Stand there.

Stop it.

Don’t be cross with me.

The God of love is not that loving, and the devil blows out the stars.

School. Potato. Man.

Things like that.

The water is black as rabbit’s blood. And that’s the nicest thing about it. It’s black and quiet and deep. I know how deep it is. It’s so deep it can swallow the sun. There are toads, too. My mother says toads are lucky, but I don’t think she really knows. I suppose you can eat toads if you’re hungry, but I’ve never dared to eat one. I’ve just caught one from time to time and thrown it in the water. They have yellow eyes. People think the water reflects the stars at night. But I know the yellow lights in the pool are just toads’ eyes.

I’m a toad. I have yellow eyes, a sticky tongue and a dark, warty back. I just have to protect my belly, it’s pale and soft and you can prod it with a stick until it bursts and the life pours out of it. The flies like the life.

Winter is no time for toads. It’s cold, and the trees are like the bars of the school gate, thin and bare and black. It’s better in summer. Then I inhale the sunlight and there’s humming and buzzing everywhere, and the flies and bees and worms are my food and I don’t have to dig a burrow to sit in, cold and stiff and waiting for the thaw.

I don’t like the school gate. I don’t like the playground. I don’t like the benches. The bell. The voices, high and low. The shouting. The whispers. I don’t like any of it, but I like the teachers least of all. They have grey faces and grey hands that they use to point at things that have nothing to do with me. The teachers can say what they like to me; if I don’t want to do something, I don’t do it. Or I don’t even hear it. I block my ears with thoughts that don’t upset me.

One of them slapped me once, with the flat of his hand: thwack! He shouldn’t have done that. Why didn’t he pull his hand back again afterwards? Maybe he wanted to stroke the pain away, but it didn’t even hurt. Anyway, he kept his hand on my cheek and gave me this look. So I bit him. And didn’t let go. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. My teeth clamped down, and his blood tasted sweet, but kind of salty, too. I know he screamed, but I didn’t hear it. I think someone forced my jaw open, with a tool or something, I don’t know, and then they pulled me away. It was only much later, when it was all over and I was lying beside the pool, alone again, that I was sorry. But why did he hit me? He shouldn’t have done. Or should at least have pulled his hand away quicker.