Chapter 1

The Ban

Monday, 4:05 p.m. (the bus, the back seat, obviously)

Right. Diary.

I'm only writing in you because Miss Okafor said if I didn't "reflect" she'd ring home, and if she rings home Mum will do the sigh, and the sigh is worse than any detention they've got.

So. Reflecting. I'm Jax. Jaxon Reid, fourteen, Year 9, class clown of 9F, which isn't an official title but it's on my pencil case so it might as well be. I've got a notebook, this one, and in the back of it I keep the score.

JAX! Confessions of the Class Clown

Assembly. Mr Grant doing his talk about the end-of-year show, which is the one night a year the school lets people be actually funny on a stage with a microphone, and which I have been planning for since Year 7 the way other people plan weddings. I've got a set. It's eight minutes. There's a bit about my nan's dog that kills.

Mr Grant said, "And remember, the show is a privilege, not a right."

And I said, not even that loud, "Like your haircut, sir."

Three hundred people, Diary. I've never had three hundred. The noise was like a wave. Even Mr Grant's mouth did a thing before he got it under control.