When the year ended, Mr and Mrs Mackenzie received a letter from the school principal. He wrote, “We regret to inform you that Derek has not met the minimum standard required to progress to grade two and will have to repeat grade one next year.”

It was the first time he heard his father say, “That boy will amount to nothing.”

When he returned to the same classroom with the same teacher scowling at the board the next year, Derek was a year older and, he believed, a year wiser. He looked around and saw versions of his younger sister. He resented being among them, and was annoyed that no one seemed to care he was the boy, Derek the Strongest, who had triumphed over “a very bad disease” the previous year. When Tom de Klerk dared to climb on “his wall,” Derek shoved him off. Tom fell on the tarmac and broke his arm. Mr and Mrs Mackenzie were summoned to the principal’s office to discuss their son’s anti-social behaviour.

“You’ve mollycoddled him,” Jock told his wife as they drove home, Derek sniffling on the back seat. “It’s your fault the boy will amount to nothing.”

Just as Derek had had no friends the previous year, he was friendless once more; this time because he was feared. That changed when tiny blonde Michelle Lowe arrived at the school halfway through the year. Although the others warned her about Derek, she ignored them.

“Why do you always sit on the wall?” she asked him, as they lined up to return to class after morning break one day.

“Because I can’t smell you from up there,” he sneered.

“I think it’s because you think no one wants to play with you.”

“It’s because I don’t want to play with them, stupid!”

“If you change your mind, you can play with me and Diane. Just as long you don’t—”

“I don’t want to!” he snapped.

Michelle sighed and looked at him, her large, round eyes blinking fast. When she spoke again, she did it slowly, enunciating each word. “You can play with me and Diane, as long as you don’t think we will put up with any of your nonsense. Think about it.”

Derek didn’t respond. He was overwhelmed by Michelle’s pluck, her confidence and her gold curls and smooth skin, which he hadn’t noticed until that moment. Mostly though, he was struck by the intensity of her eyes, which seemed to look straight though him and knew everything.

The next day Derek joined Michelle and Diane on the playground and the threesome was established. When he asked his parents if he and the two girls could watch a movie instead of having a party for his birthday that year (and for many years that followed), Jock scowled.

“Don’t you have any male friends?” he asked. “Get one or two of them to come along, too.”