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that grew in front of the school where he used to play while he waited for our father to finish his lectures and collect him. Strange that, the way happiness only works in retrospect.
    Class 4T was a different case altogether. They teased my brother relentlessly from then on. James, who was in class that day, heard the laughter but did not notice what had taken place, such was the distance between him and the rest of the boys.
    At that time Ashvin owned one pair of trousers – it took a while for his size to come in at the shop that sold his school uniform. At home – I mean in Somalia where even those of us with private cars were poor – it wouldn't have mattered. In our village, girls sweated in the same frilly dresses for months at a time and boys were grateful for whatever they were handed down. But it was different here in London. For boys anyway.
    I went to a sixth-form college. I was in all the top groups, even mathematics, which I found odd since I had never been considered anywhere near brilliant at home. I fitted right in with the popular girls because of my waist-length hair. The thought of me fitting in with all those eighteen-year-old Caribbean girls just because of the length of my hair makes me shudder, but at Ashvin's school, it seemed his clothes were the only thing about him considered of any importance. Initially, they teased him because he always wore the same orange jumper and baggy blue corduroys. When he started wearing his school uniform they jeered because the waist on his trousers was considered too tight. Then slowly they moved on from his trousers to his 'no name' trainers. Then they laughed at the way he walked, the way his voice differed from theirs. After weeks of almost constant teasing Ashvin despised them all.
    In Somalia Ashvin loved to go to school, he really did. Forest Gate Community School for Boys changed all of that for good. He told me once that he spent hours locked in the toilets, stitching up holes in his trousers with green thread and trying to readjust his belt. He said the kids always laughed at him but only in packs. James thought they were afraid of Ashvin really. He told me there was something frightening about the flicker in my brother's narrow orange eyes.
    The first time the two of them took any notice of each other was 18 March of this year as James walked home from school. How would they know where it would lead? James had felt guilty about doing nothing about the gang of boys – the 'Scare Dem Crew' – who that day teased Ashvin all the way to Hoe Street, near Walthamstow Central tube station. 'Paki liar, Paki liar.' Their taunts were uninspired.
    James stood and watched as the bullies began throwing things: stones and bottles lying around at first but then fists and kicks started to fly. When I asked James about it he said he could tell Ashvin was furious about the bullies' taunts but on the outside he remained strangely calm.
    'I'm not a Paki. I'm not lying. I was born in Africa,' said Ashvin. Then he swung a fist and landed a decent punch that changed everything. It made James think differently about Ashvin, made him think he was brave. It made him want to be his friend. He watched one boy, thick and tall, who was caught on the nose by Ashvin's wild punch, pull a gun, a Baikal, and put it to my brother's head.
    'Hit me? I'll kill you,' said the boy through clenched teeth.
    'Shoot me. Go on, do it,' Ashvin said and then he laughed.
    He had seen war. It was the reason we were here.
    The boy cocked the gun but he did not shoot. He froze for a long moment as though waiting for the voice of God and then in the prickly silence he smashed the butt of the gun across the bridge of Ashvin's nose. Ashvin hit the ground, curled into a ball and soaked up more hammer-blows. But he was still laughing. My brother could be very stubborn.
    James remained hidden until the beating stopped and then he watched the boys run towards the tube station shouting obscenities as they fled.