I’m walking through the corridor after break on Wednesday, minding my own business, when I trip and dive into a locker.

‘What the hell?’ My anger goes up in a puff of smoke when I see Noah standing over me, his freckles like an army of red ants preparing to attack.

‘Paigon!’ he says, spitting in my face.

I silently wipe the spit off with my blazer sleeve, scrabble to my feet, and start to head towards my maths class.

‘Oi! You don’t get off that easy,’ he says, driving his shoulder into mine, forcing me to clang against the lockers again.

‘Allow it,’ I say, holding back tears that have no business existing. ‘Man’s already paying for what Imran started. Got it on my permanent record.’

He scrunches up his face. ‘Who gives a shit about school records?’

‘Er, colleges?’

‘Don’t be coming at me with yo sarcasm, you little fag.’

I see a flash of metal in his waistband, then it’s gone, hidden beneath the curtain of his shirt. Suddenly it all comes flooding back: the day Zaman pulled a knife on Dad back at the shop. Is DedManz graduating into Dingoes?

‘Ah, excuse me!’ says Ms Mughal, planting fists on her hips. ‘Your homophobic language has no place in school. Neither does your bullying. Apologize to Ilyas right now.’ A beam of sunlight makes her eyes glow like Green Lantern’s. Ms Mughal is powering up.

Noah looks her up and down, lip curling. ‘Mind yo own bidness, woman.’

‘Oh dear …’ she says, smiling confidently. ‘Let’s try that again, shall we, Noah Andrews?’

He baulks like he just got tasered. ‘How you know my name?!’

Her neck gyrates with the assuredness of a cobra. ‘Must’ve picked it up in the staffroom.’

Noah’s lips twitch nervously, too proud to say sorry, but too cowardly to cross Ms Mughal. ‘This ain’t over, fam!’ he tells me, miming a hand pistol held sideways before vanishing.

Ms Mughal shakes her head and ushers me into her classroom while directing onlookers off to theirs.

‘What was that about?’ Kara asks as I slide into my chair.

I shake my head. ‘Nuttin.’

‘Didn’t look like nuttin.’ She grins. ‘Hey, do DedManz make gangsta raps? If you need a girl with rhythm in your videos, I’m available!’

‘OK, people!’ Ms Mughal calls, clapping her hands for attention. ‘Today we’re going to assess whether you’ve actually understood all the algebra-cadabra I’ve been drip-feeding you, or whether you were faking it.’ She raises a tray of scissors in one hand and a stack of white card in the other. ‘Who wants to help me give these out?’

‘Me, me, me!’ Like someone hit the emergency ejection button on her seat, Kara jumps up and grabs the tray, beaming with pride.

‘Dude, it’s only scissors!’ Ray says.

‘Bruv, you do not want to be disrespecting a woman with that many pairs of scissors,’ I tell him.

‘Innit!’ Kara says, bumping fists with me.

Once the activity has made its way into our hands, Ms Mughal tells us we need to cut out the equilateral triangles printed on the card and rearrange them to make a giant hexagon, so the questions and answers match up.

‘And then,’ she says, rubbing her hands together, ‘you are going to show me your artistic side. Using colouring pencils or felt tips, I want you to transform your Tarsia hexagon into a beautiful picture or a lovely pattern. I don’t mind which, so long as it means something special to you.’

Kara returns to her seat. ‘Can we help each other with the maths part?’

‘Try to do it yourself. I have faith in you!’ Ms Mughal cries melodramatically, placing a fist over her heart.

Turning to the back of my exercise book, I start working out the answers.

‘Oi, if you work out half, and I work out half, we’ll have more time for the fun part. You in?’ says Kara.

‘Yaass!’ I reply.

Me and Kara breeze through the questions, and in under twelve minutes we have the puzzle pieces arranged correctly. Ray asks Ms Mughal if we can have some music, and she reluctantly agrees to some ‘quiet, clean’ tracks.

Gluing my hexagon on to a larger piece of sugar paper, I whip out my art pencils and start sketching PakCore. In my head, I imagine the hexagon as his torso, and I sketch the rest of him on the sugar paper around it.

‘Miss,’ says Kara, settling into the chill atmosphere of the lesson. ‘Are you married?’

‘No, Kara,’ Ms Mughal says, without looking up from her marking. She takes out an ink stamper and presses it to a page leaving a bright blue impression of a happy bee.

