'You're here.'

I sneer as I enter the maths classroom. Should be illegal to be in here after four p.m. At least Apostolou ain't around though he supposedly is the supervisor of this club.

Not that Diwa's company is much better. Her glare is already latched onto me.

'You told me to,' I say. 'After school. Maths classroom.'

'I didn't expect you to find time in your busy schedule of fighting people and getting high to actually show up.'

That's on me. Walked right into that one.

I reluctantly move over to her. Diwa sits at a desk alone while the other two maths olympiad members share another. Meira I recognise but the second person dressed in a Hawaiian shirt layered with a turtleneck don't rouse any familiarity. Must be Noah then.

He leans over the two desks and does his best to whisper to Diwa as if I'm not close enough to hear. 'Um, why– why... are they here?'

'Cece is our new recruit,' Diwa says with uncharacteristic pep until she slides right back into the snide I love her for. 'Given that he can pass a trial.'

Noah stares at her like she's grown a second head while Meira stares at me like I'm a ghost or whatever she finds scary. So maybe just me.

'Trust me, Meira,' I say, 'I don't like this any more than you do.'

It is so fucking ridiculous that I have to do this. I deserve the punishment, sure, but this is a punishment for Noah and Meira too who are completely innocent in all of this. Diwa is also innocent but she deserves to be punished a little on account of being unbearable. Unfortunately, annoying her means I also have to get annoyed by her.

Maybe I should just get expelled and shipped to Somer–

I can't finish the thought before I'm drowning. The prayer is muffled beneath the rush of water, my thrashing ricocheting from the edges of the basin I'm to be cleansed in. Then it's a pool. I'm drowning in the deep end. And everyone laughs.

I walk blindly in the plain of reality that my body occupies, feel around for a chair to sit in and look where I hope Noah and Meira are sitting.

'Swear down, I ain't tryna torture you. I need this.'

'It's not that,' Meira's voice responds. 'I just... you know my name.'

'Of course, I know your name. We're in the same year.'

'Yeah, but... You're... And I'm...' She gestures vaguely and sinks in her chair.

I turn to Diwa. 'So where's this test?'

Looking almost as smug as Josh used to whenever he stole my food in Brookes Boys' Home, Diwa places a worksheet in front of me. 'This is the individual work section of the national maths olympiad finale from last year. No calculator. Just try to solve one question in twenty minutes and we'll vote on it.'

I make sure to smile wide enough that she can see every letter of the F-U-C-K from my grillz before I pull the test closer. The first question reads:

Consider the equation p(x) : ax2 + bx + c = 0 whose coefficients a, b and c are all non-zero, and each of them satisfies an equation that results from removing the term containing that coefficent from the equation p(x); for example, the coefficient b is a solution of the equation ax2 + c = 0. What is the sum of all solutions of p(x)?

Easy.

I lean back in my chair until the front legs rise off the floor and cross my arms. My focus floats to the ceiling which means I don't get to enjoy the delicious fury that must stitch itself across Diwa's features. It radiates from her like heat.

'What,' she snaps, 'are you doing?'

My eyes flick to her. 'Twenty minutes, right?'

'That is not what–?' Too aggravated to continue, she drops into her chair and seethes.

I shift my gaze back to the ceiling, allowing my thoughts to drift elsewhere as the clock on the wall counts down my time. When I have exactly one minute left, I drop my chair down to all four legs and write down the solution to the first question. With seconds left, I underline the answer, +/- 1, and drop my pen.

Diwa snatches the test. 'Thank you for wasting everyone's time.'

'I ain't waste shit. You said one question, twenty minutes. I solved one question in twenty minutes.'

Rule number one of life: always do the absolute minimum.

She scoffs. 'There's no way you solved it correctly that fast.'

I only raise my eyebrows to prompt her and Diwa finds the solution worksheet to check it. I swear I hear the crackling of fire when she finds it to be correct. Still, she checks every line of my solution until she has to admit that there are no mistakes in it.

'Did you cheat?'

'No.' I lean closer to her, smirk tugging at my mouth. 'Maybe I'm just cleverer than you.'

'Oh, sure–'

She can't finish what I don't doubt is a very clever and creative insult about how I've worms for brains because Noah throws both arms victoriously into the air. 'That was awesome. I vote for Cece to join.'

'Me too,' Meira whispers.

Diwa looks like nowt would make her happier than strangling me. 'Fine. But it takes more than maths skills. This is a team: you have to be responsible and reliable, so come late or high to one practice and you're gone. And you can't dress like that to our competitions.'

I look down at my all-black outfit. Sure, there's enough metal to set off a detector from a kilometre away but I doubt they'll have one of them at a maths competition.

'What's wrong with it?'

'It's not professional.'

'What's that got to do with my ability to solve equations? Relax, mate. We're not competing over nuclear codes here–'

'If you won't take this seriously, just leave. I'd rather not qualify than have you make a mockery of us.'

'I'd...' Meira mumbles and sits up, propping up her voice. 'I'd rather qualify. I need this for my uni applications and even if we don't win, I can still mention I participated.'

'They're our secret weapon!' Noah exclaims. How is it possible for someone to be this excited about everything all the time?

'Yay, team!' I say with more sarcasm than anything I've ever said in my life.

            '–you need a lobotomy, baby girl, if you think–'

'Cece?' Nicolás cuts Caleb off at the slam of the door. I kick my trainers off and hook my jacket up before heading for the stairs. 'Wait, can you come here a bit?'

I glare at the wall for a beat before redirecting myself into the kitchen. Nicolás is in the middle of shredding a cabbage while Caleb, his best mate, kneads dough in his wheelchair.

'Kid!' he exclaims, over the top like everything he does. If sensory overload were a person, it'd be Caleb. 'Did you get taller?' he asks because it's a hilarious joke about how I used to be a toddler.

'Did you get shorter?'

'Oi! That was totally a microaggression.'

'Someone your size couldn't experience a macroaggression.'

Caleb drops his jaw. He stares at Nicolás, then at me. And then he shrugs. 'That's funny. I can't even be cross.'

Nicolás bites down his laugh as he sweeps the cabbage into a bowl with other shredded vegetables. 'Is it okay if Caleb stays for dinner? His current flatmate is a bit difficult.'

'The devil incarnate, you mean,' Caleb collects and resumes kneading the dough a bit more forcefully than probably needed. 'Can't believe you abandoned me and now I have to live with this wanker. Maybe I'll kick him out and ask Eilidh to move in with me. Is six months of dating too soon?'

'No true love like splitting rent.'

'What would you know about true love, Nikki?'

Nicolás stammers for a full thirty seconds until he accepts his patheticness and gives up.

He looks up at me, standing in the kitchen doorway and wishing I was literally anywhere else. 'So that's alright by you?'

I raise an eyebrow. 'Your house.'

'Well–'

'I don't care.'

I've already started to turn around when Nicolás interrupts. 'Did... you find a club to join?'

'Yep.'

'So...'

'Maths olympiad.'

'Score!' Caleb shouts before Nicolás can say owt. He does a weird jig in his wheelchair. 'I did maths olympiad.'

I blink. 'Really would've preferred not to know that cause now I have to quit, don't I?'

'Maths,' he says, 'is cool.'

I turn from him to Nicolás. 'You are both pathetic,' I declare and head for the stairs.

Caleb's voice follows me. 'Remember when they were cute and four years old? What happened to that?'