19 September 1984

Mrs Lynch sighed and visibly straightened her back as Jim's hand shot up again. Her eyes roamed the classroom, desperately looking for someone else to answer the question, before finally settling back on Jim, whose arm was straining out of its socket as if he was trying to reach the ceiling.

She pitied his enthusiasm because she had the vantage point that only a teacher could have, and she saw the nudges and grins of the other students. Children could be so cruel she'd learnt, in her forty years of teaching, and this class was no exception. She could sense the malicious undercurrent in their excited teasing of the new boy.

Admittedly, Jim didn't help himself – his too long handbag, his messy hair, his pale skin, his odd mannerisms. Mrs Lynch expected some form of social anxiety disorder, because Jim hardly ever made eye contact unless to inform or fight back. He had a horrible habit of snapping at the tiniest remark, making the ridicule only worse.

It was a shame that the teasing had to occur, but it was inevitable: some people were beacons for it. She wouldn't be so controversial as to say he "asked for it", but he was certainly a magnet for scorn. If anyone was going to get it, it would be Jim Moriarty.

"Yes James?" She asked, wearily.

"Jim."

Oh, of course: he had a strange obsession with shortening his name. Perhaps it was a converging device, Mrs Lynch pondered, or just a preference. It was irritating, seeing as she had a tendency to call her students by their full names, but she assumed that his life was wretched enough, so she could try to afford him his little wish.

"Sorry," She simpered patronizingly, "Jim. Go ahead."

He didn't seem fazed by her; instead he smoothed imaginary creases on his shirt with a laughable flourish and cleared his throat. Oh, Lord. "That's quite alright, Mrs Lynch." He said, grandly. The sound of chair legs scraping signalled the fact that he was standing up. Mrs Lynch closed her eyes in despair as the laughter started. Didn't he know what he was doing? He seemed a bright enough boy, academically, but it was also his hubris. His cleverness overshadowed his social etiquette, and this resulted in a hybridization of admiration at his intelligence and painful embarrassment at his actions.

"The Romans gave us the foundations of modern civilization – aqueducts and education and irrigations, for example. Their hygiene was the peak before the decline for the next three hundred years." He spoke with perfect annunciation and boyish cockiness, and looked so proud of himself, that he seemed like an aged professor trapped in an eight year old's body.

What kind of child – "Textbook perfect, James!"

"Jim." He whispered. Then he smiled emptily and sat back down without another word. If she didn't know better, she'd have thought he looked regretful. She turned back to the board as Carl leant towards Jim again. In the two weeks since Jim's first day, the taunting had become a regular occurrence. Carl had labelled Jim as a loser and that had stuck – there was nothing he could do about it.

"Well done, Irish. Very clever. Shame nobody could understand you because of your stupid accent." He muttered. There was no physical action yet, but the words were like stings and every syllable was like a blow in Jim's gut. He often tried to ignore it and pray that it would just stop, but the little pains came in waves: a stupid nickname or petty insult meant the world. Everything darkened when he arrived in the classroom, and everything hurt. He'd begged his mum to let him stay off school, and faked temperatures by heating up thermometers and flicking water onto his face. But where his mum was concerned, you had to be throwing up blood to warrant a day off school.

The next jibe came with a few more sniggers: Carl had obviously gotten his friends involved. "I like your handbag, Jimmy. Really cool. Like Indiana Jones." Quiet laughter. Jim curled over his desk, petrified that his heart was beating so loudly that they would hear it, and waited for it be finished. "Of course you're too weak to actually live up to Indie. You're just a wanna-be."

Jim felt something nudge against his elbow and, against his better judgement, looked down. His pencil case, so carefully laid out next to his stationary, in line with the corner of the table, was at a jaunty angle. It had in turn knocked his stationary out of place and Jim followed the progression of his pen as it rolled of the desk and landed on the floor with a click.

Mrs Lynch whirled back from the board and glared daggers at the class. "Everyone, copy the timeline on the board. And James, for goodness sake, pick up your pen!"

"It's Jim, Mrs Lynch." Jim muttered, hastily leapt to his feet and walking around his desk.

Carl stuck his foot out and Jim tripped awkwardly, taking a few stumbling steps to stay standing. "Oh, sorry James," he said too loudly, smiling devilishly.

Wordlessly, Jim bent down and grabbed the offending pen before haring back to his seat. He set it down next to the others, which he then went about straightening with painful precision. When he was satisfied with them, he sat back and watched the lesson with a passive interest. He figured that Carl had had his fun for this lesson, maybe, if he was lucky, for this day.

