A feral dog, I'm fluent in the trade of bones. An adult human skeleton is composed of 206 but one can never have too many, especially when your own are hollow. And mine are hollow enough to crumble from one touch.

Regardless of how many you steal, you'll never have enough.

Regardless of how many I steal, I'll never have enough.

It is always running out—time.

I've lasted this long out of mere stubbornness. I know I've no future so I might as well make the present entertaining. I've nowt to lose, and more to the point, nowt to gain. Temporary amusement is all I'm good for and I curb no impulses.

Which is exactly how I ended up here.

They're watching you. They're watching you.

Death to Beewolf. It's on everyone's lips.

Maybe I've finally gone too far. Which is absurd because I've done much worse things, morally speaking, than graffiti a school entrance, but this were too public.

They're watching you.

They'll find out it was you.

They'll find out it were me. Cobham already knows it were me—that's why he forced me to attend this bleeding assembly, because we both know it were me and the only thing he's lacking is proof.

Proof that he'll get when someone traces deathtobeewolf to me. And now that it's been brought to their radar, the gossips in this school won't take long.

I should've known that. I was raised as a dog chained to the fence and left in the cold. I should have known termites are hoarding the periphery, waiting for the kill so they can hollow the carcass.

Everybody is watching.

And then they'll lock you in.

And they'll never let you out.

They'll never let you out. It'll be cold–

–and dark. And locked. And they will eat you alive. One bite at a time. They'll start with your bones, burrow past your skin to get to the marrow. They'll–

Three.

I'm sitting on the third chair in this row. Cobham just said three—"three months into the school year." Today is Tuesday which means–

You'll be locked in forever.

–in the afternoon, there will be three days left of the school week. The light in the corner of the school hall flickers every nine seconds—three times three. Cobham's jacket has–

Your heart is beating too fast.

You might die.

–three cuff buttons on each sleeve. The word severe ("severe consequences") has three Es. The letter E can be written as a 3. Other than the thumb, each finger has three knuckles and three phalanges. I could break—

'Do you mind?'

The complaint cleaves between Beewolf's threats with such potent snide that there's no chance it's the first time it's said. Beewolf mutes so quickly that I would doubt it were ever there if it weren't for the echo of fear it leaves behind. I've been trapped in my head again.

Without moving, I catalogue the situation. I'm in the school hall. We're in the middle of an assembly. I'm unwillingly in the front row because Cobham forced me to.

(My heart is still beating too fast. I might die. I need a spliff.)

Obviously, I wouldn't attend an assembly in the first place but I'm the reason we're having this one, though he may not have proof of it yet. The voice belongs to Diwa, who does sit in the front row willingly.

My eyes cut to her.

Diwa Atangan is five feet of arrogance, balanced out with four inches of disdain to compile one insufferable headache. She could be described as cute if it weren't for the resting glare in her russet eyes.

Diwa dresses like we've still got uniforms: pleated skirt, shirt, sweater vest. And a blazer. Nesh. Sure, it's a little drafty after someone broke a window last month and the only repair in the school budget were a slab of cardboard duct-taped over the hole, but it's not that cold.

'What d'you want?'

'For you to stop doing that.'

Diwa's eyes sickle down and I realise I'm bouncing my leg which causes the chains on my trousers to clamour against the chair frame. I stop.

Her eyes slice up to meet mine. Narrow and amber in the sunlight that pokes through the east-facing windows, they're reminiscent of a vulture's.

She hooks a sarcastic smile to her lips. 'Thank you. Didn't know you were capable of thinking of others.'

Before I can come up with a response to remind her I have no interest in ever thinking of her, someone screams.

We swivel in our seats just in time to see Annabella leap to her feet four rows behind us and peel a (thankfully unused) condom from her silk press. Her skin is so dark it turns a blue reminiscent of the night sky but it seems to boil red now.

Holding the johnny at arm's length, she edges around to glare at Adio. 'I am going to kill you.'

Adio only exchanges laughs with Sakda.

