Fuckin yes.

Martin turns over in the bed and sees his clothes scattered on the floor, the jacket and trousers he worries so much about getting crushed when he pulls on a seatbelt just lying abandoned on the carpet. He instinctively puts a hand to his head, but there's no hangover, and thus no inebriation to mitigate what has happened.

Christ.

He hung up that same jacket, that shirt too, in his wardrobe, the first time he went to bed with Becky Soleno, whose rocketing public profile occasioned that inescapable bloody photo in Heat. Two nights ago, he'd at least taken the time to drape his clothes delicately over a chair as he and Kara undressed one another. Last night, however, there had been no room in his thoughts for anything beyond the extremely immediate.

Jesus Christ.

He's had grudge fucks before. Or rather, he thought he had. That floor manager Maria at Carlton, with whom he had all those run-ins; that acid-tongued harpy Emelia on the Sky News legal team. Rechannelled tension, a physical catharsis of selfish, angry sex. There was something almost healthy about that.

Last night, though: that was a grudge fuck, thirty years in the making.

How was it possible to have such a good time with someone you hated so much? How was it possible that the mutual dislike and resentment itself should be what made it incomparable?

God almighty. It had been animal. It had been ugly. It had been the absolute antithesis of 'making love'. Jesus, even the way they talked to each other was still full of spite and mistrust.

He remembers pulling her bra off, her kneeling back from him for a second as he looked at her tits.

"Droopy enough?" she asked accusingly. "Aye, I bet Becky Soleno's don't look like this, though they might do a dozen years and two weans doon the line."

Martin's response had, in fact, been anything but disdain. They weren't gravity-defying pneumatics, which was definitely no bad thing, but it was needlessly harsh to invite him to agree with the term 'droopy'. If anything, he preferred how they looked-and certainly how they felt-to most of the girls he'd slept with of late. For a start, it was a relief that there was some give when you squeezed them. It even half-occurred to him to say as much, to tell her she would look better than Becky Soleno if there were thirty people working on the photo-shoot for her, too. He didn't, though. When it came to it, he didn't want to sound solicitous or anxious to please. He felt like it would come across as weakness, and that she would in that same moment silently declare victory for herself.

He hears the shower being turned off. Seconds out, next round, the really tough one: facing each other in the daylight. He sits up and gets his bearings. They're at her place, above the pub, a surprisingly sprawling maisonette, testament to the days when the inn offered accommodation to travellers.

He looks at the clock as Jojo emerges, wrapped in a towelling dressing-gown. It's eight-fifteen. "You're up early," he says, compelled to say something.

"Aye. Need to be sharper if you want to sneak oot before I get up. Kids could be back any time. Well, Alison could. Jason's half-man, half-mattress these days since he hit his teens. But still."

The details come flooding back. The kids are fourteen and twelve. They stay at their dad's most Fridays, Tam McBride. Martin didn't know him. He was a couple of years older and went to the High. They've been apart for six years. Jojo got the weans and the pub in the divorce.

"It's okay," he says, swinging his legs out of the bed. "I know 'get out' when I hear it. I don't want to put you in an awkward spot. I'll get my stuff and you can skip to the part where you pretend this didn't happen."

Jojo shakes her head. "You really don't think much of me at all, do you? But that's nothin compared to how little you imagine I must think of you. Well, you're wrong. I wasnae very nice to you once upon a time, boo-hoo. A lot of people werenae very nice to me, either. Do we write them off for good? Who the hell wants to be judged for life on how they behaved as kids?"

"Well, Noodsy's putting a lot of store by it," he replies, buttoning his shirt. "But otherwise, point taken."

"We're not the people we were, and we didnae know those people very well, either. Look at Eleanor. All we saw was the wee, smelly, angry lassie. We'd no idea what was behind that. Even Robbie. He was horrible to everybody, but nothin like as horrible as his father and his brothers were tae him. Bad weans don't necessarily turn intae bad adults. And the same goes for the good yins."

No kidding, he reflects.

