The next morning, my alarm goes off at the usual time, and I pull back the duvet, shuffling to the bathroom as a yawn threatens to dislocate my jaw. I need to get myself ready for the dawn prayer. Amma and me are the only two who pray in my family, but Amma has trouble getting up in the mornings, so she prays Fajr late.

I move softly down the stairs, shrouded in darkness. My creative mind starts to wake up, turning the inky shadows into assassins, gathered at the bottom of the stairs, waiting in ambush. These are the Living Shadows – beings with mouths crammed full of purple fangs that crackle with electrical charge as they gnash their teeth. I imagine myself as PakCore, leaping over the side of the banisters in my pyjamas, my hands whipping out as I make the Sign of Wahid.

My body is a glow stick, searing through the darkness as my costume and powers answer the sacred call. The Living Shadows goggle as I make the Superhero Landing (cos why mess with a classic?). Fist pressed to the ground, shoulders rolled forward, I look up and give an almost maniacal grin. ‘So you finally found out where I live?’ I say. ‘Thanks. Saves me the hassle of having to track down your creepy asses.’ Enraged, the Living Shadows charge. We race towards each other in a head-on collision that will surely blow out every window in the house …

If making comics brings excitement to my boring little life, praying brings the peace. It’s just about the only time I feel completely safe from all the crap going on around me. When I’m done, I fold up my prayer mat and head to the shed to feed Sparkle.

‘Hey, Sparks!’ I say, lifting up her thermal cover. She zooms out of her bedroom and bounces around with excitement. I open the door and stroke her fluffy head, my fingers sinking into her silky cap. She drops her ears and vibrates with contentment, making rhythmic chewing sounds.

‘I met a girl,’ I tell Sparkle thinking about how lonely Wednesday’s detention was without Kelly. Guess she must’ve been off sick. Sparkle’s blue eyes widen, then she winks. I chuckle softly. ‘Nah, ain’t like that, though. Her name’s Kelly and she’s really nice. Like funny and talented and stuff. Only she hangs out with this bougie group.’ I add a scoopful of nuggets to her feeding bowl. She nudges my hand out of the way, plunging her entire head into the bowl, and starts chomping. ‘I think she likes comics as much as I do.’

Rolling on my rubber gloves, I start mucking out Sparkle’s tiny droppings.

‘Good afternoon, sir,’ I say cheerily, strolling into F10 for our next detention session that afternoon.

‘Good afternoon, Ilyas,’ Mr Gilchrist says in his bassoon voice, gesturing for me to sit down.

I glance over at Kelly, who gives me a little wave.

‘It’s Thursday, and neither one of you has managed to convince me you regret your violent actions.’

‘Oh come off it!’ I say. ‘I wrote a letter using that example you gave yesterday!’

‘He brought in an example?’ Kelly asks with a laugh.

‘Yeah, and I followed it to a tee.’

‘Yes, mindless copying was never the point,’ Gilchrist snaps. ‘I told you right from the start that these sessions are about reflection. The letter is not the important element; the changed mindset is.’

‘Then why are you making us do it over and over? You said you weren’t that Umbridge woman from Harry Potter, but you low-key are,’ I say, rolling my eyes.

‘Reprogramming,’ Kelly says, narrowing her eyes. ‘That’s what this is really about. You’re trying to deconstruct our identities until we think exactly like you. Isn’t that illegal?’

‘Oh my days!’ I say. ‘He’s Illuminati!’

‘Enough!’ Gilchrist snaps, slamming a hand on his desk. ‘Stop trying to find the joke in everything. Two members of this school sustained physical injuries because of your mindless actions. It is entirely possible that their parents will still seek legal action against the school.’

Yeah, right. Imran’s mum doesn’t speak English, and she’s probably having the best time knowing Imran’s stuck in hospital where he can’t terrorize the world.

‘If I can’t even get you two to show remorse, how can I make a case before the governors to keep you on? You’re both well into your final year. Exclusion at this point would have a hugely damaging effect on your results. When we took you on at Stanley Park, we promised to help you achieve your academic goals, and you promised to abide by school rules. I’m asking you to be mature about this, not just compliant. Help me get you back into the classroom without having this hanging over your heads.’ He raps the table like he’s trying to knock some sense into us. ‘Write that letter of apology, please.’

I glance over at Kelly, and she raises her eyebrows, giving an almost imperceptible shrug. We both start writing.

Ten minutes later, Mr Gilchrist’s phone goes off. ‘Excuse me,’ he says, going out into the corridor.

In silent agreement, Kelly and me rush over to the door to eavesdrop.

‘What? You can’t be serious!’ Gilchrist says.

