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was scored and damaged from pens and compasses. Initials of the pupils of bygone years preserved for posterity, a homage he thought, to the writings that appear on prison cell walls. Draped from the fading paint on the walls were charts, laying out the formulae of trigonometry, volumes, algebra, fractions, and many more. He looked around the room; their teacher Mrs Blume was busy with a task at her desk, marking homework, by the look of it. Nearing retirement, she was an ‘old school’ teacher; none of this friendly, soft, ‘the pupil is all important’ teaching style that had become more mainstream since the seventies. She had greying hair, tied in a tight bun, wore a grey frock and black skirt. Her shoes, which were polished like a mirror, would have made an Army Major proud. Her personality was similarly colourless, but her no nonsense approach worked, making up for it. Her students always performed in the top ten percent of the year group.
    The workbook of another pupil was laid open on her desk. With a sense of satisfaction, Sam noticed she was using her red pen an awful lot more than the blue. He immediately felt guilty about gloating, it was not the other students’ fault they couldn’t understand some of the work they were now doing. It had got a lot harder now they were in year 10, as they were working towards their full GCSE qualification. He took in the other members of his class. Girls and boys, all working furiously on the paper, some chewing their pens in contemplation, some looking blank and frustrated. Looking up at the board with its questions, he gave his answers a second check to make sure he had got them correct. Putting his pen down, he leaned back, and James, who was sat next to him on the two seater desk, looked at him sideways.
    “Are you done already?” James whispered. “All fifteen?”
    “Yup, it’s not too bad. Just follow the same steps for each of them,” Sam whispered back through pursed lips, trying to keep them still while keeping his eyes on the teacher in case she heard them. He was sure she had extra sensory perception, the way she just knew sometimes that people were misbehaving or talking. Luckily this wasn’t one of them, and James went back to his work, his brow creasing with fresh thought.
    A sharp pain lanced through the back of Sam’s neck. Swinging his arm around, he was just in time to feel something metal being withdrawn. Touching the sore spot and bringing his fingers to his face, he saw a faint smear of blood. He turned on his seat and looked at Braiden, who was tucking a compass back into his pencil case. A humourless grin spread on his lips with a challenge written on the face, ‘ Say something ,’ it said. Braiden had been giving Sam a hard time for a few months now, pushing, punching and calling him a faggot because he actually wanted to learn in lessons. They lived on the same estate, which made the school holidays intolerable. Anywhere that Sam tried to go, Braiden would follow with his group of friends, shouting abuse and trying to get Sam to retaliate. He never fought back, his parents had raised him better than that and besides, he was afraid of getting into trouble with the police. This only served to embolden the bullies, and it was getting progressively worse. He had tried to empathise with the bully Braiden, whose father was a vile man and whose mother had left a couple of years ago, probably unable to put up with the abuse any more. He had even tried talking to him about it once, to build bridges and see if he could help at all. That attempt had been met with a split lip and he hadn’t tried since. Sam had become withdrawn, which hadn’t gone unnoticed by his parents, choosing to stay in and play on his computer instead of going to the skate park or over the fields to play football.
    “MR TAYLOR!” bellowed a female voice from the front of the class. Sam jumped with fright, and nearly fell from his chair, which only made things worse. Braiden