On his way out, he passes an open door into Jojo's son's bedroom, catches an eyeful of an image-bedecked teenage wall. There's a St Mirren crest, some yellowing sports-page clippings, posters of Blink 182, The Offspring, Bowling for Soup, Green Day, and a few FHM girly pull-outs. Yup, Kara's up there. Jason's wanking off to her when the door's shut.

Martin's had the real thing and Jason's mammy on consecutive nights.

It's appropriate he's at the Railway Inn. His life right now is a fucking train-wreck.

Trespasses Unforgiven Afternoon playtime lasts only ten minutes, officially, though it can be anything between twelve and fifteen depending on when the teachers decide to bail out of the staff room. It's still not a lot, especially for a game of fitba down on the pitch, where it can sometimes take ages for the ball to make it from one end of the park to the other, and Jamesy is keeping an anxious eye on his watch. He's scored two goals today, both during lunchtime, and is confident he's considered to be having a good game overall, especially that jinky wee run where he got the cross in and Matt Cannon scored with a header. It looked pure gemmie, and Matt didn't forget Jamesy's due, saying, "Some baw, wee man." But he'd love to score three, to be able to say he'd got a hat-trick. He'd done it a few times up on the concrete, but the space was smaller and there was always hunners of goals in those games: forry-eight-each affairs. Goals were harder to come by down on the pitch, and it felt more exciting when there were proper lines on the grass, not to mention posts and a crossbar instead of jackets or drainpipes. They were playing with an old brown tube today, too, which made a pleasing 'whump' when you booted it, and was easier to control because it didn't ping around like a plastic ball or even a new leather one. Plus, it never hurt when it got stoated off you, because it was old and all the enamel had come away, leaving only soft leather underneath.

They've been doing a lot of defending because Matt Cannon got kept behind by his teacher. Not only has this weakened their team, but the other lot have had that wee bit of extra purpose as they try to get back from now only two goals down. It's funny how that happens. You can be getting pure scopped and you just play on, not bothered about the score, but then you get a couple back and suddenly everybody's trying harder because there seems something to play for. It's at times like this you need somebody on the park to rally your team, but with Matt absent, nobody really carries enough respect.

Time is leaching away. Worse, they've swapped ends since lunchtime, so the opposition are kicking into the end away from the buildings, which seriously adds to retrieval time after a goal or if it goes behind. The other end is close to the Annexe, the modern one-storey bit joined on to the Main Building, which houses the Primary Sevens and the staff room.

He really wants that third goal. Nobody's scored for his team this playtime, with the other team clawing back their lead, so not only would it complete his hat-trick, but it could be the goal that stops the fightback and ensures victory. The ball has been booted clear a few times, but right over his head, bypassing the midfield and going right to the other end, and that's no use because the only player they've got up there is Robbie. Moochers only mooch because they're shite and they've got no chance of scoring otherwise, so they always get robbed of the ball; either that or they try for goal themselves. Same difference: the ball ends up back in the keeper's hands.

Then, for once, Mick Garvie manages a decent drop-kick and Jamesy picks it up out wide, where he likes it. He goes past a couple of players and heads for the box. Folk are shouting, "wee baw, wee baw," for the pass inside, but there are too many players around them for there to be any point. They're just shouting like they do any time their own teammate has it. A few call him a ball-greedy bastard but he knows he's right to keep it and make for the byline-then it'll be worth a pass. Besides, if he passed it now, one of the eejits would probably try for glory, despite everybody knowing you seldom beat Colin with a long shot. Colin always milks it like fuck, and dives around making it look spectacular when he could as easily stop a shot with his feet, but he's still a good goalie, no denying it.

Jamesy sees Martin coming out to meet him as he nears the byline. Martin beat him to a ball at lunchtime when he blootered it into the Wasteland, but that one had been much nearer Marty, and this time Jamesy has the ball under control. He jinks past him and looks up, sees loads of folk pouring forward into the box. He takes a swing and makes sure he gets his foot under it, sending it in high and hoping somebody sticks the noggin on it. Most of them shite out of it, and of those who jump, all but one get their timing wrong and it goes over their heads. Gary Hawkins is the exception, clearing the danger with a glancing header to send it out for a corner. It's hard to tell if he meant it, but it looks good anyway.

