The fashion parade is exceptionally boring, but we survive it. I come nowhere near disgrace the whole time, and I’m happy with that. Mom leaves straight afterwards, with her plate, but plenty of people are carrying plates by then and she looks like she fits right in.

There’s ten minutes of lunchtime left and, after a toilet stop, I plan to spend as many of those minutes as possible playing handball.

On my way out of the toilets, someone blocks me. It’s Lachlan Parkes. I step aside, figuring it’s an accident, but he moves to block that move too.

‘You’re the foreign kid, aren’t you?’ he says. His hand is in front of me, not touching me but stopping me moving. ‘Say something.’ He’s taller than I am. He has a grinning friend on either side of him, Josh and Ethan.

‘What do you mean?’ It’s out of me before I realise that the best thing to say is nothing.

‘What do you mean?’ Lachlan Parkes says, in a ridiculous version of how my accent sounds to him. ‘Is that supposed to be English? Hilarious.’ His friends laugh.

‘Hilarious,’ Josh says, this time in the accent, and Lachlan and Ethan both laugh.

And that’s it. That seems to be enough for them. They turn and walk away, but I’m stuck to the spot. I want to knock the smug look off Lachlan’s face. I want to hit him with some brilliant comeback and take him down in front of his friends. But what would I say? Whatever it was it’d sound wrong, the moment it came out. One of them would repeat it in that accent. And all three of them would laugh.