I have dust all over my shirtfront and my knees are bleeding. I’m being marched to the principal’s office. I was the one who turned it physical so I don’t know how it’ll go. I snapped. I can’t even explain it. I felt boxed in there, I suppose. Surrounded. I can’t even remember it properly. Some bits of it are in slow motion, some bits are gone. When I hit the ground, I heard the sound of my body landing on concrete, but I didn’t feel a thing.

Four-and-a-half years at Bergvliet Primary and I never got into a fight. I can’t see that counting for anything now. I come here and start a fight in my second week. They might tell me to leave. I don’t know where you go then. My mother’s going to hear about this. I know she is. She’ll go nuts. She won’t get it at all. I don’t get it myself.

‘We came here to get away from violence!’ That’s what she’ll say and she won’t just say it once.

The teacher, who never tells us his name, makes us wait outside while he talks to Mr Browning. There are five of us here. I don’t know where the rest of the group went. Max stares at the opposite wall and looks like he’s trying not to cry. Lachlan Parkes sits with a stupid grin on his face, trying to catch the eye of his friends. He’s still trying to look like the boss, like a winner. There’s blood and dirt on my legs all the way to my socks. Ethan’s lost a shoe. There’s blood on both of Lachlan’s hands. He wipes them on each other and squeezes his fingers. He picks some gravel out of his palm and drops it on the floor.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen blood like that, smeared across skin from wounds.

The last time was before we left. On the skollie who tried to break into our house in Cape Town. I feel sick remembering.

It was the screaming that woke me. There was a boy stuck on the barbed wire on the top of the wall outside my window. He had climbed up to escape Henry, the guard. I was scared. The boy was too, I’m sure, but I didn’t think of that then. Up on the wall, he was almost eye level with me. The wire was caught in one leg and one arm. He dropped his machete and it hit the pavers with a clang. He screamed as the barbs cut him and then as Henry swung his sjambok and beat the leg that was still hanging down.

The boy tried to lift his leg, but Henry kept hitting and, in the narrow space, the sjambok clattered and scraped against the side of the house with the backswing.

Police came and took the boy away. I don’t know if his leg healed. I heard later that he was fifteen.

I jump as the siren goes, signalling the start of the next lesson for everyone but us.

After the court case, the boy was sent away somewhere. I wanted to know more, but Dad said we had to stop talking about it and move on.

The door opens.

Mr Browning looks grim when he says, ‘Come in, boys.’

We stand in a semicircle while he leans against the front of his desk, facing us.

He asks what happened and Lachlan Parkes says, ‘Herschelle pushed me, sir.’

I’m about to explain, but Mr Browning holds up his hand to stop me. ‘And was it completely unprovoked, Lachlan?’

Lachlan tries not to smirk and looks down at his feet. ‘We were just talking before then. Just mucking around.’

Mr Browning asks him what was said, exactly, and Lachlan tells him he can’t remember for sure.

‘I’m sure there’s someone here who can remember,’ Mr Browning says. ‘I’m sure Herschelle will remember if no one else does, but I’m giving you boys the chance to tell me first.’

‘We were just mucking around with his name, sir,’ Ethan says. ‘Like, making a joke of it, with a bit of an accent.’

Mr Browning is waiting for more, so Ethan clears his throat and continues. ‘And there was a joke about him coming out of the toilet and eating poo sausage. They have a sausage in South Africa that looks . . . well, it’s a big coil, so . . .’

Mr Browning nods and then turns to Max. ‘And what about you? I’m very disappointed to see you here as part of this.’

Max’s lip trembles and he nods. He tries to speak, but he can’t. I can picture it – Lachlan shoving him towards me, Ethan and Josh shouldering him into place.

‘Max didn’t want to, sir,’ I tell Mr Browning, ‘but Lachlan made him. They pushed him around.’

Once he’s heard the details, Mr Browning says to me, ‘It sounds as if there was some bullying last week and then they were crowding around you and intimidating you and that’s when the push happened. And I think that you regret it.’ He pauses, in case anyone is going to disagree. No one does. ‘Now, you should have taken this to Ms Vo before it got to this stage, but you still shouldn’t have been put in that position.’ He turns to face the others. ‘Boys, I’m not sure you realise how serious this is. This is bullying, but it’s also racism.’

Lachlan’s mouth gapes open. I try to stop mine doing the same. I don’t point out that I’m white, in case that spoils it.

‘No, sir, it wasn’t meant to be . . .’ Ethan says. ‘It was just a joke and it’s not like he’s, you know . . . black, or anything. We’re not racists.’

‘You have targeted Herschelle because he’s South African,’ Mr Browning says. ‘You have targeted him because of his nationality. Because he sounds different. That’s racism. Is that how we do things in this school?’

They all shake their heads. Josh bites his lip.

‘You should have been making Herschelle welcome.’ He glances at me. ‘Have you heard of the Australian principle of the “fair go”?’

‘Yes, sir,’ I tell him. ‘Well, I’ve read about it. Also “fair suck of the sav”.’ It comes out before I can stop it. It was next to ‘fair go’ on the website.

‘Right,’ Mr Browning says. He’s trying not to smile. ‘Good effort. Well, you didn’t get a fair go, and you should have done. We’ll talk more about this later, but if you feel ready to go back to class for now, you can go. You too, Max.’

The other three are still standing in their spots when the door shuts behind us. All the way back I stare straight ahead, ignoring Max, even though he’s right next to me. He looks straight ahead too. I remember the fear on his face as Lachlan pushed him forward. I want to fix it with him, but then I remember his mouth moving, chanting, and I never want to talk to him again. I don’t get it. I don’t know which Max to believe in.