside my head, went: He has a fractured sternum, seven cracked ribs and a punctured lung.

Oh.

Right.

Just a bit more severe than I’d intended.

‘OK,’ I said quietly, ‘I wish Scorpus didn’t have a fractured sternum and cracked ribs and a punctured lung. I wish he’d stop bleeding. I wish he’d get up.’

Scorpus sort of hauled himself to his feet. He stood there in a kind of tottery way, and what with his pale face and the blood still trickling down his chin he looked like a zombie in a horror movie.

I put on this cold, hard voice like a teacher telling someone off – like Mrs Protheroe should have told Scorpus off, but she wasn’t really strict enough. ‘Scorpus, if there is any repetition of your thuggish behaviour you’ll be in serious trouble. You’ll wish you’d never been born, Scorpus. I’ll come down on you like a ton of bricks.’ (That was one of my dad’s expressions.) ‘Do you get me?’

Scorpus just stared at me in what you might call a dazed manner.

‘I said, do you get me?’

Scorpus slowly nodded.

‘Then I suggest you go away and think very hard about what you’ve done and what it’s led to. I think there are some lessons there for you, if you think about it very carefully.’

Scorpus staggered away. The crowd parted to let him through.

I suddenly realized I was drenched in sweat. And my heart was hammering away like, well, like a hammer. In the hands of a demented hammerer.