I got lucky and blocked the next punch, but as he threw an arm round my neck and pulled me down into a low headlock, I knew he’d make up for missing. Twisting from his grip, I turned and slammed my right fist into his chin and my left into his kidney, determined not to make that payback easy. Another wrestling move from him and I was back in deep shit. He cuffed the side of my head and then punched me in the stomach.

‘Whatsa matter, mama’s boy? Useless piece-a-shit weirdo.’ My ears rang and his taunts almost grew unintelligible, but he kept dispensing them like he was looking for a panic button. ‘Daddy never taught you to fight, huh? Is he as big of a pu**y as you are?’ I couldn’t rotate into the right position to get a grip on him or throw a punch, and I’d lost count of how many he’d landed. ‘Maybe your mama needs a real man. Maybe I oughta pay her a little visit.’

And there it was.

With a roar, I threw both arms wide, breaking his hold, and then I hooked a foot behind his ankle and sent him sprawling to the ground. Jumping on top of him, I didn’t bother to hold him immobile before I began using both fists to hit him over and over. I couldn’t see. Sounds were muted. I could only feel the rage, and it drowned everything else. Striking his face and the side of his head repeatedly, my fists grew numb. I wanted to pound him flat, but his hard skull prevented me. I grabbed him by the hair and slammed the back of his head into the floor.

He bucked me off with a roar of his own, swinging wildly, one eye already purple and half shut. I rolled and stood, breathing heavily, but before I could launch myself at him again, Thompson hissed, ‘Teachers!’

Our altercation had gained an audience, I noted then. Fellow students surrounded us, inadvertently hiding us from view. We both stood, eyeing each other, slowly straightening, hands tense but at our sides.

‘What in tarnation is going on here?’ Mrs Powell said, pushing through. ‘Fighting is an expellable offence!’

Mr Zamora parted the spectators and came to stand behind her as Wynn, his face as battered as mine felt, deadpanned, ‘We weren’t fightin’.’

Narrowing his eyes, Zamora pointed down the hall. ‘Principal’s office. Now.’

I tried to care that I was about to be expelled but couldn’t. Truth be told, it took every shred of self-control I had to walk calmly towards the office instead of leaping on to Wynn and thrashing him into dust.

Minutes later, my entire body was beginning to ache. My face hurt. My ears were ringing. My abdomen felt like I’d done crunches for four hours straight. My hazy vision was due to blood in my eye, which began to clear as I blinked. I fought nausea as Ingram stared at us from across her huge desk, where not a single file folder or receptionist’s message dared to be out of order. On the surface, the boy next to me seemed indifferent to the threat sitting feet away from us, but his hands dug into the arms of his chair.

‘There is zero tolerance in this school for fighting.’ She paused, letting this sink in. My clammy, blood-streaked hands pressed into my thighs and gripped hard, reminding me to remain silent. ‘I assume both of you are aware of this policy?’

I nodded. The dumbass next to me shrugged.

‘Mr Wynn? Did you just shrug your shoulders in answer to my politely stated question? Perhaps you need it stated in more … understandable terms?’

‘No, thanks.’ Oh, man. This guy was an even bigger idiot than I’d imagined.

Ingram’s eyes narrowed further – which I hadn’t thought possible. ‘Excuse me?’

‘No, ma’am,’ he mumbled.

‘No, ma’am, I didn’t just observe you shrugging your shoulders, or No, ma’am, you aren’t aware of the policy?’ she asked, knowing exactly what he’d meant, trying to get him to say or do something with expellable consequences.

‘No, ma’am, I don’t need it stated in more understandable terms. Yes, ma’am, I understand your policy. But I wasn’t fightin’.’

It took everything I had to keep my jaw from dropping. If he thought I was going to take the fall for this shit alone, he could think again. I wanted to turn that black eye into a matched set, though intuition kicked in enough to warn me that that reaction would definitely get me expelled – something this bitch had wanted all year.

Her mouth contracted into the type of pucker someone has after sucking on a lemon. ‘You weren’t … fighting.’ Her contemptuous tone carried a clear-cut warning. Somehow, I knew Wynn wasn’t going to heed it. ‘Then why all the blood and bruises?’ She leaned forward, her lips stretching into the beginnings of a gotcha grin.

‘I fell down the stairs.’

Her stare should have iced him over. ‘You live in a trailer.’

‘I didn’t say I was at home.’

Her gaze whipped to me. ‘And you?’

‘He fell down the stairs, too.’ Christ on a cracker, as Grandpa would say – Wynn was answering for both of us. I was so screwed. ‘We both did. It was epic. Pretty sure it’s on YouTube by now.’

Her eyes didn’t budge from me. ‘Mr Maxfield? Care to tell the truth?’

No matter what I thought of Wynn, Ingram was not on my side and I knew it. I took a breath. ‘I think we were pushed.’

Her eyes flared wide. ‘By whom?’

‘I don’t know. They were behind us.’

There was a long silence as she figured out that neither of us was willing to give up the other to benefit her. ‘You are both –’ she paused to harden her already-sharp jaw – ‘expected to follow my rules while you are in my house. If I find one teacher who will say they witnessed a single punch being thrown by either of you, I will toss both of your ill-bred carcasses back into the streets and on your butts without a moment of misgiving! Do. You. Feel. Me?’