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Monkey said.
    The Professor held him with a contemptuous stare before turning his back on him. ‘Dismissed.’
    Monkey reckoned he’d got off lightly, considering that they’d actually been clocked last night. It could’ve been much worse. People had been sent to The Farm for less. They’d only gone out to kick a ball around: it wasn’t like they’d set out to cause trouble. Anyway, there was no way he was cutting any grass or scrubbing any yards or anything else in his own time: he would truck off Art to carry out his punishment - go through the motions to satisfy the Prof and Security.
    He left the office with a bounce in his step and a smirk to the new patroller sitting in the foyer, then tried Tragic again. But there was still no response. He didn’t know what Tragic was playing at and he was annoyed with him, so he closed down his own ring-cam and strode into class, holding up his bandaged hand like a war wound.

Absent Friends
    Monkey couldn’t wait to get to class so that he could impress Angel with his battle injury. Mov Felton, the I.D.H.C. teacher, had tried to get large with him. She’d accused him of being late and then disrupting the instruction by bragging about his injured hand. Monkey had just laughed at her. He was one of the oldest in the class and just killing time. Apart from Tragic, who would be leaving at the end of the week anyway, the only pre-breeders left in his division were Jordan Grainger, Mark Watts, Leon McRae - tags: Danger, Fuse and Kraze - and Monkey himself.
    Kraze had been the leader of the Mooners since Daz had gone to The Farm. It had been a toss up between him and Monkey but Monkey had let Kraze have the role. Kraze knew that Monkey had relinquished his claim to leadership and, in a strange way, that gave Monkey the upper hand. Kraze might be the front man, but Monkey was the power behind the hood. What Monkey said, went - regardless of Kraze’s opinion. If Monkey decided to pay attention and work hard, then the rest of the hood paid attention. If, like this morning, Monkey decided to disrupt I.D.H.C., the rest of the pre- breeders followed suit. They talked, they joked, they tossed the key to the plasma-screen around between them and, generally, ignored Mov Felton. She flapped, she ordered, she threatened. But Monkey knew there was a limit to how many times and how many students could be sent out. They were in a win-win situation and, like it or not, Mov Felton had to put up with them.
    In fact, Monkey’s beef was not with Mov Felton, it was with her subject: Identity, Diversity, History and Citizenship! What was the point of it? Hadn’t he had enough of that at T.R.E.A.C.L.E.? Today, they’d been watching pre-revolution footage of some war crimes trial. An old man was sitting with his arms folded, refusing to answer questions, claiming that he didn’t recognise the Court.
    Monkey draped himself over his chair with his back to the screen and called out, ‘I refuse to recognise this instruction!’ Everyone laughed and he enjoyed being the centre of attention, especially where Angel was concerned.
    It had not been a personal protest against the instructor, it had been a gesture of disrespect for the tedium of the subject. Now, if Mov Felton had shown them vids like the ones Tragic had acquired a few weeks ago, then I.D.H.C. might not have been such a brain-drain.
    Tragic had told Monkey to go round to his house one evening. ‘Just you, not the rest of the hood, OK?’ he’d insisted. He’d shown Monkey vids, old ones from before the war, of football matches. Matches, the like of which Monkey had never seen. They were proper matches with goals and winners and tournaments and trophies. There were even some international games; one country playing against another. Imagine it - going across the ocean to other lands and cultures just to play football. Monkey had been enthralled.
    â€˜Where d’ya get