Donny snapped. ‘Shut up, Chelsea. Stop making it worse for her.’

Annie stood with her hand placed firmly on her hip. ‘Sir, she’s just a daft slag who I don’t listen to. She’s just a sperm bank. Ask any of the lads, they’ll tell you.’

Chelsea bolted up from her seat and ran at Annie. She was screaming at the top of her voice, ready to knock ten bells out of the girl.

‘We’ll see who’s a slag when I knock you out. Just you wait until after school when these knobs are not here stopping me. I’ll rip your fucking head off.’

This was not a good start to the morning. The staff were all over Annie and Chelsea and separated them quickly.

‘Mr Sinclair, take Annie to my office and stay with her until I get there.’ Donny kept Chelsea by his side. ‘Teachers, please take your students up to lessons. I’ll come and see them all soon.’

As the crowd dispersed, Chelsea was still fuming, pacing up and down and not shutting up. ‘I swear to you now that bitch is getting wasted. Who does she think she’s talking to?’

Donny blocked the door by standing in front of it. ‘You’re going nowhere. You’ll be in isolation now all day until I’ve sorted this out. You can’t just threaten people, you know that as well as anyone.’

‘Sir, don’t you dare try and blame me for this. That slapper started it, you heard her, she’s the one who’s got attitude.’

‘Yes, just like you. You’re the one who made threatening remarks, remember?’

Chelsea clenched her fist tightly. ‘We’ll see then, won’t we? She’ll get what’s coming to her. I don’t know where she’s got her balls from, talking to me like that.’

Donny let out a sarcastic laugh. ‘Who the hell do you think you are? Everyone is equal, you can’t call the shots around here.’

Chelsea slouched down on the nearest chair and sat biting her fingernails. ‘I need a cig. Sir, you can let me go out or I’m getting off on my own. Trust me, I’ll be gone.’

Donny could see she was stressed out. Although there was no smoking policy in school, he knew perfectly well that most of these kids stood chugging on cigarettes all the way through their breaktime. After all, he did the same if he could find a corner where he wouldn’t get seen. There wasn’t much he could do about it either – most of them smoked in front of their parents anyway, so threatening to tell them was pointless. He looked over at Janice, the teaching assistant who’d stayed back to see if there was anything she could do to help.