“Miss Malik?” said Mr Mann after the applause finished.

“Hm?” she said, still staring at Toby.

“Time to do the next bit?”

“What? Oh. Yes …” she said, still smiling at Toby. “Well, it’s been great so far. Spellbinding, really.” She turned to look at team Bracket Wood. Dionna and Ryan were waiting. Neither of them seemed confident – Dionna looked nervous and Ryan sulky.

“So,” said Miss Malik, “now it’s the turn of Bracket Wood. And the first speaker is – Dionna Baxter!”

She applauded, every so often glancing at Toby, who had finally broken his pose and gone to sit down. There was a little bit of applause and some uncertain cheers from the home crowd in the hall.

Dionna stood up. In her right hand, she held some notes written on a series of cards. She coughed nervously, bringing that hand to her mouth quickly, which meant all those cards collided with her face and then spilt on to the floor.

“Oh!” she said. “Sorry.”

There were some laughs from the Oakcroft pupils in the hall, and two, very pointedly, from the Oakcroft area of the stage.

Dionna began to pick up the cards, but they were made of the sort of paper that sticks easily to a surface, and after trying to get one up for nearly ten seconds she sighed, shook her head and gave up.

“Oh, never mind,” she said. “I know what I want to say anyway.”

She faced forward and moved to the front of the stage.

“They’re right in some ways, aren’t they?” she said, addressing the hall, but gesturing towards Belinda and Toby. “Pupils at this school will probably never be as well-spoken and beautifully put together as … Belly and Tobes.”

A ripple of laughter went through the crowd at the way Dionna said the posh nicknames. Belinda sniffed and looked away as if hardly listening. Toby flicked his hair out of his eyes. Again.

“And probably, if your only mark of whether this is a good primary school is how many children make it into a posh secondary school – well, again, I suppose Oakcroft is going to win every time.”

At the front of the audience, Mrs Valentine-Fine OBE nodded enthusiastically.

“SHE’S DOING WELL. FOR US!” she said in the nearest thing she could to a whisper, which was more like a very breathy shout.

“But there are other things,” continued Dionna, “that make a school a good school. Number one, I would say, is happiness. Maybe Mrs Valentine-Fine—”

“OBE!”

“—wouldn’t put that very high on the list, but, you see, I have a unique – for those of you in Reception and Years One and Two, that means I’m the only one – viewpoint as regards this debate. Because even though the debate isn’t about whether Oakcroft is a better school than Bracket Wood, Belinda, and to a lesser extent, Toby, have made it about that. Bracket Wood, they’re saying, is clearly rubbish because Oakcroft is so much better. But my unique position is that I’ve been a pupil at both schools. I went to Oakcroft and now I’m here. And I can’t even begin to tell you how much happier I am here.”

A murmur went round the hall – of excitement, of surprise, of the tables being turned.

“My parents – and I – were very excited when I got into Oakcroft. It is supposed to be the best school in the area, and kids like me aren’t meant to go to places like that. But the trouble was – that’s how I was made to feel all the time. Like someone who wasn’t meant to be there. By some of the staff, even, from time to time. But all the time by some of the pupils …”

She looked over meaningfully at Belinda. Who tried to sniff and look away again, but since she’d been looking away to begin with, that meant she had to look away even more. Which was a bad idea, as it involved swinging her face almost completely behind her.

“Ow!” said Belinda.

“What is it, Bells?” asked Toby.

“I’ve cricked my neck!”

“But,” said Dionna, “let’s not even go there. I don’t want to win this debate by asking for your pity. Or by going on about what happened in the past at that school. I want to talk about how much I like it now, here, at this school. Because, let’s be honest, everybody. School. It’s boring. It’s not meant to be fun. Bits of it can be, though. It can be because if it’s a place where you feel safe and there are no bullies, then in between the boring bits you can have fun.”

And here she looked directly at Mr Carter, sitting there willing her to win and to carry on speaking so well.

“Fun with your friends. I love this school and I think it is a good school because it’s friendly. I have made good, real, lovely friends here. And that’s why I’d rather be here than stupid old Oakcroft any day!”

Dionna went and sat down. Mr Carter watched her. For the second time that month, a person who’d known the head teacher for a while might have been surprised to see a tear appear in his eye and roll down his cheek. But the tear was accompanied, this time, by a big smile and an equally big thumbs-up in her direction.

She saw it and smiled back.

At which point, the hall broke out into thunderous applause. There was clapping and cheering and stamping of feet. From the Bracket Wood children (and staff), of course, although Toby joined in until Belinda slapped him.

“Oh, right. Soz,” he said.

“Well,” said Mr Mann, getting up from his central chair. “That was a very impressive speech from the Bracket Wood captain, I must say. Which has made the match rather closer than perhaps we all thought it would be … and means that everything, I think, is resting on the final speech, which will be coming from Bracket Wood’s seconder – Ryan Ward!”

A hush descended on the hall. All eyes went to the second chair on the Bracket Wood side. And then Ryan, who had been looking down for most of Dionna’s speech, looked up.