As she turned in at the school gate, Angela breathed deeply to force back the rush of panicky nervousness fluttering her stomach. She felt as though every face was turned towards her, unwelcoming and resentful.

She hadn't wanted to transfer to this school, but her father's political career would have suffered if she had stayed on at her private school, and she had had to join this inner-city, mixed-race comprehensive school, where she didn't know a soul.

The faces turned in her direction were almost all black or brown and she wished, for the first time in her life, that she could be less tall, less blonde, less pretty. She stuck out like a sore thumb — not only because she seemed to be the only one wearing the regulation school uniform of grey blazer, blouse and tie, and long grey skirt.

She tried to smile confidently, but her nervous lips trembled and she achieved only something resembling a sneer. She walked, as slowly and surely as she could, towards the dirty grey stonework of the Victorian school building.

As the milling crowds of girls parted to let her through, it dawned on her that they were girls — only girls. One of the major forebodings about her school transfer had been the fact that, unlike her old one, her new school was co-educational. Looking around, she suddenly realised that, through the high railings to her left, there was another schoolyard, full of boys. Well, at least there was segregation outside school, she thought, with relief.

Because of her cloistered upbringing, Angela had little experience of boys and, while, at the age of fifteen, she was beginning to feel a developing interest, she was more than a little frightened of what she had heard about them, from more worldly-wise girls of her acquaintance.

With relief, she pushed open the swing doors to the school building and made her way to the head's office to report her arrival...

Angela sneaked a glance at her watch. It was twenty to four. In twenty minutes, she would be released. She was still far from happy, but she supposed her first day could have been worse. The initial atmosphere of hostility had been maintained, with various whispered comments behind her back — mainly from the black girls, but one little Indian girl in her maths class had been quite friendly - and the boys had not troubled her at all.

The major shock to her system had been the communal changing and showering for P.E. At Highfields, the girls had each separate cubicles, with their own showers, but here there was just one huge area with benches and hooks for clothes, and six showers, all together, under which all the girls had clustered, unselfconsciously naked, chattering and laughing. Because it was the last session before the lunch break, Angela had managed to delay her shower until most of the other grills had gone — which meant that she missed lunch, but she hadn't minded that because it meant she didn't have to undergo the embarrassment of having to eat alone in the huge crowded dining-hall.

A shrill bell interrupted her reflections and she realised, with huge relief, that she was free to leave, at last. She gathered up her books from her desk and slipped them into her bag. Again, she hung back to let the first rush of her fellow-pupils push and shove their way out of the classroom door, then walked slowly towards the cloakroom, to pick up her coat.

Once or twice, she was jostled by passing kids. She couldn't be sure they were deliberate shoves and pushes but she thought so, and she was already pretty depressed when an unseen hand snatched her bag and her books were scattered all over the floor. As Angela tried to retrieve them, passing kids made a point of kicking them along a bit and, by the time she had picked them all up, the unhappy girl was close to tears and wanted nothing more than to get her coat and get back to her safe, comfortable home.

Already, she was composing, in her mind, the plea she would mount to her father that night, to take her away from here and back to Highfields.

She pushed the cloakroom door open and, unintentionally, shoved it into the back of a small black girl, Irene.

"Hey, watch it, cunt!" shouted the girl.

"Oh, I'm sorry," said Angela. "I wasn't looking."

"Well, look next time, OK?" said the girl, jabbing a finger at Angela's chest.

"Yes," sighed Angela, turning away to look for her coat. "I will."

"Stuck-up cunt!" said another voice, but Angela, face now burning, managed to ignore it and, putting her bag on the bench, reached up for her coat. Then she stopped, looking at it in horror. It was covered in spittle.

A few muffled sniggers sounded behind her and, as she turned round to confront them, her bag was snatched off the bench and the contents strewn over the floor.

At least a dozen girls clustered round her, in a semi-circle. Most of them were black, but there were a couple of white ones, and a tall skinny Indian girl with dreadful acne.

"Please," said Angela. "Please leave me alone."

It was a large, fat West Indian girl — her name was Hannah, Angela recalled from the P.E. class — who repeated, sneeringly — "Please leave me alone!"

"What's wrong?" Hannah went on. "Don't you like it here?"

Angela just shook her head, unable to speak. When she got out of here, there was no way she was coming back, she resolved. Come to that, she wouldn't need those books any more, so she needn't bother picking them up.

Making a decision, Angela pulled her coat off the peg and walked towards the door. With surprising speed, Hannah darted in front of her and put her fat hands on Angela's shoulders.

"Where you goin', bitch?" she demanded.

With a flash of anger, Angela pushed the girl's hands away and snapped — "I'm going home — and I won't be back, so you needn't worry about seeing me again!"

"Oh, yeah?" replied Hannah. "But we'd like to see more of you before you go — wouldn't we, sisters?"

A chorus of laughter greeted this comment and the girls moved closer. A twinge of real fear assailed Angela and, as Hannah reached forward again, she again pushed the girl's hands away, and ran for the door.

But she had to push her way through her assembled schoolmates and she was immediately grabbed by several hands and dragged to a standstill.

"Let me go!" she protested, as her hands and arms were held tight, but there was no let-up and, once again, Hannah was standing in front of her.

