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“Just ignore him,” said Gareth’s Mum.

“He’ll soon get bored and leave you alone,” said Dad. They thought it was only a bit of name-calling.

“Stand up for yoursen’,” said Andy, who listened to bands like And They Shall Know Us By The Trail Of Dead and Send More Paramedics, but never once offered to sort Mike Pendlebury out like an older brother on the telly would.

Still Gareth took this raw advice, folded it together, and, like all great chefs, added a few ingredients of his own. Perhaps thinking in baking metaphors was one of the reasons this kept happening, but why should he neanderthalise his thought-processes for someone who didn’t even know the difference between cinnamon and nutmeg?

“Don’t – ever – laugh – at me!” Each word punctuated by a fist.

Why was Mike Pendlebury taking Home Ec anyway? Purely to get a podgy finger inside Maria Ball’s knickers? Posing this question brought Gareth and Mike Pendlebury’s Adidas closer together.

“You know why… she’s not interested?” Gareth continued from the trainer-muddy floor of the lads’ bogs. “Because you’re thick! Thick as…” But all he came up with was porridge and treacle, your Mum’s custard, Hovis Extra Thick Toastie and… ooph, his kidneys.

“And that… doesn’t change my opinion…. one bit.”

Nor did twisting his arm till something cracked, or gobbing in his mouth, or anything else Mike Pendlebury tried that lunchtime. By the time the bell rang for afternoon registration, boredom, an insufficiency of fear, and Gareth’s newfound ability to ‘stand up for himself’ whilst simultaneously having his face ground into piss-smelling tiles, really had won the day.

The next day was another story entirely.