Amy- from the French, meaning “beloved”

More than anybody else in the class of 2015, Amy believes that names are very significant things. And can it be a coincidence that her own name means “beloved”? Of course not. The class just wouldn’t be the same without her. She’s always organising things, helping people with their problems, and working hard to get everyone to do their best. She always has something interesting to say and something important to give. In fact, Amy may very well be the most well-liked member of the class.

Amy’s classmates don’t quite agree with this version of events, but, as Amy says, no-one asked them.

Beatrice- from the Italian, meaning “traveller.”

If by “traveller,” you mean “gets lost a lot,” then this is pretty accurate. Beatrice not only has no sense of direction, but a ridiculously short attention span to boot. The last time her mother sent her down to the corner shop to buy milk, she was gone for five hours and eventually turned up on a farm two miles away, sitting on top of a hay-bale and looking dreamily up at the sky. Apparently, she’d vaguely remembered that she’d been told to do something related to cows, and after that, one thing led to another.

Chandra- from the Sanskrit, meaning “moon.”

This may or may not be the reason why Chandra, at the age of nine, managed to convince herself that she was secretly a werewolf. It all started the morning she found a reddish-brown stain on her pyjama top, and decided it must have been the blood of one of her victims. Her parents and brother told her that the stain looked a lot like chocolate, and that it hadn’t been a full moon last night anyway, but Chandra chose to ignore this. Some people say you can defeat a werewolf with silver bullets, or by shouting its human name three times, but Chandra was only cured of werewolfism when her mother threatened to stop letting her read Goosebumps books.

Deborah- from the Hebrew, meaning “bee.”

Some people say that, if you don’t tell immediately the bees in your hives about all the births, deaths and marriages that take place in your house, they will stop producing honey out of sheer spite. Deborah can relate to this. When her friend Theresa’s older brother got married, she spent a month demanding an invitation, followed by five months of demanding to know why she wasn’t invited, whether or not she and Theresa were still friends, and if Theresa actually had a whole other group of friends with whom she laughed at Deborah behind her back. Theresa’s protests (that the wedding was taking place in Thailand, and that Deborah had only ever met her brother twice) fell on deaf ears.

Emma- from the German, meaning “universal.”

Emma says that the universe is millions of years old, expanding in every direction, and no human being will ever see more than a tiny fraction of what it has to offer unless– and this is important- they take a whole lot of mind-expanding drugs. Not everybody in her class follows Emma’s logic, but she generally seems cheerful, at least when she’s not being attacked by invisible spiders.

Fiona- from the Scottish, meaning “white.”

In China and Korea, white is the colour that symbolises death. Fiona keeps up this tradition by killing as many insects as she possibly can. Whenever a moth, a spider, or a bumblebee comes into the room, Fiona lets out a scream of terror and punches it to smithereens, much to the horror of her more tender-hearted classmates. Fiona usually responds by asking if they want to get the plague, much to the horror of her History teacher.

Geraldine- from the English, meaning “rules by the spear.”

Actually, Geraldine rules by the Facebook group. She has at least five different accounts under separate names, and she uses them to ask… questions. Simple questions. Questions that require answers. Questions that shouldn’t threaten anybody with nothing to hide. And if some of those questions lead to half the school wishing for another girl’s death for her supposed misdeeds, detailed in the “Is our school harbouring a known terrorist?” group, it’s certainly not Geraldine’s intention.