A memory darted into my mind out of nowhere.

My sixth birthday. Papa had taken us out for tea and cakes: me, Mama and my grandparents. Throughout the meal, Papa had been jumpy and constantly looking at his watch as though he were expecting someone.

And then the door had opened and Papa had nudged me. ‘Here goes,’ he’d said.

I remember looking up at the most frightening thing I’d ever seen: a man with a big round face made of chalk, bright red lips that looked large enough to eat you alive and eyes that could see into yours all the way down to your bones.

He was carrying a violin and he came directly to our table, leaned towards me and started playing a scratchy tune.

It was meant to have been a treat but the strange man had terrified me so much a warm liquid had spread down my trousers.

The shame had overwhelmed me.

I could still remember the strength of that feeling now. But as I stood here, in front of the whole school, being told I was an inferior being and feeling all the other children’s eyes on me, I realized I had never known the real meaning of shame till this moment.

I tried to get Max to look up at me. I willed him to tell me this was a big mistake.

Please, Max. Make it all right.

He carried on staring at the floor.

‘Come on, move! We haven’t got all day,’ Mr Schmidt shouted.

My shame deepening another notch, I turned away from my best friend and walked to the back of the hall.

Some of the kids still sitting on the floor stared at us with open mouths as if they couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Others looked away, embarrassed and scared to be associated with the ‘dogs’ that had been sent to the back. A few smiled at me as I passed; others touched my hand in sympathy. ‘I’m so sorry,’ a girl from the year above me whispered as I stepped over her legs.

‘Chin up, it’ll be all right,’ a boy I’d never spoken to in my life said to me from the end of a row as I passed him.

Their words meant nothing to me. Maybe if Max had said them, it would have helped. But these – they were empty words from children who just looked relieved it wasn’t them at the end of the headmaster’s pointed finger.

The twelve of us sat at the back of the hall for the rest of the assembly. And the back of each class for the rest of the day. We talked to each other a little. Not much. We had no words for what was happening to us.

Everyone else ignored us, as they had been told to do.

Even Max.