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wasas meek and mild as I was, so we didn’t stand a chance against the others. Megan would try her best to stand up for me, often putting herself in the line of fire.
    ‘Shut up,’ she hollered one day, shouting the bullies down. They’d been saying my hair looked like a wig. ‘It’s not a wig, it’s Katie’s own hair!’ Then, as if to prove the point, she pulled at it to show it was still attached to my head.
    It hurt when she tugged but I didn’t cry out. She needed to do it to get them off my back but they wouldn’t stop. I refused to cry – I wouldn’t let them see they’d beaten me. But my voice gave me away because when they stole my confidence, they stole my voice too. Now it was barely a whisper; I hid at the back of the class and refused to put my hand up even when I knew the answer. I was running scared.
    One day, I trudged sadly along the corridor to maths. I didn’t even have Megan, because she was in a higher group. Wearily, I made my way to the back of the class out of the way of the teacher.
    ‘Katie Taylor, not there,’ he called. He was standing up and looking directly at me. ‘I want you at the front, where I can see you.’
    He pointed towards an empty chair at the front of the room.
    My face flushed as the class began to whisper. I gathered up my things but was in such a fluster that I dropped my pencil case. It was already unzipped and, as it hit the ground, dozens of pens and pencils spilled out across the floor.
    The teacher sighed and rolled his eyes as if he’d given up on me too. It was a green light for nasty comments as I scrambled around on the ground.
    ‘Look,’ said an ugly freckled-face boy, ‘Mophead’s dropped her pencils.’
    ‘Yeah,’ agreed a scrawny-looking boy next to him, ‘she’s so dumb she can’t even pick them up.’
    The whole class laughed.
    But things were about to become even worse. The more I tried to get out of answering questions, the more my teacher noticed. One day, at the end of the lesson, he strode over to my desk. The rest of the class looked up from their books and tried to earwig what he was saying.
    ‘Katie, I think you might need a little bit of help during lessons, so I’m going to ask Mrs Wright to come in and help you from now on. Is that okay?’
    I went bright red and heard a girl snort behind me. I felt so ashamed that a part of me died inside.
    Mrs Wright, the teaching support assistant, was useless. She had no control over the children because no one would listen to her. How on earth was a woman like that ever going to help me?
    The following week I prayed for the earth to swallow me up when I spotted her slipping into the room. Her eyes scanned the class and when she met my gaze, she raised a hand in acknowledgement. I shifted uneasily in my seat as the others nudged and whispered to one another.
    ‘I’m here to help Katie Taylor with her maths skills,’ she repeated, in case anyone didn’t already know.
    ‘Ah yes,’ the maths teacher replied. ‘She’s just over there.’ He gestured over towards me.
    ‘Katie, get up and fetch a chair from the back of the class for Mrs Wright, so she can help you.’
    I felt my whole body crumple. Maths was excruciating enough without having an extra teacher to point out how stupid I really was. The nudges and whispers continued as Imade my way to the back of the classroom and grabbed a chair. I tried not to look at anyone but try as I might, I couldn’t help but notice some of the popular girls pulling faces. Holding the chair aloft, I turned my head back towards them and stuck out my tongue. Why did they have to make me feel so utterly useless?
    After that day, whenever I had a maths lesson, Mrs Wright would be by my side. The woman had the patience of a saint but every time she pointed out a simple mistake I wanted to die on the spot because she’d repeat it loud enough for everyone to hear.
    ‘No, Katie, you need to add five and 105 together then divide it by that number…’