Mrs McBain is reading the daily bulletin but I’m not really listening. As soon as home group’s over, English class starts, and we have to do our debate. Lucky us, getting picked to go first. My speech is playing over and over again inside my head. I stayed up half the night working on it. Just like Mum! Too bad she threw away her stash of M&M’s. I had to munch on cucumber slices to stay awake.

‘Now!’ Mrs McBain announces, in such a loud and clear voice that it jolts aside my speech. ‘I saved the best till last.’

She’s looking really happy. What could be that good on the daily bulletin?

‘A person in our home group has achieved his goal,’ she says proudly. ‘Stephen has reached the top of the ladder in the chess competition!’

Most of the class applauds as Mrs McBain beams.

‘Good on ya, Stevo!’ Matthew shouts.

Without thinking, I turn to Stephen, catch his eye and give him a thumbs-up. He really has got a great smile.

And Matthew’s looking at me. He’s not smiling, but at least he’s looking.

And so are Tiffany and Olivia, I realise as I turn back to them. They don’t seem too pleased.

The debate’s over. We got wrecked. But we have to keep sitting here, out the front of the class, which is where we gave our debate. Mrs McBain is delivering her adjudication. ‘Tiffany,’ she’s saying, ‘as third speaker you should have concentrated on rebuttal and summary of …’

Blah, blah, blah. She could put what she’s got to say in a lot fewer words. What it basically boils down to is, the negative team was brilliant and the affirmative team was crap. Actually, Mrs McBain said I had heaps of good points, but I didn’t deliver them with passion, and I forgot the team line and the team split.

Bloody Justine remembered everything as their first speaker. I bet Vi and La wrote her speech, and then coached her within an inch of her life on how to say it. Talk about rebuttal! Vi was their third speaker, and she ripped our arguments to shreds. Not that Olivia and Tiffany had many. They mostly giggled and looked beautiful through their speeches. They could have put a bit of effort into finding some points at home, like they said they would.

‘Kaitlin,’ Olivia leans over and whispers to me, ‘we should have said, your mother has a protruding navel. That would have been a good rebuttal.’

I can’t help smiling. She’s practically memorised my insult and curse book. Suddenly I catch Chloe staring at us from the audience. She looks so jealous. Ha, ha! She was too good for me on the first day, but now I’ve got the top girl in the class whispering jokes in my ear.

I think I’m going crazy.

‘Bye, Kaitlin,’ Tiffany calls over her shoulder as she heads out of the locker room. She turns and blows me a kiss, then she’s gone. Out the door, where Olivia already went. It feels so good to know that all the kids in here saw those cool girls say goodbye to me. It feels so bad to still be mad at them! It’s like there’s a deranged wolf snarling inside me.

I slam my locker shut, wishing I could trap the wolf in there with my Italian workbook and my PE runners. I imagine the whole block of lockers shaking as frantic howls emit from number 102. Maybe I’ve gone spazzo from lack of sleep, from working my brain to a frazzle trying single-handedly to save our debating team from defeat!

The room is nearly empty. Everybody with a normal mind has rushed off home. There is one person near me, shoving stuff into his schoolbag, running late as usual.

‘Hey, Matthew,’ I say, ‘do you wanna walk home with me?’ I want him to turn and give me a huge grin, like he always used to do. He does turn to me, but he doesn’t smile. He looks at me for a second, then says, ‘Uh, not today. I’m kinda busy.’

Busy! What’s he got to be busy about? The wolf is back inside me. ‘You just don’t want to walk with me,’ I snarl. ‘That’s it, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ he says quietly.

‘Why not?’ The words come out so loud they echo amongst the lockers.

‘Because …’ His voice is shaking. ‘Because you’re not the same any more. You used to be … I don’t know … you used to be you!’

I turn and march out the door. I don’t want to see him ever again!