We poke our heads round the door frame and just catch the back of his head sinking down into the stairwell.

‘What do you reckon that was about?’ I ask, wide-eyed.

‘Well,’ Kelly says, licking her lips. ‘Clearly Mr Gilchrist is having an extra-marital affair with Lydia Pryce – the attending police liaison officer.’

I cover my mouth and choke with laughter. ‘Omigosh, that is jokes! Wonder how that happened.’

‘It started innocently enough,’ Kelly says slipping easily into the role of Trashy Gossip Columnist, ‘with the two of them discussing their miserable lives. Gilchrist’s wife nags him for failing to make principal. Lydia says she’s not been promoted to detective inspector because her colleagues can’t handle the thought of a black woman in charge. “Oh I’d love you to take charge,” Gilchrist says.’

I nod, butting in with my own salacious two-cents. ‘“Careful what you wish for!” she says, whipping out regulation handcuffs and her truncheon. Gilchrist gulps. Looking over their shoulders, they silently slip into an old broom cupboard and let their passions run wild.’ I wave my fingers like a magician.

Kelly picks up the plot. ‘They make out like the very teens they always complain about. Gilchrist has a moment of doubt because he’s all middle-aged and hairy shoulders.’

I chuckle. ‘And his mind’s all like, We shouldn’t do this! And his body’s like, We’re totally doing this!’

‘Lydia puts his mind at ease,’ Kelly says, her eyes sparkling with mischief, ‘telling him that he needn’t worry about the excess fur because Beauty and the Beast was always her favourite romance.’

‘Aw man, that is grim!’

We both shriek with laughter.

‘But seriously that was dope!’ I say excitedly. ‘Maybe we should collaborate on a story some day?’ Too late, I sense the awkwardness and wish I’d kept my mouth shut.

‘Do you want to hear one of my stories?’ she asks suddenly.

‘Sure!’ I climb on to my table, folding my legs under me.

She pulls out a spiral-bound pad from her bag and flips through the pages. ‘OK, here’s a good one!’

‘What’s it about?’

‘It’s set in a dystopian future, where a mutant strain of flu is killing everyone.’ She bites her lip.

‘Go on …’ I say, leaning forward.

‘My main character is a girl called Cassie whose parents are top scientists tasked with finding a cure. Cassie hardly ever sees them, but when she does, they always look at her with this cold disappointment.’

I swallow, thinking of Dad.

‘One day, shady government types break in and kill her parents, because the mum’s found a cure, and they don’t want the general population getting their hands on it. They don’t find Cassie – she’s hiding under the pool cover or something. With both parents dead, she has to piece together her parents’ research and synthesize the vaccine. Then she’s got to convince the authorities to vaccinate people with it, but they won’t listen to a teenager—’

‘Truth!’ I interject.

‘Cassie ends up having to get it to people through the water supply. And, well, I haven’t figured this part out yet, but there’ll be this group of rebels who she’ll join up with, and they’ll eventually let her try the vaccine out on one of them under pain of death if it goes wrong – cos drama!’ She makes jazz hands. ‘But the rebel is cured. Suitably impressed, they join her in her quest to get the vaccine into the water supply to save the world.’

‘That is amazing!’ I say, clapping. ‘I could never come up with something that complicated.’

‘Sure you could. I think it’s actually kind of predictable.’

‘No way! I mean … OK, maybe a tiny, tiny bit,’ I say, holding my finger and thumb close together. ‘But every story is, to an extent. I mean, I once heard there are only seven original stories that have been told since the beginning of time, and all the rest are recycling.’

‘You know, I heard that too!’ she says, looking more cheerful. ‘So what’s the story behind PakCore?’

‘Oh, just some dumbness that happened to me in Year Five …’ I laugh nervously.

Propping herself up on her elbows, she cups her cheeks expectantly. I falter, not wanting to get into it, but she doesn’t look like she’ll be giving up any time soon.

‘OK, so I was like the biggest Superman stan since I was four …’ I begin.

Kelly listens intently as I tell her about World Book Day six years ago, when Lee, Ryan and Alice got salty cos this brown boy dressed up as an icon. As I’m talking, she hangs on my every word, her eyes mirrors of sympathy as I shift about nervously.

‘… So I came up with PakCore,’ I continue, so engrossed that I forget to blink away the wetness in my eyes. ‘Pak from Pakistan, and Core from hardCore. Put ’em together and you get something sounding like parkour. That’s his method of getting from A to B and making it look wicked.’

‘That is so clever!’

‘I just wanted a relatable superhero. Cool, handsome, strong. All that good stuff, but also brown.’