‘My newly divorced uncle Leroy is gonna be so happy to hear that. He saw you at parents’ evening one time.’

‘Let the lady mark her books in peace,’ Ray says.

‘I’m calling it: that girl’s gonna be a wedding planner when she’s older,’ Nawal says darkly.

Ray laughs, and Nawal smiles at him.

‘Get on with your work, please,’ Ms Mughal reminds us.

‘My mum told me she doesn’t mind who I marry so long as he’s a light-skinned man,’ Kara confides in me.

‘Why?’ I ask, surprised.

‘Cos she’s got dark skin, innit? And her family used to take the piss. She doesn’t want her grandkids going through the same thing.’

‘That is messed up!’ I say, shaking my head. ‘Go Pakistan, yeah – bleach creams everywhere. My sister always comes back with a shopful of Fair & Lovely stuffed in her suitcase.’

‘Dude, that ain’t nothing!’ Kara says, like it’s become a competition. ‘In Kenya, they do these illegal injections to kill your melanin.’

‘Whoa!’ I shake my head and sigh. ‘My sis hates me cos of my lighter skin and eyes. But I’d trade for her brains any day. She started up a YouTube channel when she was in Year Ten. Three years later, she’s got twenty-three thousand subs. The girl is making serious Ps! Plus, companies are always sending her free stuff to review.’

‘What’s her channel about?’

‘Hair, make-up. Sometimes Bollywood.’

‘Does she have a skin-whitening tutorial?’

‘It’s like her most viewed! Just after “The Ninety-Nine Pee Glow Up”.’

We both burst out laughing.

‘Less skin-whitening, more mathsing, you two,’ Ms Mughal says sternly, drawing some snickers.

‘But, miss, don’t you think dark skin is butters?’ Kara says.

Ms Mughal blinks indignantly, putting her stamper down. ‘No I don’t, Kara – and neither should you. You and I can have a proper chat about it after the lesson.’

‘Uh-oh …’ says Kara.

I pat Kara on the back in solidarity and get back to my drawing. Twenty minutes later, I’m adding shadow effects to PakCore’s eye mask, really making the vivid hazel of his eyes pop.

‘Oh. My. Goodness,’ Ms Mughal says, sneaking up behind me. ‘That is incredible!’

Chairs are scraped back and people come rushing over to see my work.

‘That is lit!’

‘Fire! Look at the quads on him.’

‘You should draw comics for Marvel.’

‘Marvel sucks. He should draw for DC.’

My cheeks start to smoulder as the compliments come thick and fast. It’s a small window into Imran’s life whenever he shoots and scores or makes that perfect slam dunk. Getting rated by my whole class makes me feel alive. Suddenly I am visible.

Ms Mughal takes my Tarsia PakCore and hides it behind her jilbab. ‘OK, everyone, back to your seats.’ She shoos everyone away with a swish of her sleeve. ‘I’ve seen plenty of amazing and innovative designs today. We’ll have a mathsibition at the end, where we can walk around the room and check out each other’s brilliant designs. OK?’

She waits till everyone gets back on task before returning my project to me.

‘Well done!’ she whispers. ‘I grew up surrounded by comics because of my big brother. But I don’t recognize this character. Is he new?’

‘I, uh, sorta made him up …’ My palms glisten with sweat, my pulse twanging in my throat.

Her eyes widen, and I notice little flecks of gold rimming her pupils. ‘Is he Asian?’

I nod. ‘British-Pakistani, like me. I call him PakCore.’ In my head, his badass theme tune starts playing.

‘Wow. May I take a picture?’

I nod, a bit thrown. Teachers are paid to encourage, right?

‘You got skills, boy,’ Kara says, nudging me. ‘To be honest this peng ting looks a lot like …’

‘Imran!’ finishes Ray, leaning over. ‘That is so Imran, down to the goatee.’

I flush, a hot mess of stuttered denials. ‘T-t-total coincidence. This could be any Asian guy with a square jaw and good cheekbones.’

‘Is this a peace offering so he doesn’t kill you when he comes back to school?’ Kara asks.

Stifling a gasp, I shake my head firmly. ‘It was an accident. He’s not going to kill me. Plus, this isn’t him. Imran doesn’t have hazel eyes.’

‘Yeah, that’s the only thing.’ Kara nods, wisely.

I stuff my drawing into my rucksack before it invites any more speculation just as the pips go for break-time.