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‘What am I going to do with you, Lorenzo?’ she sighed as she sipped her coffee. ‘You are too troublesome and I am not willing to put up with you any longer, you don’t have anybody and I am not going to carry on looking after you.’

She looked me straight in the eyes as she drank another mouthful of coffee. Her look was a mixture of loneliness, bitterness and resentment built up over many years.

‘You are a problem child. Nobody wants you. You are a blight on society.’

Her words hurt and humiliated me but the worst thing was, they were true.

‘But I remember now that you do have someone.’

And then she stopped. She dropped her coffee cup and fell to the floor.

I didn’t understand what was happening or know what to do. She might have fainted or be dead – I didn’t want to find out. I ran from her office without knowing what had happened to the headmistress. Nobody would have believed my version anyway.

I ran all over the building looking for a gap in the bars that I could squeeze through but there was no chance of escaping. I was desperate, imagining myself locked up in jail for something I didn’t do. My head was spinning, I felt sick, I didn’t know what to do. I heard footsteps approaching rapidly and without a second thought I ran, looking for somewhere to hide. I found myself staring at my classmate’s coffin and realised that perhaps it was my only hope of escape.