Matt normally takes all the corners and free-kicks, no matter what area of the park, same as Stephen Rennie on his team. They both take all the penalties too, even if it's you who got brought down (though sometimes, if they're winning comfortably, they'll let one of the hard-cases take it, just to sook up to them, or maybe the guy whose ball it is). With Matt not playing, it's up for grabs, or rather it's up for grabs to the best fighter out of all who want it.

Jamesy doesn't want to take it. He wants a goal, and you don't score from corner-kicks, despite Matt and Stephen always trying since they saw a Brazilian do it on the telly.

Graham Wilson gets to take the corner. He's not a good fighter or anything, but it's his ball. He takes a runny and gives it a big welly into the area. Colin jumps for it, but there's too many folk in his way. He does well to get a touch, but doesn't get close to catching it. The ball drops behind him, on the edge of the six-yard area, falling just in front of Paddy Beattie. He only has to side-foot it in with his left and it's the decisive goal to end the fightback. Jammy bastard, Jamesy thinks. But instead of just stroking it home, Paddy decides to take a touch so he can change foot and pure leather it in with his right, because some folk think hitting it in dead fast from six yards is somehow impressive. He blooters it as hard as he can, but by this time wee Marty has dived in. Most folk think Martin's a poof and a shiter because he can't fight, but the same folk would be jumping out of the way of a shot like that. Martin is a bit of a shiter, to be honest, in other ways, but at football, he never does less than he possibly can, no matter the score. The ball skites off him with so much speed and loft that it clears the bar in a split second, before continuing to climb and loop right up on to the Annexe roof.

"Aw, fuck," everybody agrees.

There is less accord over what will happen next. Nobody is going to dispute that it's a corner, but getting the ball back in order to take it is a trickier matter, and the question of whose problem that is, trickier still.

"You'll need tae get that," Paddy is insisting.

Martin looks worried, but in this case marginally more by what retrieval would entail than by crossing the otherwise extremely intimidating Paddy.

"No I shouldnae. It came off me, but you're the one that took a big blooter at it."

"Aye, an if you hadnae got in the way, it would have been a goal instead ay up on the fuckin roof. You're no gettin oot it, ya wee poof. Go an fuckin get it."

"Aye," agrees Richie Ryan. "It came aff you last. On you go."

"Aye, get on wi it," chimes in Charlie Russell, who sits next to Richie.

Jamesy has often heard folk say, 'The baw's on the slates', meaning something's ruined and can't continue. He understands where it comes from, but in his experience, as slated roofs are always sloped, the ball going on to one only has this result if it gets stuck in the gutter rather than rolling clean off. The low-rise Annexe, however, is a flat-roofed affair (an architectural decision even his nine-year-old mind finds baffling, given the average rainfall), and in his opinion 'The baw's on the bitumen' has a far more final ring to it.

Janny Johnny is supposed to go up there if a ball gets stuck, or at least that's what the teachers say when you tell them, but the lazy bastard seldom does. As a result, at best the owner can be waiting weeks to get his ball back, but more likely the local big boys will nick up there in the evening or over the weekend and fuck off with it.

Still, this is regarded as a known risk to anyone who chooses to bring their ball into school (the corresponding benefits including taking the odd corner and very occasional penalty). It is expected that you climb over into the Wasteland if you put the ball over the wall, but up on the Annexe roof is different. The appreciable threat to life and limb, in combination with the thought of how mental the teachers would go, means that it is normally regarded as a lost cause.

Right now, however, folk are suddenly acting like this isn't-and hasn't aways been-the case. They're all starting to gang up on Martin and making out that it is expected that you go up there, which is total shite. The rules haven't changed. None of them has ever been up there, unless it happened when Jamesy was off sick, which he doubts. They're just doing it because Martin's never in trouble and they think he's a poof. They were probably all hoping he'd get caught going over the wall at lunchtime because he's never had the belt. They know there's no chance of him doing it, but that barely matters because it's a slagging for him if he cries off, which is a result for them, too.

