“I’ve read about long walks and seeing three rare red admirals up at the butterfly fields—”

That was me too! We saw them on the last day of the holidays. I went home and wrote about it and drew the picture on the very last page.

“And I’ve also read about making a birthday cake shaped like a hedgehog for someone’s mum—”

The hedgehog cake. Mum’s birthday.

My heart grew huge. It grew huge and it filled up my whole body. Miss Conteh was the best teacher in the world. The best teacher in the whole, wide world.

“Yes, this year’s runner-up is … Jed Cruise.”

She held up the diary.

Bashed-up pages all different sizes and colours. Bent corners. Folded edges. A dirty old piece of string holding it together. And nothing on the front except four words: Jed Cruise’s Summer Dairy. Wasn’t even spelled right.

How could he possibly be runner-up?

This wasn’t a real competition at all. It wasn’t about diaries. It wasn’t about how well you’d done or how much work you’d put in. It was just like everything else in this stupid town. It was all about the eldests.

I ground my teeth together.

“Come on, Jed. Come up here. Let’s have a round of applause.”

Jed pushed his chair out. Screeech. He ambled to the front.

We all clapped for Jed. I made it look like I was clapping too but I wasn’t really. I slowed my hands down every time they came together so they didn’t make any noise.

“And our winner,” Miss Conteh went on, “is most deserved. I’ve never seen such a beautiful diary. Where did she even find the material that’s been used to trim the edges? And these shiny little circles – are they sequins? Quite extraordinary. The winner of Best Summer Diary is Lindi Chowdhry, who sadly isn’t able to be with us today as she took a rather large bash on the head yesterday afternoon. The good news, though, is that she’s going to make a full recovery. Another round of applause, please, Class Four. You never know – if we clap loud enough, maybe Lindi will hear it from home.”

Miss Conteh chuckled at her own funniness, and everyone clapped for Lindi.

I took a deep breath in. It was right that Jed and Lindi won the prizes. Of course it was. They were eldests. They were going to camp, to keep the rest of us safe. Our eldests are heroes. Our eldests are special. Our eldests are brave.

I breathed out and joined in the clapping, properly this time. Louder than everyone else.