Swish. Jim felt the nudge on his arm, and knew from the laughter that Carl had moved his pencil case again. He swallowed – it obviously wasn't over yet. He calmly straightened it again, and kept his eyes trained on the stationary as he straightened them. Swish. Straighten. Swish. Straighten.

Jim could feel the desperation building inside his chest like a leaden weight, and he blinked rapidly to stop the tears of frustration from gathering in his eyes. It was so menial and so stupid: he was more a victim of his strange obsessive straightening than he was of Carl. It was his own fault. If he'd just stop being such a freak, so obsessed with order, so paranoid that his stationary and pencil case would get out of line, such a loser, so clever –

Swish.

"Stop it, would you?" Jim cried, his head suddenly darting up and his eyes blazing darkly. "Just stop it!" For a moment Carl was afraid – there was something abnormal in the other boy's gaze, something dangerous, but then he got a grip.

"Stop what, Jimmy?" He asked, amused at the outburst. His pupils were glittering with unspoken laughter and his mouth flickered into a smile for a moment. His look was saying there's nothing you can do about this; just accept it. His look was saying don't even try to fight, because I'll always win. This is the way things are.

Mrs Lynch's dark shadow fell over Carl and Jim's desk and the giggling hushed in an instant, all the other children's faces turning to them. "What is going on?"

"Nothing, Miss." Carl smiled innocently, like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, and Jim felt his hand flex involuntarily as he thought about hitting him around the face. He wasn't shocked about this: he'd often envisioned seeing parts of people that should remain on the inside on the outside; he'd often dreamt about blood and longed to do twisted things. In fact, in comparison to the dark thoughts that paraded his head after the lights had gone out, the want to hit Carl was incredibly tame.

Mrs Lynch turned her gaze slowly on Jim and raised her eyebrows, disbelieving. "James? What is going on?"

A million thoughts rushed through Jim's head: he was Jim, not James; he was having thoughts that he'd never had before, that he hadn't even voiced to himself; he was being victimized; he was being humiliated; he was terrified to come to school; he felt lonely and scared; he was a freak; he was too clever for his own good.

"Nothing, Mrs Lynch." He said, quietly, and looked her directly in the eye and begging that she sensed his agony. "Absolutely nothing." Help me.

She watched them for a few more seconds, obviously not believing, but there wasn't anything she could really do if Jim wouldn't admit there was a problem. It wasn't as if she wasn't trying to help him – he was obviously trying to bury his head in the sand and ignore the teasing. Mrs Lynch knew from years of teaching that this wouldn't work, and she could only hope that it wouldn't escalate. Sighing under her breath, she turned her back on them and walked to the front of the room. With her, she took Jim's safety net.

The squeak of the chair told Jim that Carl was leaning over towards him, too close, invading his personal space. In his peripheral vision he saw Carl's grin, but he tried to keep his eyes facing dead forwards. Ignore it. Ignore it and it will go away. "Very good, Irish. Wouldn't want me to get in trouble. Things would be very difficult for you."

Oh, for God's sake. Could he be more cliché? It was painful, really it was, but it was terrifying too. Because Jim sensed something in Carl akin to what he saw in himself – something broken irreparably; something capricious. But it was more animalistic in the other boy: he wanted to simply cause violence and humiliation. He didn't want to plan or dream or respect, he only wanted to destroy. Conversely, Jim's darkness was more elegant: he wanted to shatter chits of bone and paint with scarlet and explore anatomy. He was only eight years old, but he knew that there was something different inside his head. Growing like a tumour. And he let it.

"Got nothing to say, James? Nothing to say?" He could smell Carl's breath right next to him, and he stank of mints and must. He was literally radiating hatred and Jim thought that, as long as he lived, he would never understand that kind of primal fury that resided in Carl. That kind of agonizing anger which made him want to lash out in such a brutal way. Didn't he know that causing pain was an art? He was degrading the beauty of watching someone suffer, of knowing that you had caused their suffering. Jim felt personally offended by Carl's bullying, mostly for himself, but partly because this boy was mindlessly rampaging with no thought to neatness and planning.

"You can't ignore me forever, Jimmy," Carl hissed maliciously. "But you're boring me now so I'll leave you alone. For now." He moved back and leant against the back of his chair, folding his arms and calmly smiling at the thought of the carnage that he was yet to cause. And, despite the fact that Jim hated his methods, he felt his stomach constrict in fear.