It's a pure sin. Martin never does anything to hurt anybody. It's not right that they all gang up on somebody because he's nice and not a bastard to folk. Jamesy wants to help, wants to head this off. He also wants that hat-trick, and with time running out there's only one chance of getting it. "I'll go up," he announces.

"Don't be daft, Jamesy," says Paddy. "Let that wee poof get it."

But Jamesy is already running, his mind made up. He considers himself a good climber, and has already been on a higher roof, back during the October Week holiday, when he and his pal Stewpot were playing along at Braeside Primary.

"Somebody keep the edgy and give us a shout if any teachers come," he says, then heads around the back of the Annexe. He thinks about using the big bins to get up under the gutter, but there's a sturdy iron drainpipe that will do fine. It's perfect, in fact: the joins, brackets and offshoots providing footholds as his hands grip the white-painted metal. The wall is roughcast, too, which gives good grip against his trainers. There's a wee heart-attack moment at the top as he gets both elbows over the edge and feels himself sway backwards for just a sec, but it passes and he makes it up okay.

He can't see the ball at first. The roof is mainly flat, but there are these big see-through plastic pyramid efforts, six of them, sticking up to about waist height. Jamesy keeps one eye on the doors to the Main Building as he scuttles along between the two rows of pyramids, then spots the ball nestling against the base of one of them. He has a swatch down as he passes the first pyramid, and can see into one of the Primary Seven classrooms. It's different from the ones he's always been taught in: they have wide tables and plastic chairs in wee groups instead of individual wooden desks. There are Formica worktops around the walls, too, and the floor is carpeted instead of wooden. It looks dead flash and modern. Primary Seven must be gemmie.

It would be quicker to walk upright, but he can see into the girls' part of the playground from up here and doesn't want to be noticed by a tell-tale like Fat Joanne, so Jamesy proceeds on all fours, staying between the rows of pyramids for cover. He gets the ball and kneels up so he can give it a decent throw and make sure it gets down first time. It does, bouncing once on the bitumen before disappearing over the edge to where someone will be waiting for it. He just hopes they've got the decency to wait for him before taking the corner. And if there's a penalty, he definitely deserves to be taking it. He turns to make his way back, and as he does so takes a wee swatch down through the pyramid the ball was resting against.

He sees more carpet, a table, a teapot, a plate of biscuits, six or seven mugs, two newspapers. And several adult faces staring right back at him.

"Aw, naw."

Martin is walking home with Helen. They're going round the outside and are just passing the rebuilt Infant Building. They often walk home together because they live on the same street. Folk say they're going with each other, because that's usually the only way a boy and a girl would be walking and talking, but they're not. Helen's nice but Martin doesn't think about going with her. He thinks Michelle's pretty, as does everybody else, but the truth is he's never really thought much about going with anybody. Not until today. He'd really like to go with Karen now.

Helen's talking about Karen and everything that happened, but she's not talking about the important stuff like Karen getting the belt: she's filling him in at length about all sorts of other mince to do with Chinese ropes. Girls witter on about this kind of guff all the time: who said what to who, who's fallen out with who, who's best friends with who. It's so endless and trivial, going on like a budgie. That's probably why he's never given much thought to going with any of them. It would be different with Karen, though. He could tell her about Jaws, because he's seen it at the cinema, and they could talk about that. Or Top of the Pops.

It's hard to think about Karen while Helen is wittering on about Fat Joanne, so Martin finds himself thinking instead about Jamesy getting the belt, which makes him sad and a bit angry, too. Jamesy saved him, and look what happened. It wasn't right. He had been relieved when Jamesy said he would go, but anxious at the same time because it was dangerous and unnecessary. You couldn't blame O'Connor this time for giving the belt, but that just underlined why nobody should have demanded that somebody go up after the ball. He knows fine if Paddy had booted the ball up there without a deflection, or Stephen Rennie, or Richie, nobody would have suggested going after it, not even Graham, the Primary Six whose ball it was.

