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on the grass behind the school. Only Timmy is left standing, blinking stupid tears as he walks through the writhing dead.
    One day, Timmy Gossett isn’t in school and Mr Brunt comes to talk to you all, like he talked about Mary. He says that it’s not Timmy’s fault he’s a bit dirty and that he is very upset about the way you treat him. While Mr Brunt speaks, you feel hotly guilty. But the next day Paul sticks his hand in Timmy’s bird’s-nest hair, picking up Timmy’s germs, and comes after you, to pass them on. Paul slaps you harder than he needs to and says, ‘Now, you’ve got Timmy’s germs.’
    What do you do?
    If you chase Vanda and give her Timmy’s germs, go to 109. If you shrug and tell Paul you don’t want to play, go to 128.

4
    W ho do you like, girl?’ Shane asks again, ‘Napoleon Solo or Illya Kuryakin?’
    You think about it. Illya Kuryakin is small, quiet and blond. Not a leader, and often on his own. He’s a bit like you.
    Maybe that’s why you say, ‘Illya.’
    Shane Bush’s gang gather around you in a half-circle, backing you against a wall.
    ‘We like Napoleon Solo,’ Shane says.
    ‘Illya Kuryakin’s a girl,’ says Mary Yatman.
    She steps close and pushes you with both hands. You hit the wall, bumping your head. Hot tears start from your eyes.
    ‘Girl,’ sneers Mary. ‘He’s crying.’
    Suddenly, you lose control. You sob, huddled on the ground. Between sobs, you draw in lungfuls of air and let out screams.
    The whole world contracts. Children are drawn to you and watch, with interest. A grown-up comes, one of the teachers.
    For the rest of the break, you cry and cry and cry. You hate Big School. Hate, hate, hate.
    You’ve lost something before you realised you had a chance to have it.
    Respect.
    You will cry again, soon and often. You will be a girl.
    * * *
    At dinner break, everyone has to have custard with pudding. It’s a school rule, you are told. Rules cannot be compromised. There are no exceptions. All children are treated the same. Custard is mandatory, inescapable, inevitable. No child in the history of Ash Grove County Primary School, stretching back to before the war, has ever got up from the dinner table without having eaten his custard. At home, Mum already knows better than to serve you custard and she’s a far better cook than the Ash Grove dinner ladies. School custard is thick as mud and sickly yellow. Its taste is indescribably vile, like sugared filth, dog’s-muck and spinach, sewage in semolina.
    Class One queue up first at the cafeteria and are given dinners on trays. You are guided to a table in the dinner hall and sat with Marion Halsted, Ivor Barber, Michael Dixon and Mary Yatman. The first course is sausages and mashed potatoes, which is acceptable. You eat quickly, always aware of the custard cooling and festering on your jam roly-poly. Then, you get up and walk to the tub where you are supposed to scrape out your leftovers – which you are told are given to farmers as pigswill. You think you have escaped.
    Poised over the tub, you are caught. Mrs Fudge, the head dinner lady, catches you at the point of disposing of untouched pudding. She sends you back to your table with orders to eat. You sit down and look at the custard, folding your arms in refusal. Your table-mates, even Mary Yatman, almost admire your rebellion. They all shovel down their custard as if it were ice cream. After a while, Mrs Fudge comes over and tells you, as if you didn’t know, that you haven’t touched your pud. When she insists you have to eat the custard, you cry. When she says your pudding won’t be taken away until you eat it, you cry harder.
    Your sister, who knows about you and custard, laughs with her friends. Mrs Fudge, who has a hooked nose and orange hair, changes her approach and tells you how wonderful custard is. Children all over the world would be grateful for even the chance to lick a spoon of it. All around, treacherous kids gulp down the dreadful stuff,