“I need to go,” mumbled Hutton, trying to pass Addison.
“You’re bunking off again, aren’t you, Hutton?” said Addison. “And you know we’re going to have to report that, don’t you?”
“Screw you,” Hutton mumbled.
All four of us looked at each other in surprise. He had never spoken back like that.
Go on! I secretly thought, willing him to stand up for himself, not considering what might happen if he did.
“Er… sorry, Hutton, I think I misheard you,” said Addison, coming right up in his face. Smith and Watts crowded in beside him.
It seemed ironic that my new friends thought life in a comprehensive was all fighting, drugs and sex. They asked me a million questions about life at Allenbrook, hanging on my every word like I was giving them insider knowledge about life in Borstal. I embellished a bit, giving them what they wanted to hear, but the truth was that until I came to St John’s I’d never been touched by bullying in my life, just as I’d never been offered drugs or had a girl pin me against the wall and shove her tongue in my mouth until I went to a party at Watts’s house.
“I said screw you,” mumbled Hutton again. He made a move to pass us, but it was like watching a fly trying to extricate itself from a spider’s web. We all knew he wasn’t going anywhere.
With a thud, Addison dropped his bag to the ground.
I was never really sure what happened next. I didn’t see who lashed out first – I assume it was Addison – but the next minute all three of them seemed to be on Hutton, pulling at his blazer, dragging his bag from his back, shoving him between them. And then someone spat and I saw it hit the side of Hutton’s neck, a globule of saliva just above his perfectly pressed shirt collar. Hutton always looked immaculate, his blonde hair neatly cut, his shoes shined, his tie perfectly straight. But now Addison was pulling on Hutton’s tie like he was trying to drag a struggling dog on a leash, and his blazer was half pulled from his shoulders.
“Hey, come on, you lot, just leave him,” I heard myself say.
“You’re such a loser, Hutton,” snarled Smith.
“Repeat what you just said to me, Hutton!” demanded Addison, jabbing at his shoulder.
“Come on, just leave him,” I said, a bit louder this time. This was going too far.
“Go on, say it again!” barked Addison, shoving Hutton in the chest, sending him stumbling backwards.
“Just get off him!” I snapped, and before I knew what I was doing, I’d grabbed Addison’s shoulder and was dragging him off.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Addison growled, knocking my hand away. He glared at me. He wasn’t used to anyone standing up to him, let alone manhandling him.
“What are you doing?!” I shouted, suddenly incensed by this behaviour. “Just leave him alone. You’re out of order!”
“I’m out of order?”
“All of you! What’s he even done to you?”
Addison squared up to me. He was broader than me and a good few of inches taller, so that I had to arch my neck to look him in the eye.
“Don’t go all wimpy on me, Lewis,” he said menacingly. “I thought you were meant to be tough.”
“Oh yeah? Well, I don’t know where you got that from,” I retorted, before realising the idiocy of what I’d just said.
Addison smirked. “Perhaps from the fact you’re a comp boy from the wrong side of Timpton?” he suggested, smugly.
“I’d rather be a comp boy from the wrong side of Timpton than a stuck-up, arrogant, bullying dickhead like you,” I said defiantly.
Addison’s face flushed red. “Go back to the sinkhole you somehow managed to crawl out of, Lewis,” he spat, grabbing his bag from the ground and striding off.
Smith and Watts exchanged glances, unsure what to do, before grabbing their own bags and heading after Addison.
“You’ve gone and made life hard for yourself, Lewis,” called Watts, glancing back at me. I wasn’t sure if it was meant as a final piece of friendly advice or a threat.
I sighed heavily and hitched my bag up on my shoulder, contemplating life ahead of me at St John’s now.
Just then, I heard the sound of someone clapping slowly.
I turned to see Hellie Larsen and her two sidekicks approaching. It was only at sixth form that St John’s admitted girls, and the small number meant I probably should have known all their names, but seeing as I was relatively new and still some way off the sixth form myself, the only name I knew was Hellie Larsen. Everybody knew Hellie Larsen’s name.
“Hurrah for the hero!” cheered Hellie, smiling at me. She was dressed in a smart, pastel-pink suit, her platinum hair tied up in a high ponytail.
I flushed, unsure how to respond. I wasn’t even sure if she was being sarcastic or complimentary.
“So, it’s Lewis, is it?” she asked, her accent an intriguing mixture of Scandinavian, American and cut-glass English.
I nodded.
“Well, Lewis,” she said, smiling at me over her shoulder as she continued on her way, “you’re my kind of friend.”
I stared after her, hearing her friends giggling and whispering.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Hutton mumbled.
For a moment I’d forgotten he was there. I turned and I glared at him. If it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t have got into this situation.
“They’ll probably be out to make your life hell too now,” he added.
It is that what they’d done? What we’d done? Had I really been part of making someone’s life hell?
I looked at my shoes, feeling ashamed. I hadn’t told anyone what had been going on with Hutton. Not my parents, not even Max or Tom. I’d convinced myself that it was irrelevant,
