Leaplings are just like Annuals, but a tiny percentage of us have The Gift. I had to swear the Oath of Secrecy on my 2-leap birthday after Grandma discovered what made my body fizz. She swore the Oath, too. The room was round and dark, with no windows, and whichever way I looked there were people holding hands with each other. I didn’t know which way to face. The walls smelled of the woods after it’s rained. One voice said my Gift was extraordinary. I love that extra ordinary means very, VERY ordinary but extraordinary means the opposite. Big Ben has worked out The Gift is super rare. Only 0.6% recurring of Leaplings have it. If you let him, Big Ben would say 0.6666666 666666666666666666666666666666 and keep on going to infinity.

Big Ben’s in the same class as me at school. He’s autistic too. He has short, scruffy hair that’s blond and brown at the same time, though he’s never had it streaked, a round face and extremely long legs. He corrects Mrs Grayling in double maths on a Tuesday afternoon and she gets cross. His real name is Benedykt Novak, which is Polish. Grandma likes his name because it means blessed and her own name is Blessing Ifíè. He’s called Big Ben because of his height and obsession with timing things.

Big Ben has a stopwatch that times things down to two decimal points. He times me doing the 100 metres even when I don’t want him to. He can’t help it. He times EVERYTHING. And throws chairs when he goes from 0 to 10 on the anger scale. Big Ben’s already been excluded from two schools. At his first school, he overturned his desk and books went everywhere. He’d only just started Second Year but was very strong. He went to the same primary school as me after that. In Sixth Year, he threw a chair because the teacher told him off for talking when he wasn’t. It landed on the teacher’s desk and snapped like firewood. Everyone cheered except the teacher and me. I missed him when he left.

Intercalary International’s his last chance. After that, it’s the Pupil Referral Unit. That’s a school for children who get excluded and they can’t find another school to take them on. I worry Big Ben will end up there one day. He never remembers to do time-out. When I do time-out, I do running round the playground or the athletics track. He doesn’t throw chairs at people now, though, just at tables or chairs with no one sitting in them. Zero occupancy.