‘Miss, did you hear about Muzna Saleem?’ Kara says the next day as we’re working through exam-style questions on quadratic equations.

Maths ain’t happening for me today. A tiny mistake early on bloomed into a full-blown disaster. Two whole pages of it. FML.

Ms Mughal stares at the ceiling, tapping her chin. ‘Is that the girl who foiled the terror attack last year?’

‘That girl is goals!’ Nawal says, slamming her hand against her wheelchair. ‘She liked one of my selfies on Insta!’

Kara nods. ‘Basically my cousin Sade went to the same school as her. She said that girl has the best luck.’

‘How’d you figure that out?’ Ray asks, turning round in disbelief. ‘Poor girl nearly got killed by ISIS, and you’re sat there saying she’s lucky?!’

‘Yeah, but she’s, like, only seventeen, and in the Metro today, it said she’s won a book deal,’ Kara says excitedly.

Ms Mughal smiles broadly. ‘Good for her. It’ll be great to hear her side of the story.’

‘What kind of book is she writing?’ I ask on the off chance it’s a graphic novel.

Kara shrugs. ‘Didn’t get to read the rest of the article. My phone pinged, so I put the newspaper down for a second, and some bare nasty tramp picked it up! When he realized I wasn’t done, he tried to give it back. Dude got me, like –’ She does an excellent impression of the vomiting emoji. ‘As if I’m gonna be touching that paper now you covered it in your STIs!’

‘Don’t be so rude, Kara,’ Ms Mughal says gently. ‘Just because you can’t afford to take a shower, doesn’t stop you from being a human.’

Kara blushes, covering her face. ‘Miss, now you’re making me feel bad!’

‘Miss gives us maths lessons and life lessons,’ Ray says. ‘Buy one, get one free.’

Ms Mughal laughs, reminding us that there are people working next door, so we shut up and get back to work.

‘Are you OK?’ she asks, her green eyes rising above my desk.

I nod before looking down at my book, which is a mess of scratched-out answers.

‘Are you worried about Imran?’ she whispers so quietly, I barely hear it.

I’m a deer caught in the headlights, and for one horrifying moment, her eyes turn yellow and wolfish, fangs trailing over her lips, before I realize she’s triggered my imagination. She takes my stunned reaction as an answer.

‘Don’t be. As a school, we’re looking out for you. It doesn’t matter how successful a student might be on the pitch, there’s no room for intimidation here.’

‘Miss …’ I start, wanting to offload and tell her how scared I am that Imran is going to kill me, or that his cousin belongs to one of the UK’s worst gangs, and I’m worried they’re going to come after my family. Then I think better of it – involving her will make her a target too. ‘Can you start me off, please?’

She smiles, clicking her pen.

‘Sorry I’m late, sir,’ I say, lumbering into F10 at the end of the day.

Kelly is already seated, limbering up her fingers as if preparing for a rock-paper-scissors death match. She smiles at me, while Mr Gilchrist glares.

‘Feels like déjà vu, doesn’t it?’ Gilchrist says. ‘Grab a seat and get ready to spin a Pulitzer Prize-winner of an apology, since neither of you managed to finish yesterday.’

‘Yes, sir,’ I say, rooting through my bag for a pen.

Something pokes me in the side, and I see Kelly is offering me one. No freaking way. It’s a floaty Superman one, like I used to own when I was small.

‘Just to make things explicitly clear, I want you to start your letters “Dear Imran” and “Dear Melanie”, followed by the opening words …’ He grabs a brown pen and scrawls on the whiteboard behind. ‘I am writing to you to offer my sincere apologies for …’

Sighing heavily, I copy down his words. Only I start to think that this is all lies, cos I’m not sorry. Imran is a prick and had it coming.

‘Sir, I can’t do this,’ I announce.

‘Can’t or won’t?’ Gilchrist says, cocking an eyebrow at me.

‘Both. Look, Imran Akhtar has a reputation, right?’

‘Yes, he’s captain of both the school basketball and football teams and has brought several trophies to Stanley Park,’ he says curtly.

‘Plus everyone thinks he’s really hot,’ Kelly adds.

I shake my head. ‘He’s bullied enough kids, and you know it. Even my dad says Imran’s twice my size. I couldn’t beat up the guy even if he was blindfolded and had both arms tied behind his back. So you gotta ask yourself – how’d he end up in hospital? Answer: it was an Act of God. And if Allah decides to teach Imran a lesson for whatever reason, who am I, or you, to mess with that?’

‘He’s got a point,’ Kelly chips in. ‘Maybe Allah made my fist fly and knock Melanie out too?’

‘Silence, both of you! I’ve never heard such far-fetched nonsense.’

‘Are you calling his religion “far-fetched”?’ Kelly asks with a dramatic gasp.

Gilchrist falters. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. There are school rules here, Ilyas. You and Kelly broke them, and there’s a price to be paid.’ His phone goes off, and he snarls at it.

‘Whoa, you OK, sir?’

His face goes bright red.

‘Oh my days! Red Hulk!’ I whisper.

‘Thunderbolt Ross,’ Kelly agrees.

‘Right, you two. Not a peep out of you. I want your first draft letters ready in the next thirty-five minutes, or else!’ He starts speaking into his phone, apologizing profusely to the caller as he retreats into the corridor.

I turn round in my chair to face Kelly with newfound respect. ‘Thunderbolt Ross, huh?’

‘Told you I like speculative fiction,’ she says, smiling.