Helen reels him back from his contemplation by mentioning Karen's first-hand response to getting the belt. "She said it was quite sore, but not sore enough to make her cry. She said it was being out in front of everybody that-"

Martin hears Helen make a weird spluttering noise and is suddenly aware of something rushing past him. He turns to look at her and sees that there is brown stuff coming out of her mouth, more of it smeared around her nose and chin. She wobbles dizzily for a moment then bends over and spits. Martin hears laughter and looks ahead. He sees one of Robbie's big brothers-Brian, he thinks his name is, though he is always known as Boma-and another Primary Seven, both standing a few yards away and laughing. Boma's right hand is filthy, dripping mud from his fingers.

Martin has some hankies in his pocket. He hands them to Helen, who bats him away at first because she's still trembling with shock. Then she takes one tentatively and begins wiping away the mess, spitting more dirt as she does so.

Boma and his mate are still standing there, pissing themselves.

Martin feels an anger like nothing he has ever experienced before, something that needs to be vented or his head will explode. "Ya fuckin dirty fuckin evil fuckin bastards," he screams at them. Martin seldom-almost never-swears, because it's a sin and you have to tell the priest at confession, but he needs these words, knows nothing else will express the depths of his fury.

They both keep laughing; all the more, in fact.

"Ya fuckin pricks," he yells again. "Fuckin big hard men daein that tae a wee lassie. Fuckin wanks!" This last he bellows so hard it seems to scrape his throat on the way out.

It has an impact on Boma, too. His laughter subsides and he walks towards Martin. He looks huge. He has a face like a skull: hollow and gaunt, with his hair cut really short, almost down to the roots like Slade in that poster on Uncle Tommy's bedroom wall. Martin always thought he was the scariest-looking of the big boys, even when Boma was only in Primary Six and there were bigger hard-men in the year above. He looks even scarier than Joe, the oldest of Robbie's brothers. And now he's walking towards Martin with his teeth bared and nostrils flaring.

Martin knows he's in trouble, but the rage inside still has him in a kind of oblivion. He throws himself at Boma, his fists balled and swinging. He then feels an explosion of pain in his stomach and doubles over, his useless hands now drawn into his middle. From the edge of his blurred vision he sees Boma's shoe drive towards him, then a flash of white as it connects with his face.

He feels his nose burst, too. He's not crying yet; like Helen, he's still too much in shock.

"An you better no grass, ya wee cunt," says a voice.

Martin hasn't heard this insult before, but he knows instinctively that it is a swear-word. He can tell by the viciousness with which it is issued.

He wouldn't have told anyway. The teachers never care about things like that, even less if it happens after school hours.

He tells his mum he got hit by the ball. He is able to embellish convincingly about the praise he received for stopping a goal, before comfortably heading off the subject by relating how Jamesy got the belt for going up on the roof.

By bedtime the pain is far less and his nose all cleaned up, but around his eye is starting to swell. He can't get to sleep for ages because he starts worrying that Helen will tell Harris or somebody what happened, and if there's any follow-up, Boma will think he grassed. He worries about getting a keeker too, because everyone will notice and it'll get talked about, and it would be just his luck if this was the one time a teacher decided to investigate.

By morning, he does indeed have a big keeker, swollen and starting to discolour. Everybody asks about it. Everybody except O'Connor. He's relieved, but he hates her for it, and he knows he's right to hate her for it.

Primary Seven Beta Hydri Making a Name It's bucketing down with rain, so they're having what the teachers call a 'wet playtime', which means they all have to stay in class. They can talk and sit at different tables and they can eat their sweets and stuff, but 'shite playtime' would be a far better way to describe it, Martin reckons. The windows are all steamed up, so you can't see outside, and the whole place stinks from the damp jackets placed on radiators because everybody got drookit coming in this morning. Last year, the jackets would have been soaking. Now they're drookit. Same as things don't get dirty or manky any more, but mockit. Mockit is even more recent. Things were still manky when Martin got the flu and had to stay off for a week and a half. They were mockit upon his return: Many, many things were mockit, in fact; you could tell a treasured new word had entered the playground lexicon because folk were liberal to the point of incontinent when using it. Perhaps it was a case of practising in order to get into the habit, because some new words became not so much alternatives as outright replacements, and using the outmoded version was asking for a slagging. Stating 'Is it dick', for example, having been state-of-the-art scorn in Primary Five, would now finger you as out-of-touch and a pure wean, not to mention a snobby poof for baulking at the swear-word required in the new Primary Seven vintage: 'Is it fuck'. State the utterly prehistoric 'Is it chook' and you'd be best asking for a transfer to another school.

