'You couldn't last until nine a.m. before being sent home?'

I pull my hood up as I trail after him across the forecourt. Unsurprisingly for November in Manchester, it has started to rain.

'I'm not the one who decided to have an assembly first thing in the morning and then force me to attend.' I am the reason they had the assembly in the first place but that is not the point here.

Nicolás glares as I open the gate. 'You pulling the fire alarm for no fucking reason is my fault, is it?'

'If you're volunteering...'

He knows me too well. I've barely taken a step outside the school gates before he grabs my arm. 'Get in the car.'

So I hoist my skateboard back under my arm just as I'm about to drop it to the tarmac.

To make sure I annoy him as much as possible, I jostle the handle of his gleaming Vauxhall like I don't know it's locked. Two can play at this game. Nicolás looks for his keys only when he stands at the driver's side, checks all his pockets until he finally finds them, and "accidentally" presses the lock button. I yank at the handle harder.

The air inside is arctic. I throw my rain-drenched jacket into the backseat but leave my black backpack and skateboard at my feet. 21 Questions by 50 Cent blasts through the speaker when Nicolás turns on the engine and his phone automatically connects to the bluetooth. He punches it off.

My lips twitch. 'Am I grounded?'

The only response I get is an order to put on my seatbelt. This is exactly why I'm in this situation so often and never "do better": Nicolás, just as none of my guardians before him, can't do owt to make me. There's nowt they can threaten me with.

I fold down the visor for the vanity mirror. My eyeliner has smudged in the rain but I don't clean it—it adds to the look, if owt. My makeshift mohawk has gone flat. I twist the front to leave some hair visible and brush the rest back under my hood, then straighten the horseshoe barbell of my right snakebite to make it symmetrical to the left.

The car heating is flaky and the air still nips at my neck when we turn to Claremont Road.

Nicolás glares ahead as though he's trying to shatter the windscreen with willpower alone. 'Some days I'd like to do my job, you know. And not be called into school every five minutes.'

'You're the one forcing me to live with you!'

'You're the one who decided to piss off every foster parent in this city.'

'I consider that an accomplishment.'

'Why is it so hard for you to act like a normal human being?' Nicolás's voice gets away from him. It's a challenge on any day to get him to yell but he edges dangerously near the border now.

Everything bad in his life is your fault.

'Have you considered that I'm not a normal human being, but an evil spirit sent here to torment you?'

The coals lodged somewhere between my lungs and heart broil, spit sparks that don't catch flame but spew smog all the same. It rises to my head.

'Look, I get I've spoilt your life or whatever–'

He scoffs. 'You couldn't spoil my life if ya tried. At most, you're like a mosquito that keeps buzzing in my ear when I'm tryna sleep.'

Smacking the sun visor up, I knot my arms over my chest. The smoke swells, reaches from my chest to my fingertips, and exudes to my stomach where it feeds the swarming larvae.

Nicolás smacks on the indicator much more aggressively than necessary. 'You're not getting expelled. You're sixteen—you're required, by law, to stay in school for two more years.'

'Like I give a fuck about the law.'

'Well, you need it to get a job.'

'I don't need a job; we're immigrants. I'll leach welfare.'

Laughter blasts from him, a bucket of ice water dunked over my head. 'You can't even shoplift without getting caught–'

'One time!'

'–But please,' he swats away my interruption like a fly, 'show me your hitherto hidden skill for committing fraud.'

The light ahead flicks to scarlet and Nicolás brakes so suddenly we lurch forward. The seatbelt chafes my neck.

'D'you know how much paperwork it takes to even apply for benefits?' he jeers. 'No, you wouldn't cause I do it for ya.'

I coil my arms tighter, palms so clammy they itch.

'Yeah, I would love you see you try.'

No offence to him, but Nicolás is the least intimidating person I've ever met. He follows orders like a dog that doesn't even ask for a treat. He wears seashells and charms in his long locs and the majority of his wardrobe is turtlenecks and printed shirts. It's surprising he don't get mugged every time he steps outside. He'd probably offer to stab himself and say thank you after.