‘That some posh word for comics?’

‘Sort of. Superheroes is like a sub-genre.’

I realize I’m staring, swallow, and turn around to get on with my stupid letter.

‘So, what have you written?’ Kelly asks about twenty minutes later.

‘Huh? Oh, just crap,’ I say, clicking her Superman pen nervously.

‘Want to hear mine?’

I shrug. It’s all the encouragement she needs.

‘Dearest Melanie,’ she begins, perching on my table, and swinging her legs like a little kid. ‘You are the most obnoxious, self-centred Melania Trump-wannabe that ever lived. I am well jel of all the people who never met you. In spite of that, I’m truly sorry. Sorry that I didn’t knock your damn donkey teeth out! I don’t care if your dad is a government minister who “might be able to get me an internship at the House of Commons”. He’s probably one of those sex pests they’re trying to root out. Any day now, they’re going to throw the book at him, and your whole family will have to jet off to some tax haven to hide out. Good riddance. Yours affectedly, Kelly Matthews.’

I howl with laughter, flapping my hand in the air. She tells me not to laugh before her own giggles give way to peals of laughter. When we finally stop, we look at each other, and we’re off again. Man, I haven’t laughed this hard since primary school.

‘Frame it!’ I suggest. ‘You’re a wicked writer, girl.’ I take the letter, and read over it again, chuckling. ‘Hey,’ I add. ‘What does “affectedly” mean?’

‘Faking it.’

‘Boom!’ I say, laughing again. ‘Man, I wish I could write like you.’

Her smile slowly fades. She opens her mouth, then shuts it, giving a little shake of her head.

‘What?’ I say.

‘Ilyas, are you in a gang called DedManz?’

And just like that, the tentative bond between us melts like a bridge of ice, plunging us into choppy waters. Guess I was sort of hoping Kelly would see me for who I am instead of the people I hang with. She watches me closely, eyes more curious than judgemental.

‘When I was younger,’ I begin, ‘Dad kept saying I should hang around with jack-the-lad types. Reckoned I took after my mum and sis a bit too much.’

‘And that’s a problem because …?’

‘Cos I liked drawing and colouring instead of football.’

She shakes her head, like she still doesn’t get it.

‘And … playing with my sister’s fluffy white rabbit.’ I flush deeply, wondering why I’m revealing stuff I’ve managed to keep hidden forever to someone I hardly know.

She perks up. ‘Aw! Photographic evidence, please!’

Frowning, I hold up my phone. ‘This is Spar –’ my jaw muscles grind like malfunctioning gears ‘– tacus. Spartacus.’ I nod twice, as if this makes it any truer.

‘Oh my God, he’s perf!’ she says, clutching my phone, zooming in on Sparkle’s cute bunny face. In the pic, Sparks is busy chewing a dandelion that, only seconds before, she’d been wearing between her ears like a Hawaiian girl.

‘Not according to my dad,’ I say darkly. ‘He recruited this group of proper alphas to fix me. I’m not gonna lie: sometimes we have fun. But sometimes they do stuff that makes me feel bare uncomfortable.’

Jasmine’s humiliation springs to mind, and I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to erase the horrible memory. ‘So at the start of Year Eleven, Imran decides we’re gonna be a legit gang.’

‘DedManz, right?’ Kelly says.

I take another moment to decide whether she’s judging me before continuing. ‘I’m scared at first, cos gangs are violent and that. But before you know it, bullies are backing off, and I feel like I have an actual superpower. Then when Imran wanted us to have a gang tag, it was my moment. A chance to share this side of myself I normally get slated for.’

I lick my lips, focusing on Kelly’s gentle blue eyes.

‘The truth is, Kelly, being in a gang when you’re the guy at the bottom is proper stressful. You’re forever trying to match up.’

‘Tell me about it,’ she says, propping her chin on a fist.

I give her a sceptical look. How does this bougie white girl’s life compare?

‘Your gang is about being manly,’ she explains, drawing her hair back. ‘Mine’s about being the “right kind of girl”. I have to get my nails done, buy crap on Oxford Street that I don’t even want, and go to stupid parties where Jade and Melanie and Nicole pop pills and get off with preppy boys.’ Frowning, she traces a swear word etched into the table. ‘I’m the least cute one who needs to stop being kooky and watch her BMI.’

So here’s the thing: I’m a don’t-wannabe-gangsta, and Kelly’s a poor-little-rich-girl, yet here we are having the realest talk of my life. And man, does it feel good.

‘I like your kooky,’ I say hesitantly. ‘And your weight ain’t nobody’s business but your own. I’m so skinny, the bio teacher keeps using me as a prop.’

She gives me a playful shove, speaking in a southern drawl. ‘Fooler!’

‘Why do you hang with those mean girls anyway?’

‘I’m a stuck-up white girl,’ she says bitterly. ‘Do you think anybody else wants to have me around?’

Her bluntness has me blushing. ‘Well, you’re definitely white, but I don’t think you’re stuck-up.’

She laughs.

‘By the way, I lied.’ My eyes wander off. ‘Bunny’s name is Sparkle. And I love her to bits.’

Kelly raises her chin. ‘Way cuter. Spartacus sounded like a skin condition.’

The pips ring out, killing the moment.

‘You going before Gilchrist gets back?’ I ask.

‘Yep,’ she says, wrapping a big scarf round her neck and pulling on a pink woolly hat.

I hand her pen back. ‘See you tomorrow,’ I say.