‘Who did this?’

The headmaster’s voice echoed all around the playground. The sound of his voice was more than adequate to leave the playground full of children quaking in their boots. Any child who had attended that school would know that this man was not a man of compromise. Having been in the army for a good few years before deciding to take up teaching, he really knew the meaning of the word ‘discipline’.

Although he was not using a megaphone, his voice could not possibly be made any louder. A stray crisp packet crackled as it fluttered across the edge of the field, and the children were slowly shuffling backwards, as though trying to get as far away from the headmaster’s glare as they possibly could.

‘I said who did this?’ he repeated, in an eerily calm tone. Nitram gulped as he tried to hide his paint covered hands behind his back. He knew that the headmaster could not possibly stay this calm for very long. It was impossible for someone with such a fiery temper like his. He wondered just how long the silence could last.

He didn’t have to wait for very long. Soon, the sound of his shoes clicking against the playground’s gravel seemed a lifetime ago, as he lost his temper and flew into one of his famous rages.

‘WHO DID THIS?’ the headmaster bellowed, seemingly causing the trees to shake in such a fashion that several of the leaves became loose and fell silently to the ground. His face was scarlet, and his footsteps were comparable to those of an elephant as he walked up to two small boys.

They were shaking.

‘I’m looking at you two.’ He cracked his knuckles.

The boys looked at each other and nodded. They looked up at the headmaster, looked into his angry eyes and stammered ‘Nitram did it.’

The boy standing next to them looked down at the floor with his heart beating rapidly, just wanting the ground to swallow him up. He knew that he was in trouble now, and there was no way of getting out of it.

He didn’t expect his two best friends to drop him in it like this. Well, Steven maybe; he was a sneak, but not Nevets. He had been Nitram’s best friend ever since nursery. He wouldn’t want to get Nitram into trouble.