It's a compliment to me, really, that I manage to get him to flash even a sliver of teeth.

'You sabotaging your future ain't gonna hurt no one but you.'

My eyes slit.

'We both know this ain't about my future,' I hiss. I throw my arms up to add emphasis to my production. 'I'd like to remind the room that I never asked you to drop out of uni, you just did.'

It's your fault.

'I didn't "drop out". I deferred. I get that it's a foreign concept to you, but some of us don't give up the second summat becomes a little inconvenient.'

Everything bad in his life is your fault.

He wishes you had never entered it.

You like hurting him. Just admit it.

'Why are you failing maths?' Nicolás barrages on, unaware that he's competing with Beewolf. 'You're good at maths.'

Crossing my arms again, I sink as far as my knees crammed into the glovebox permit. The seatbelt digs into my hipbones and my skateboard presses into my groin, uncomfortable but not painful enough for me to bother to move: I've committed to slouching now.

'Just cause I'm good don't mean it's interesting. Apostolou's useless.'

'Mr Apostolou.'

'Perdón. Mr Apostolou's useless.'

Useless is precisely what the staff at Isaac Evans are. Anyone good at their job has left to teach at an independent school with twice the salary and the horrid ones have been sacked for one crime or the other.

The geography teacher, for example, was discovered selling furniture and stationery online. He got away with it for several years by blaming pupils whenever summat went missing until Pathirana came across his page on a midnight scroll through Facebook Marketplace. The French teacher was offered a job teaching English in Monaco. Since no replacements were found, the subjects were dropped as A-level options.

The only teachers left are the truly mediocre ones, useless in the purest definition of the word. They could be replaced with ornate lamps and the educational standards wouldn't change.

'It's always someone else's fault, innit. I went to Isaac too and somehow managed to not fail so clearly it's possible.'

I drop my head against the window. The glass freezes onto my temple. 'Yeah, I'm aware. You're perfect.' Rather than the exaggerated mockery I intended, my voice comes out monotonous. 'That's why I need to redeem the family name before we go down in history as a bunch of nerds.'

We reach a red light and he changes gear. The indicator clicks rhythmically. I watch the red streaks of the traffic and brake lights on the windscreen change direction at each swipe of the wipers. The rain eases up, its incessant hammering slowing to irregular raps against the roof.

Nicolás drops his head onto the steering wheel. 'Ain't four schools enough to be expelled from?'

The exhaustion in his voice gouges through my skin where anger couldn't. It wriggles to the base of my gut to wake the maggots from their rest.

I turn my head to watch my dull reflection in the side mirror. My eyes glint in the black void of smudged eyeliner.

'Light's green.'

Nicolás jerks upright as the driver behind us honks. We turn right. Sunlight slices through the dissipating grey. The drizzle dies to only the occasional drop and Nicolás flicks off the wipers.

Maybe it's because he's only twenty-three, or maybe it's the fact he's my brother no matter how hard he tries to be a parent, but Nicolás never manages to be angry for long.

But don't misunderstand: he hates you.

'Cecilio–'

'Don't call me that!' Smoke starts to gather in my chest again, lodged against my lungs.

'Flunking college ain't gonna bring Mamá and Papá back.'

A single second of deafening silence follows.

It's fractured by the click of my seatbelt. Beewolf clacks its wings with glee. I grab my skateboard and backpack and climb out.

'Oi! What–?'

I slam the door behind me.

The lights turn green and Beewolf drowns into a chorus of car horns. Without glancing left or right, I flip off the impatient drivers as I stalk across the road. Two people arguing outside Sanya's Caribbean Take-Away in Patwa cut themselves off at the commotion. One yells summat at me, probably highly useful advice about not walking in the middle of the road.

Post-rain humidity clings to the air. My hoodie's damp by the time I reach the pavement, bones chattering at the single-digit temperature, but my jacket's in the car and I'm not about to go back for it now.

I unravel my earbuds from my phone, drop my skateboard onto the tarmac and kick off.

Notes

College: Further education wherepupils are aged 16-18 and complete year 12 and 13. Not university. ForAmericans, this is the equivalent of your last two years in high school.