When I was in class 6 I joined a new school. I stuck out a fair bit with my short hair ( boy cut) and the Bermuda shorts and t-shirts I wore to school while I waited for my uniforms to get stitched. It was an all girls school and I was often asked if I was a boy. Where I was from. And what I was doing there.

My class was 72 kids strong, and in the sea of blue pinafores and beribboned braids my shorts and cropped hair made me an easy target for some teachers, especially those who wanted to know if I was 'smart' or 'dumb'. My Maths teacher was convinced I was dumb right off the bat. I didn't know how to do mensuration and time-distance problems and my fractions were wobbly.

"You will fail your exams" she pronounced on day one. A statement that left me with a horrible, nauseous pit in my stomach. A feeling that returned every time I saw her. And so, in order to avoid her beady stare and further proclamations of failure, I would make up excuses to leave her class and go and lie down in the school's sick room. Headaches, stomach aches, fevers and phantom body pains. I knew I couldn't do it too often, but when the scrutiny and feeling of stupidity became too much I would raise a trembling hand and offer up an illness.

"Go! Go to the sick room!" she would say dismissively, perhaps happy to be rid of me.

I would go to the sick room on the ground floor of our school and lie down on a thin mattress covered with maroon coloured pleather. Since it was at street level, there were two doors that lead outside, which were often kept open. Wide open. To the outside world! I remember lying there and watching the adults walk past going about their day and wishing I had the guts to get up and leave. I remember telling myself that one day I too would be a grown up, free of the burdens of maths.

I had some lovely maths teachers after grade 6, and I never failed my maths exams. But I've always thought of myself as 'bad at maths'. I still ask my partner how to figure out things about percentages, and always refuse when asked to tally up how much each person owes at the end of a night out.

All of this of course has found its way into the books I write for children. If I can squeeze them in, the stories I write have a maths sum in them (usually about trains leaving stations in opposite directions), a not so nice teacher and a child's desire for freedom of some kind or the other.

Of course, one would think the inspiration for The Great Escape, my new chapter book from Duckbill, an imprint of Penguin Random House is based on my own experiences. But it isn't. Not entirely.

Back in class 2, my son who is now 14 years old decided that he was tired of Maths class and went off for a wander to the boys loo. He met two other friends there, also uninterested in class, and together they decided to break out of school via the loo. Of course, I've fictionalised heavily and added some silliness and drama to the story. When I learned of this escapade, I didn't have the best reaction. Instead of asking him why he felt the need to escape I told him off. I'd give anything to go back and change that moment.

When I think back to it now, I laugh and feel proud that he went one step further than his mother.

We like to think of school as a 'safe space' for our children. But there are many things that make them feel unsafe in school. Sometimes it's a teacher's casually cruel comment or its other children who can be very hurtful. Sometimes it's a child's own feeling of inadequacy or feeling lost in the classroom that can make them feel alone and scared.

Anyway, here's a small excerpt from The Great Escape. The delightful, charming illustrations are by Sheena Deviah. The book is available at all good independent bookstores.

Shilpa Problems

Sachit glared at his maths textbook, wondering for the hundredth time why Shilpa had bought 200 toffees to distribute to her thirty classmates for her tenth birthday. And why she had to know how many toffees would be left over if each of her classmates got two toffees each.

‘Just eat the rest of the toffees yourself, Shilpa!’ Sachit muttered to himself.

Sachit looked around him. No one else in III-B seemed annoyed with Shilpa. In fact, they were all toiling away at the worksheet like busy little worker bees. The Queen Bee Sona Ma’am sat at her desk, her beady eyes flicking over them and then back again to the book in her hands. It was called Advanced Sudoku for Sudoku Geniuses. This choice of book only cemented Sachit’s belief: people who liked maths were weird.

Sachit wondered for the thousandth time when the period would get over. When would this day get over? How many more sweet seconds till he could go home and sink into the squishy old armchair in his room and just be?

The Queen Bee looked up. ‘Yes, new boy?’

‘Bathroom, Ma’am?‘

Sona Ma’am sighed in the way all teachers do when a student asks to use the bathroom—long and loud as though it was a big bother to her somehow.

She flicked her eyes back to Advanced Sudoku and

dismissed Sachit with a wave of her hand.

‘Go, go.’

Sachit walked to the door and then peered

down the corridor, trying to remember which way the bathroom was.

‘Only one way to find out,’ he said to himself and turned left—or was he turning right?