Nathan is quite small for his age and has strange ‘sticky up’ kind of hair. He has always been picked on by other kids in his class in a kind of ‘low level’ way.

So what does ‘low level’ mean? Well, the other kids like Nathan – he’s funny and kind and excellent at Maths – but they wind him up about his hair and his size. They have always called him ‘squirt’ and they tease him about sports (he’s no good at football).

Most of the ‘wind ups’, looked at in isolation, are harmless but when you put everything together you can see how Nathan has started to feel bad about himself. Nathan day-dreams about being able to prove himself, especially to Matt and David, the class ‘hard men; how lead most of the teasing.

One day, Matt and David posed a question to Nathan.

“What’s the worst thing you have ever done then squirt?”

Nathan didn’t really know. Matt and David reckoned Nathan had never broken a rule in his life and so they challenged him steal something from the local shop after school. Nathan accepted the dare.

Later on that day, Nathan waited until the local shop looked quite busy. He could feel himself sweating as he walked inside and started to hang around near the boxes of crisps. Matt and David were standing outside sniggering to themselves. They were sure he wouldn’t actually steal anything.

Nathan looked and felt terrified, he kept flicking his eyes from side to side. Mr Smith the shop owner noticed Nathan behaving oddly and started to watch him carefully (he’d had a lot of stock stolen recently). After a few minutes, Nathan darted forward and stuffed packets of crisps inside his jacket, then he made a dash for the door.

At the door Mr Smith stopped Nathan and asked him to empty his pockets. Nathan didn’t put up a fight, he handed over the crisps and apologised, telling Mr Smith he had done it for a dare.

Mr Smith thought this was probably true as he had seen two lads laughing outside, but he asked one of his serving staff to call the Police. He also allowed Nathan to use the phone to call his mum.