Paul nudged his sidekick, Wayne Johnson. ‘Who’s this muppet telling to fuck off? I’ll twist him up in a minute. I’ll batter him and his dad both together.’ Ged put his head back down and didn’t reply. Paul bent his finger back and waited for a few more seconds to pass, Wayne egging him on.

Sinclair had his back to the class, writing something on the whiteboard. Paul positioned his finger near Ged’s ear and flicked the skin with all his might. Ged bolted up from his chair, knocking the table over, screaming at the top of his voice. ‘Come on then, you prick, let’s have it.’

Wayne needed no encouragement to join the fray. He jumped out of his seat as Paul and Frankie stood up too. Frankie gripped Wayne by the throat, pulled him forward until they were nose to nose. ‘Nothing to do with you, let them sort it out themselves. You get involved, that means I do too. What’s it going to be?’ Wayne held his hands up and backed off. Frankie continued to eyeball him every now and then to make sure he didn’t move a muscle, just stayed stood against the wall. Ged was losing the plot, throwing books about, kicking chairs over. That was enough.

‘Out!’ Sinclair screamed at the top of his voice. ‘All of you, out!’ Within seconds the code red team were on the scene.

Tommy Jones was thick-set and used to stuff like this and worse. Used to working as a bouncer on the doors in Manchester’s city centre nightclubs, this was child’s play to him. If the kid wanted a fight, he was out of luck; he’d have him restrained in seconds. Tommy edged into the room, which looked more like a war zone than a maths lesson. He stood facing Ged. ‘Calm it down, lad, deep breaths. Just take your time, deep breaths. Don’t be doing anything daft.’

Ged was breathing like a racehorse who’d just run the Grand National, sweat pouring down his face, hair wet at the front. ‘I told him to leave me alone, but he kept on doing it. I warned him. I told the prick, but he never listened, and he was disrespecting my dad. Nobody disrespects my dad, fucking nobody.’

Donny was here now. He clocked the state of the room, the broken furniture. ‘Ged, come on, son, come into my office and get a cold drink. We can talk about this after you’ve calmed down.’ But Ged was still in the zone, his nostrils flaring as his feet bounced about the room. He rammed a single finger towards Donny. ‘Don’t call me your fucking son. I have my own dad. He might be in the nick, but I still have one. Fuck off and leave me alone.’