We were sitting on the fence, it was really unsteady. We climbed up because Brian said he wanted to talk, but it wasn’t coming out what he meant and we had to hold on with our fingers to stop the fence wobbling and brace with our heels on the cross-wire. I had one hand on the metal support to keep steady, but he was balancing on his bum with both hands gripped to the mesh as it folded over at the top. If he fell, he was going to have to flip over backwards and hang on. I was worried about getting my fingers twisted.

‘For a long time now ...’

I nodded.

‘We can be friends, but we can’t be best friends any more.’

I didn’t know what to say, so I nodded and looked down at my feet to get them into a stronger position.

‘It’s because my dad says.’ He wobbled a bit on his bum to get comfortable and I could feel myself tipping forward. He stopped to let me get my balance.

‘Shall we get down?’ I said.

‘If you want,’ and he did a backflip over into the playground.

That’s when it happened. I put one leg over the fence to climb down but the top of the mesh caught in my shorts. It stung, and I could feel a warm trickle. I unhooked it, got down slowly, and jumped off the wall at the bottom. He watched me lift back the waistband and look.

‘It’s bleeding,’ I said. Not much, not like a nose bleed, but it really hurt.

‘Shall we go up the hospital?’

‘Let me go and wash it,’ I said. We both knew I was wounded. I wasn’t sure how badly.

He held the button down on the water fountain by the sandpit. I held the waistband open with one hand and cupped water on to it. It was a strange feeling getting my pants wet, but I didn’t mind because I could see I’d nicked it and it might be serious. A watery reddish trickle ran down my leg into my sock.

‘I have to go to hospital.’

He looked at me like he’d hurt me. It was difficult. We hadn’t done anything like this before.

People were looking because I was limping and because I had to go slowly and keep my waistband open all the way there. I minded because even though you feel important when you go to hospital, sometimes you don’t want people to see. We were trying to sort it out ourselves.