“He didn’t look happy,” I said. “Martin said he might be ashamed.”

“Why would he be ashamed?” Mum asked.

“I don’t know,” I told her. “I just don’t want to upset him.”

Jacob was a loner at school, always in trouble with the teachers and the bullies. Myles Granger and Anu and her gang would make his life hell if they found out about the food bank.

“You could always make friends with him,” Mum said.

“What if he doesn’t want to be my friend?” I asked.

Mum ruffled my hair. “No harm in trying, is there?” she said.

5

Geek Love Island

The next morning, Jacob and I were both in the library at break. I watched him take Year One off the shelf, the Batman book I’d recommended.

I thought about what Mum had said, about how I should make friends with him, and I decided to talk to him about the book.

“One of my all-time favourites,” I said. “It’s awesome.”

Jacob looked up and I saw that he had a dark bruise on his left cheek.

“I ain’t reading it because I like it,” he said. “I have to read something.”

“But you had a Batman book the other day too – and I’ve got loads at home,” I told him. “Maybe you could come round …”

Jacob’s smirk stopped me in my tracks.

“You what?” he said.

“Like, if you want to be friends,” I said.

The smirk turned into a laugh. I felt very stupid.

“Friends?” he said. “Yeah, like I need you …”

And that was the start of a very strange day.

*

At lunch, I was walking to the Art department, when someone whispered my name.

It was Freya. For some reason, she was hiding behind some folded tables under the orange stairs that led to Humanities.

“Freya?” I said, confused.

“Hurry!” she said. “Hide!”

She pulled me under the stairs, and I hit my head.

“Oww!”

“Sshh!” she said. “Anu hangs around here at lunch.”

We ducked, just as Anu and Maddie came out of the Girls’ toilets. They strolled past like they were queens of the school. A little Year 7 boy saw them and turned to run away.

“Oi!” Anu shouted. She grabbed him by his backpack and started to swing him around and push him to and fro with Maddie. Maddie was giggling in a really nasty way.

Then I saw that Freya was filming the whole thing on her phone.

“What are you doing?” I whispered. “That won’t help that poor kid.”

“Yes it will,” she whispered back. “I’m gathering evidence.”

Just then Mr Ahmed appeared and Anu and Maddie scuttled off.

“What evidence?” I asked Freya as we came out from under the stairs.

Freya swiped her phone screen and held it so I could see. Her black jumper had slipped a bit off her shoulder and I could see her green bra strap. Suddenly, it was hard to focus on the phone.

“I film Anu’s bullying when I can,” she told me. For evidence. I even filmed her bullying you.”