Pathirana, who sits by the door to ensure no one (like me) sneaks out after being marked present, calls over the snickering. 'Detention, Adio.'

'What? You hand them out to us and now we ain't allowed to use em?'

'We hand those out to you so don't become a father at the age of sixteen.'

Sakda bends his head to hide his smile whilst Adio raises an eyebrow. 'We ain't got that problem, babes.'

'Call me "babes" again and you'll have detention for the rest of the year.'

I watch as he coils his arms over his chest and slumps into the chair. The lightning bolt shaved into his fade lost definition when his hair grew past a quarter of an inch and pus bubbles at his earlobe from attempting to pierce it himself.

'Thank you, Mr Idowu, for that contribution,' Cobham says and attention is tugged back to the front of the hall. 'Let's return to the topic at hand: intentional damage to school property.'

My focus remains on Sakda who continues grinning as he leans into Adio to whisper summat. The thin scars webbed on his left temple glow against his siltstone skin.

For three months after he got them in the car accident that killed his parents, Sakda masked them any way he could, hated the attention and the uninvited questions they inspired in any stranger on the street. Until Brookes Boys' Home taught him, too, that amongst animals, scars are invaluable.

'Mix Velez, would you care to give us an example of the sort of property damage we have discussed in this assembly and their consequences?'

My attention drags to the headteacher watching me with his characteristic stern boredom.

Herman Cobham. Though he's well into his sixties and stuck in a career he hasn't felt enthusiasm for in at least two decades, he never lets his appearance slip. His beard and hair are immaculately groomed and his navy suit is much too proper for this shithole masking as a school. It's the ashy skin of his temples that forsake him, as though he's been bled so dry by self-obsessed teenagers that his motivation for self-care crumbles at shea butter.

'Is the consequence that it makes you cool?'

Diwa thrusts her hand up and answers before Cobham can address her. 'Graffiti is an example, such as that done by the anonymous account Death to Beewolf. And consequences can be anything up to expulsion.'

I meet her with a sarcastic smile as she turns to me to gloat. Though I felt identical vindication seconds ago at Adio's misery, all I want now is to smack the smirk off her face.

Her pride doesn't last long.

'Wow! Tell us more, Algebrat!'

Before I know what I'm doing, I've swivelled to find Saadia. 'Don't call her that!'

Milli and Lakresha, seated on either side of her, go to flee but Saadia is undaunted and so they pretend to be too. Her sharp eyebrows and malicious eyes, which are all I can see above her niqab, flick from Diwa to me.

'Since when did you become her guard dog?'

Snickering starts up again, gathering momentum this time. Eyes fixate on me. They bubble out of the walls like rot, peel open to latch onto me. Hundreds. Watching.

They're all watching.

They all know it was you.

I hunch in my seat (pain) as though it's possible for me to hide. My pulse picks up again. Hurt. Pain. You might die. I might die. I'm not sure (hurt) I can breathe. Am I breathing? How do you breathe? You're not breathing. I'll die if I don't breathe.

They'll lock you in.

'Seriously, can you not sit still for two seconds?' Diwa complains as my starts to bounce again.

Three. Three? I inhale three times in every (pain) three-second fragment. My heart is three seconds from exploding. It would only take three cuts (hurtpain) to bleed out in three minutes.

More eyes hatch into the walls. Into the ceiling. In clusters like frogspawn and they all watch me. They're patient to wait. It'll only take three seconds for me to die.

'Can you just stop?'

They're going to lock you in.

'Mix Velez, please stop distracting your peers.'

And you'll never get back out—

It takes three strides to the fire alarm.

Notes:

Beewolf: Solitary wasps that hunt and kill bees.

Nowt: Nothing.

Were: It is a common feature of British regional dialects to use "were" even when "was" is the grammatically correct choice. This mistake is therefore intentional.

Summat: Something. 

Spliff: Joint, marijuana.

Nesh: Someone who gets cold easily.

Mix: Gender-neutral honorific.

Niqab: Muslim veil thatcovers the head, face, and neck.