She nods. ‘Even if your dad doesn’t understand you, your mum has got to be proud, right?’

I smile. ‘Amma thinks I’m the gifted one in the family, even though my brother’s gone Harvard and my sister is a YouTube influencer. I know it sounds cheesy, but Amma means everything to me, especially since Dad thinks drawing is a total waste of time.’

‘So good mum, bad dad? For me, it’s the other way round, except Dad’s almost always away on business, so I hardly ever see him.’ She stares at her palms, rubbing a pen mark off. ‘Mum forces me to go on these boring outings to museums and exhibitions, then makes me write about them.’

‘For real?’

‘That’s not even the worst part. She grades my work. And if my grade isn’t up to scratch, she makes me do rewrites.’

I’m worried my dreams will be crushed by family pressure and my body will be crushed by DedManz, and she’s worried about her mum grading her extra work and her dad going on a grand tour of the world? But then I feel bad, cos problems are problems. It’s not about what they are, but how they make you feel. And right now, Kelly looks exactly how I feel.

‘Is your mum a teacher?’ I ask.

She see-saws her hand. ‘Mum’s an education officer. She thinks she’s doing the Lord’s work because she works mostly with ethnic minorities, helping them on to courses to improve their job prospects.’

‘But?’

‘I don’t believe in God, but if there was a supreme being, I’m pretty sure They wouldn’t approve of closet racists like my mum.’

‘That’s a bit strong,’ I say, reeling.

‘Is it? What do you call someone who thinks immigrants should have the decency to leave their own culture behind if they want to be British? So many times, I’ve said, “Mum, you do realize that we borrow from other cultures too, right? Why should they have to give theirs up?” And she’s like, “Well no one’s forcing them to come here. Ours is the dominant culture for a reason.” Mum believes racism only exists because certain people refuse to assimilate.’

‘Wow,’ I say, impressed by her brutal honesty.

‘Yep, my mum’s the fricking Borg Queen.’

I look at her, nonplussed.

‘Star Trek?’

I shake my head.

‘Call yourself a geek, Ilyas? Hang your head in shame.’

I do, making her chuckle.

‘So back in the day, Star Trek had this scary alien race called the Borg. They were these half-organic, half-robot beings, all serving the hive mind. They’d go around sticking these IV tubes into any random species they fancied and turn them into part of the collective. The victim would completely lose their identity and only live to serve the Borg Queen.’

‘That’s a dope idea!’ I say, clicking my fingers. ‘Need me some Star Trek.’

‘Just not the later stuff.’ Kelly’s face looks grim.

‘Do your mates like Star Trek?’

She blushes, her confidence slipping. ‘It’s my dirty little secret. If they knew, I’d probably get unfriended.’

‘So get better friends.’

‘You mean like you did? Although … Imran’s a total babe.’

I look at her in horror.

‘Hey don’t get all judgey; even Gilchrist stans him.’

‘But aren’t you supposed to be a feminist?’ I can’t believe what I’m hearing. ‘Imran is the world’s biggest woman abuser.’

‘So he’s a fixer-upper,’ she says, smirking. ‘All he needs is a smart girl to teach him how to be a better man.’

I snort. ‘Good luck with that! Even his mum is scared of him.’

‘I wish my mum were scared of me, then maybe she’d stop bullying me all the time.’

‘Kelly, seriously – Imran is a bad man.’

‘Can I see one of your comics?’ she asks, abruptly changing the subject.

My eyes slide off to the right. ‘OK, but I can’t tell stories like you can. Plot-wise I’m completely shite.’

Kelly bats my reservations out of the air. ‘Haters gonna hate. Personally I like to focus on what does work in a story. Makes you a happier person.’

‘I got it on USB,’ I tell her, grabbing my backpack.

‘PakCore me!’ she says, pointing at Mr Gilchrist’s computer.

‘OK, but I’m opening up a browser with an apology letter in case the dude finishes having emergency phone sex with Officer Pryce.’

Hovering over my file, I take a deep breath and double-click. Kelly stares at the screen, her eyes tracking from panel to panel as she follows the action. My heart unfolds like a deck chair and sits in my throat.

‘This isn’t a digital comic you downloaded off your Kindle, is it?’ she asks when she’s done reading.

I shake my head earnestly before realizing it’s a compliment.

‘Grade nine for drawing, you totes Da-Vinched it. Grade … seven maybe for story skills.’

I smile at her. ‘Thanks!’

We start discussing plot holes and fixes. Kelly has so many dope suggestions, I actually start taking notes.

After a while, it dawns on me. ‘Tomorrow’s our last day together,’ I say sadly.

Her lips begin to move, then suddenly we’re plunged into darkness.