Martin was increasingly aware that the longer Primary Seven went on, the more everybody seemed to seize upon anything that could single you out. It used to be you had to endure some kind of memorable embarrassment before anyone reckoned they had slagging rights, but these days they were getting like piranha, snapping desperately at the merest morsel. Such thoughts always caused St Grace's to loom forebodingly in his future. He had heard it was far worse up there, and it wasn't all the shite you heard about folk getting their heads flushed down the lawy by Second Years that scared him. Scotty's big sister Heather had told him, for instance, that simply taking a sealed Tupperware cup of juice along with your packed lunch was enough to get you called a poofy mummy's boy. This had troubled him not simply because his mum did tend to pack precisely such an item with his lunch, but because it would never have occurred to him that it was a potential source of abuse, and thus there must be dozens of other potholes just waiting for him to walk into once he made the big move up the hill. He already knows he'll get it for being good at his work and seldom in trouble, so starting off in deficit means he can ill afford to concede any other social points.

Harris comes in again and tells them all to pipe down. That's the second time and she's threatening punishment if she has to come back a third. They're only talking, and no way is it that loud. It's just because the Primary Seven classes are in the Annexe alongside the staff room. Plus, if they all sat there in silence, the old boot would be shattered. She likes nothing better than shouting the odds and making out she's disappointed in them when inside she's loving it.

Everybody hates Harris now much more than they hate Momo. They're still wary of him, but he doesn't cut the same intimidating figure he did when they were younger. He seemed to get smaller every year, and went gradually from this giant ape to just a strange old man. It took a while, but one day Martin became aware that Momo was actually shorter than quite a few of the other teachers, all of whom were women. And the next thing he noticed, though they tried to disguise it, was that the teachers clearly thought he was an eejit as much as the weans did.

The younger kids still think he's the bogeyman, and after the bell goes he'll no doubt be battering lumps out of a few Primary Three or Four noggins on account of their older siblings, but it's Harris who really casts a cloud over Martin's year. And that's not because either she or Momo has changed, only that the kids now see them through older eyes. Momo is mental, which used to make him scary, but they can now see he's ridiculous, a joke. Harris is no fucking joke, and the only reason they didn't hate her more earlier was that they didn't have much to do with her beyond her hymn practices and the occasional crackdown on lining up late. Momo is officially the boss, but Harris is the one who rules the Sixes and Sevens, and 'rules' is definitely the word.

Even if it wasn't raining, they'd be having a shite playtime, because Harris has banned almost everything that they like to do, including football. She has banned football. Not completely, only from the playground, but as it's March right now and the pitch is a swimming pool, it's the same difference. As is usual when the pitch was flooded, they had returned to playing up on the concrete, until Stephen Rennie sliced a shot on the half-volley and smashed a window. Martin has been playing in the same playground since Primary Four, and in that time, despite anything from one to four games of football taking place simultaneously at every interval, this was the first window breakage. A few near things, granted, but only one smashed pane. One, however, was enough. God, she must have been waiting for it, dying for it. In the winter she banned sliding, as she does every year because once upon a time Helen Dunn's big sister Nicola broke her ankle; this on top of banning snowballs 'because you could take someone's eye out'. Which made for a truly miserable January for anyone not really excited by building snowmen.

When it thawed, the pitch became its current quagmire, so the game of choice up on the concrete was pinkies, or bar-the-door, or British bulldog as some folk called it. It's a great game for this time of year because all the running keeps you warm when it's so chilly and windy outside. Or rather, it was a great game until Jamesy broke his arm and Harris banned it on pain of the belt.

