‘Er, how can I put this? No.’ Then he opened the lunch box. ‘What we got here? Cheese? I hate cheese.’ He dropped the sandwich on the floor and ground it under his heel, and all the coleslaw came splurting out the sides. He threw the orange up and down a couple of times, then pulled back his arm and sent it whizzing right across the playground. It splatted on the wall on the far side, just like he’d have done if I’d been the Incredible Hulk. Finally he took the cereal bar, looked at it, and slipped it into his other pocket. It was a chocolate-coated one.

‘That’s the end of the lesson,’ Scorpus said. ‘The lesson is, show some respect. You get me?’

All I had to do was say OK, or even just nod. But somehow . . . I just couldn’t. I was scared of him. But I didn’t respect him. So I just stared back dumbly.

‘I said, d’you get me?’

‘Oh, come on,’ said one of Scorpus’ mates. ‘Let’s get on with the game, the bell’s gonna go soon.’ He was a black kid with a shaved head, and even though he looked seriously hard, something in his voice gave me the idea he’d started to feel a bit sorry for me.

Scorpus turned to look at him. ‘I’ll “come on” when I’m ready, all right?’

‘Look – a teacher’s coming!’ Evan said.

I felt a surge of relief as I saw a bald teacher with glasses and a brown corduroy jacket walking our way.

Scorpus swore. ‘OK, let’s play football. You two’ – he fixed us each in turn with a laser beam-stare – ‘if you say anything, you’re dead.’ He drew his finger across his throat. ‘Capeesh?’

‘What?’ I said. ‘I don’t know what capeesh means.’

Scorpus took half a step forward and for a second I thought he was going to start on me again. But the teacher was close now. Shaved-Head pulled Scorpus’s arm, and Scorpus finally slouched away.

‘Whew!’ Evan said shakily. ‘That was horrible!’

‘What are we going to do?’

‘Well . . . you can share my packed lunch.’

‘Thanks. But I meant, we’ll have to tell, won’t we?’

‘Will we?’

‘Yeah, Mrs Protheroe said—’

‘Yeah, but he said—’

‘Yeah, but Mrs Protheroe said—’

‘Yeah, but he’ll kill us!’

‘He won’t,’ I said. ‘They won’t let him.’

‘How’d you know?’

‘Look, they’ve got an anti-bullying policy. They have to, like, enforce it. Anyway, why should we let him get away with pushing us about like that and stealing my things? It’s not fair!’

‘Life’s not fair,’ said Evan.

‘Well, we’ll have to try and make it fair, then,’ I said.

So we went to Mrs Protheroe and dropped Scorpus right in the poo.

And dropped ourselves in it too, as it turned out.

Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO