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killed a lady driving underneath. They built fences – nets above the bridge – to stop people throwing rocks at cars. You’d think people would know not to throw rocks.
    There was an overpass near our old house. The fence is about a metre and a half high. You could still throw a rock if you were determined to do that.
    If they really wanted to stop people throwing rocks they’d need to build a fence to eternity, or take away all the rocks. Where does that end? Does everyone walk around with a bulletproof vest and a crash helmet in case someone decides to do them harm?
    Wouldn’t you think people should know not to throw rocks at cars? At some point people have to decide not to throw rocks.
    Callum whispered, ‘Wow, yours is really good.’
    I said to him, ‘I come from a long line of rock-throwers. You can’t stop people throwing rocks.’
    ‘I come from rock-throwers too. Well, one rock-thrower, and one who just cowers in the corner waiting for it to stop.’ His chin jutted out and he stared me right in the eye.
    ‘If you could be the thrower, or the thrown-at, I know which one I’d pick,’ I countered. ‘But I don’t even think you get to choose.’
    ‘Of course you choose!’ He was angry, but tired at the same time, as though I was a new enemy in an old war. ‘You think that’s the solution? You’re going to be a rock-thrower?’
    My cheeks burned crimson. My mouth filled with saliva. I had a feeling that if I stood up I would find that I’d wet myself. My counsellor tells me that during periods of extreme apprehension my mind manufactures physical symptoms of distress. I twisted in my seat. Now I couldn’t get up even if I wanted to. I let my hair hang across my face.
    Sometimes I can’t bear to be in my own skin. It’s like being embarrassed but ten times worse. I want to run until I have left myself behind, but I can’t run that fast.
    I feel stupid and childish, as if I am watching myself from the outside and I don’t want to spend time with me. That’s when I think about it. It’s not because I’m sad or depressed the way you see it in the movies. It’s as though I am so embarrassed that I have to leave. There’s only one way to truly leave.
    Sometimes it feels better if I drink. Sometimes it feels worse. I had cocaine once, and I’m sure that would do the trick, but I can’t do that because once I start I won’t be able to stop. Ever. I loved it.
    That feeling comes over me in waves. My counsellor calls it anxiety. She says most people have minds like ponds. They’re still most of the time, and they only ripple when something bad happens outside the pond.
    She says my mind is like the sea – it rocks and rolls, and if something bad happens it roars. Then I am trapped inside the waves, tumbling over and over and sure that I can’t breathe, wondering if it will ever end. When the waves in my mind are like that, I sometimes wonder if it would be easier just to give in. I could breathe the water. I read somewhere that drowning is a gentle way to die.
    I’ve researched these things, not because I am sad or morbid, but in case of an emergency – just in case one day it gets so bad that I have to find a quick way out.

9

T HE B OGEYMAN R ULES
    I’d been told to meet the counsellors in the courtyard straight after lunch to catch the bus to the Solo campsite. The first two people had already come back, and the second pair was waiting to be picked up.
    I was going out on my own. Even though I knew that the whole point was to be separated from civilised people by kilometres of National Park, I still would have preferred to go out on my own with someone else, the way the others had.
    Callum loped past from the direction of the mess hall. I looked away. I paced the stone pavers, pretending I was interested in the sparrows skipping on the sleepers edging the garden. I plucked a leaf from the tree above me and smelled it, crushing it between my fingers. It was grey and waxy.