Tig was a wee bit lacking in scope for occupying thirty-odd eleven-year-olds, but they had their resources and thus managed at least temporarily to spice things up. Frisbee-tig: instead of just touching you with his hand, the guy who is 'Het' has to hit you with a frisbee. Current status: banned (burst nose, Gary Hawkins). Ball-tig: the guy who is 'Het' has to hit you with a tennis ball. Current status: banned (see snowballs re potential eye-loss). Two-man hunt: a large-scale game of tig meets hide-and-seek. Current status: banned (burst nose, James Doon, ran into wall while looking backwards at pursuer).

Which had left the old standby, fitba, until Stephen learnt the downside of a highly polished finish to his shiny new Docs. The pitch will dry out some day soon, but for the time being wet playtime is arguably preferable to plain old dry playtime, because at least you get a seat inside away from the cold.

Martin is scribbling on a piece of scrap paper. He watches Harris depart, guessing she'd prefer to stay and use playtime for some more compulsory hymns. He used to think that leading these practices was part of her duty as deputy head, but this week he's realised that it's her obsession. O'Connor is off sick and they've got Harris as a stand-in until she comes back.

Most classes get a different teacher every year as they move up through the school. Some, occasionally, get the same one for two. They have somehow ended up with Soorpuss O'Connor from Primary Five right through to the bitter end, and it says a lot for just how horrible O'Connor is that Harris seems an easier shift. She's distracted, for one thing, always with her head in some folder or other, while O'Connor misses nothing, eyes like a hawk and the screech to match. A change is as good as a rest in as much as it's a rest from O'Connor, but it's not without its price, the greater part of which is that the woman can't go between two school bells without getting everyone to their feet for an enforced rendition of some dirge or other.

Everybody's gone quiet, like they did the last time she came in to warn them, but it will start to build up again. Martin saw something on telly last night about things called palindromes, which is where a word or phrase is the same backwards, like 'A Toyota' or 'Sit on a potato pan, Otis'. He writes down the phrases he can remember to see if it is true, and is delighted to find it so, especially in the case of the one about Napoleon: 'Able was I ere I saw Elba'. The man on the telly explained that 'ere' meant before, though he didn't explain why Napoleon would be speaking English.

He then tries writing down some classsmates' names backwards, to see whether they come up as anything interesting. Martin writes his own name first, which comes out as Nitram Noskcaj. He is pleased that it is something pronounceable, though is immediately aware of the slagging potential posed by 'nit' and 'caj'. He's never had nits and he never goes cadging for sweets off people, but facts don't always matter much when it comes to abusive labels. He scribbles a few more, mostly running into consonant congestion. Kevin Duffy gives him Yffud Nivek, which makes Martin smile as he sounds it in his head: 'I-Fud'. He keeps that to himself, partly because he doesn't want to throw Kevin to the wolves like that and partly so he's got something up his sleeve the next time Kevin decides to slag him. He tries Jamesy's, which comes out Nood Semaj. This makes him smile over the 'nood' part. He leans over to Jamesy, who is at a table nearby.

"Hey, Jamesy, do you know your name backwards is Nood Semaj?"

"It's whit?" Jamesy asks, smiling.

"Nood Semaj."

"Noodsy Maj," Jamesy says. "That's magic. Noodsy Magic! What's your name backwards?" he asks Gary, who is sitting beside him.

"I'm Renrut Eibbor," says Robbie while Gary is still working his out.

They all start giving it a go now, though Martin knows most of them will be Welsh- or Gaelic-sounding gibberish. Richie comes up with a decent one. "I am Nayr Drahcir," he announces in a Dracula voice. "I come from Transylvania." Scot mentions that Zoe is Noswal Eoz. "No swally-maybe she's got a sair throat."

Nobody asks Martin his, and he doesn't volunteer it.

Jamesy seems delighted, which is a relief. He repeats the name, aware it may have been missed and forgotten by the others in the clamour.

"I'm Nood Semaj. Noodsy Magic."

"Noodsy," Richie acknowledges, nodding. "Aye, that's your new name: Noodsy. Everybody, Jamesy's Noodsy now. Noodsy Magic."

Martin has noticed that Kevin didn't proffer his reverse name, and once he hears Jamesy officially rechristened, Kevin begins making determined and soon successful attempts to change the subject.

Stephen Rennie comes back in the room, having been out to the toilets.