Patrick slid off the bonnet and shrank back along the side of the car as Ian Barrett walked over. I didn’t move, but I got ready to kick out with my feet. He stopped in front of me. I hadn’t seen him this close up before. He was in the year above and Kat said he was bigger than me. She was wrong, he was the same size, older, more bony. And he had green eyes. I could see flecks of brown and yellow in them. It was his hair made him look bigger, brushed out and frizzy. But his face looked tough like rubber, with brown skin that was paler than me, I could see freckles on his nose and his cheeks. His fists were clenched, and his lip quivered like he was trying to stop himself from crying, I couldn’t tell if he was hurt or angry.

‘Let’s be mates,’ I said.

‘Yeah,’ and he nodded, but his voice came out twisted up with what he was feeling.

‘All right,’ I said.

I watched him walk away with a limp like a stone must have got him on the leg.

It was all right until Errol Clark stood up to me the next day and said he’d enjoyed that. He didn’t have any supporters, he was dangerous. His older brother was in prison for killing someone. He looked skinny and tough, and wore a black Crombie coat with the buttons missing that he held closed with his hands in the playground because he didn’t have a lot of clothes. He had scars on his face and bony knuckles, and I didn’t feel I should fight him.

‘Fuck off,’ I said, and he smiled and walked off.

One of the dinner ladies on playground duty came up and said to me, ‘Were you involved in the stone throwing yesterday?’

She had Theresa and Kat on her arms like they were steering her, then making out they didn’t know me. I looked up at her and didn’t say anything.

‘They’re watching you,’ she said.

‘How’s school?’ my mum asked.

My uncle Gerry was there who’d been away fighting in the army when we were growing up.

‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘I had a fight.’

They both looked at me, and looked at each other.

‘What you fighting for?’ he said.

‘Not to get beaten up.’

He looked at my mum and shook his head, ‘A rough school is it?’

‘It’s who’s doing the fighting,’ she said, turning on me. ‘You’re not to be fighting with your fists and you must never hit anyone with glasses, do you hear?’

‘They hit me,’ I said, and touched my glasses to make the point.

‘Who hit you?’ she said, looking suspicious.

I didn’t answer because Manus and Connor flashed into my mind and I didn’t want my uncle Gerry to know.