"We want to know something," the fat girl said, a leer on her face.

"What?" asked Angela.

"How come you waited till we was all out of the showers today, before you went in?"

Helplessly, Angela shrugged her shoulders. What was the point of trying to explain? She had heard enough of these girls' conversations today to know that the very idea of modesty was a completely foreign concept to most of them. Their talk was liberally spattered with references to "tits" and "cunts" and "cocks" and "pricks" — words which Angela had heard before and, of course understood, but still thought of as very much forbidden and — yes, she had to admit, crude and lower class.

"I — I got held up," she stammered, eventually. The others laughed, sneeringly, and the little black girl, Irene, said — "Maybe she ain't got no tits and didn't want us to see!"

Angela flushed scarlet, but couldn't think of a retort.

"Well?" demanded Hannah. "Is that it? Was you scared to let us see you got no tits?"

Angela shook her head, miserably, and, once again, ineffectually tried to shake herself free of the hands which held her.

"Let's have a look now, then," a voice drawled from the back. It was Hisha, the heavily-acned Indian girl, whose scruffy sari did not altogether disguise a large pair of breasts which the girl made sure were always clearly outlined against the tight material.

Angela's jaw dropped in shock, and her heart sank as she heard the growls of assent from her unfriendly captors. A hand grabbed the shoulder of her blazer and dragged it backwards.

"No!" shouted Angela, beginning to struggle desperately, but the many hands gripped her arms tightly and, in seconds, her blazer was tugged off and thrown to the floor.

With her arms pinioned behind her back, Angela was helpless as Hannah, standing in front of her pulled her school tie off, and dropped it to the floor. The black girl's rancid breath seared Angela's nostrils as she leered in the writhing girl's face and began to unbutton her blouse.

As Angela's lacy white bra was exposed, Irene called from behind Hannah's shoulder — "Save that for me!" and Hannah chuckled, fatly, as she replied.

"Sure thing, babe. That'll look good with yo' little black boobies."

Angela was now crying in helpless frustration and, as the final button parted, her blouse was dragged off her shoulders and an unseen hand deftly undid the clips at the back of her brassiere.

"Now," breathed Hannah, amidst the hubbub of chattering girls. "Let's see what you've got that's so special."

And she took hold of the shoulder straps and pulled Angela's bra down her arms, and handed it to the crowing Irene. Then she stood back and, along with the others, studied the shivering girl's exposed firm small breasts.

There was silence for a second, then the catcalls and comments flew thick and fast and Angela cringed as the girls made derogatory comments about the smallness of her 'tits' and the pinkness of her little, puckered nipples. By now, she knew wild horses would never drag her back to this place, once she made good her escape.

But then, suddenly, a new horror struck as Hannah suddenly reached up and started flicking Angela's nipples with her middle fingers. It was bad enough being forced to have her body displayed to her uncouth schoolmates — it had never occurred to Angela that there might be actual physical contact, as well.

"Stop it," she sobbed, through gritted teeth. "Leave me alone — please!"

"Sore, is it, bitch?" hissed Hannah, her eyes glittering in cruel pleasure.

"Yes!" exclaimed Angela. "How would you like it?"

Hannah laughed, then, without warning, leaned forward and sucked one of Angela's little pink nipples between her fat black lips. Angela screamed as she felt the other girl's tongue lave around her sensitive nipple-end and her legs started to buckle as her mind whirled out of control and a blackness descended...

In the dream, she was drowning, and spluttering for breath. Her eyes flickered open just as Mr Slattery, the school caretaker, emptied another bucket of ice-cold water on her upturned face. For a second or two, Angela blinked as she tried to figure out where she was. Looking up, she could see the circle of girl's faces, with Mr Slattery's mournful, moustached countenance in the middle, closest to her.

She was on her back, on the cloakroom floor. She sat up, and some of the water dripped off her chin — onto her uncovered breasts! Automatically, she reached up to cover them, but it was Hannah who grabbed her wrists and, pulling Angela to her feet, held her arms pinioned behind her back, thrusting her uncovered chest towards the lugubrious, sallow face of the surly caretaker.

"'Ere, Jim — you want a feel?"

The man leered and ran his tongue round his thin lips, dislodging a half-smoked cigarette, which fell to the floor.

"Yeah," he slurred. "Don't mind if I do!"

And, as Angela drew in her breath in horror, his gnarled, dirty hands reached up and closed round her sensitive young breasts. Her outraged shriek as Slattery's clawed fingers squeezed her firm flesh was met with gales of excited hysteria from her assembled schoolmates, increasing in volume as, grinning wolfishly, the man leaned forward and fastened his mouth on the helpless girl's left nipple.

Angela jerked frantically as she felt his slimy tongue lick at her nipple and the surrounding areola, but it was hopeless. Hannah had her arms pulled savagely down her back and Slattery, himself, was now holding her with the hand which had been groping the breast now occupied by his slavering mouth.

And, dimly, Angela became aware of two new horrors. The first was that Slattery's hand was not only restraining her, but, through her long school skirt, was squeezing and fondling her firm young bottom, and the second was that, as he pulled the lower half of the girl's body towards him, a hardness was pressing against her lower stomach. As she realised what it was, the imprisoned girl nearly gagged in revulsion, and her screaming took on a new, higher pitch.