‘On who’s behind Amelia Westlake,’ Kimberley adds. ‘Odds are currently four dollars for Beth Tupman, eight dollars for Nakita Wallis, five dollars for Will Everhart …’
I press a shaky palm against a tile. ‘How many people have betted so far?’
‘About half the year,’ says Palmer.
I am keenly aware that refusing might come across as suspicious. ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘I’ll put my money on Nakita.’ I draw out a few notes from my purse and hand them over.
Kimberley hands them to Palmer, who stuffs the money hastily into her bra.
‘And what does Amelia Westlake get, when it’s all over?’ I ask.
Palmer laughs. ‘Whatever she wants. She’s a total legend.’
The two of them swing around and head out the bathroom door.
Fortified by this exchange, I walk swiftly to the east corridor, where the English students have their classes.
When I arrive, Miss Fowler’s Advanced year-twelve students are making a very slow job of leaving the room. We have decided to target this class rather than Will’s to reduce the chance of people connecting the activity to her. I am doubly pleased about this decision now that I know the odds Will currently holds in Kimberley and Palmer’s sweep. This way she will also have an alibi, since I am carrying out the entire operation during the time she will be in Legal Studies with Natasha.
Will knows Miss Fowler’s ‘modus operandi’ and I know from Beth that her class has an essay due today. I pretend to be reading an educational poster as the class files past. I watch each student put their essay in a box by the door as they leave, just as Will said would happen. After the last girl files out, I walk casually past the doorway and glance inside.
Miss Fowler is tidying papers on her desk and thankfully doesn’t see me. I wait half a minute more and walk past again. This time she is writing notes on the whiteboard.
Carpe diem, I think giddily. I reach an arm around, pick up the box full of essays, and walk calmly away with it down the corridor.
It is a five-minute walk from the east corridor to the PAC storeroom. I keep a steady pace even though my heart is racing. When I reach the storeroom I enter the pin code Will gave me.
The room is empty. I shut the door, relief sweeping through me. So far, so good. I take the essays out of the box and divide them into two equal piles, consulting a list Will and I have worked on together using a class roll I managed to obtain from Ms Bracken’s office. In one pile are Miss Fowler’s pets. In the other pile is everyone else.
On the front of each essay is a cover sheet. This is where students have written their student number to facilitate ‘blind’ marking, a technique that requires each teacher to mark an essay before looking up which student correlates to which number. It is supposed to neutralise teacher bias.
‘Blind marking my left foot,’ Will said when we talked about it. ‘You want to see the comments on my last essay? Here’s one: “Your arguments supporting Hamlet’s misogyny are highly questionable, Wilhelmina. See me after class.”’
Although it makes me sick to think a teacher has failed to respect the school’s marking code, I hope Will is right. Our operation is premised on it.
I carefully remove the cover sheets from each essay, making sure I keep the ones from the first pile separate from the ones from the second pile. Then I staple the sheets that have come from the first pile to the front of the second pile of essays, and the sheets from the second pile of essays to the front of those in the first pile. I gather the essays into a single pile again, and go through the essays one by one writing ‘AW’ in small print – so small you would never notice it unless you were looking for it – on the back of each cover sheet in the bottom right corner.
When I am finished, I put the essays in the box and walk back to the east corridor.
I peek through the open doorway into the classroom. Miss Fowler’s next class is in progress. Her students are facing the front with their backs to the door. Like before, I wait for Miss Fowler to turn to write something on the whiteboard. Then I replace the box.
When I get back to the empty common room I check no-one is watching before indulging in a tiny fist-pump. The whole thing has taken a total of twenty minutes.
One week later, I overhear a conversation between Liz Newcomb and two of Miss Fowler’s students, Inez Jurich and Daphne Chee. They are sitting on the couches in the common room, their legs up on the coffee table. This is a habit I find deeply unhygienic and would generally say something about, only I don’t want to draw attention to my eavesdropping.
‘So this morning Miss Fowler hands me back my essay and I look at it and I’m like, this is so not my essay. It’s got my student number on it but it’s totally not mine,’ says Daphne.
‘And I’m next to Daphne,’ says Inez, leaning forwards towards Liz, ‘and it’s the same for me! I wrote on traditional class distinctions in Emma, and the essay in front of me is on, I don’t know, Mr Knightley and understandings of manhood or something.’
‘That’s crazy,’ says Liz. She is wearing her Tawney Shield uniform. Most people change out of their sports gear after lunchtime practice, but given the Tennis Captain badge emblazoned on the front of Liz’s outfit there are no prizes for guessing why she never does.
‘Next thing we know,’ says Daphne, ‘everyone is calling out their essay topics and passing essays back and forth and Miss Fowler is stalking around the room with no idea what’s going on. And then Beth Tupman comes over to me, because Miss Fowler’s handed my
