‘Have you finished your homework yet?’
Her casual tone doesn’t fool me.
‘I’ve done all of my homework, and I’m up-to-date with my reading,’ I say, even though this technically isn’t true. There is no such thing as being up-to-date at Balmoral—that falls into the realms of impossible. ‘And I take Art, so this is homework too.’
I chose all my electives at the start of the year, under the strict eye of Mrs Benjamin. I got the distinct impression that academic scholarship recipients were expected to focus on STEM subjects, instead of pursuing anything creative, so I had to dig my heels in to get my two units of Art.
Mum kisses me on the forehead and stands up. I know she’s far from being a tiger mum, but she might have finished her landscape architecture degree, might have had a completely different career, a different life, if she hadn’t had babies, or had babies with a different man, or hadn’t gotten divorced. I know my life is supposed to turn out differently to hers.
‘I see how hard you work, hon.’ Mum frowns at my mug. ‘But please don’t drink that crap so late in the day.’
DAY 6
Enter the dungeons and you’ll find that the lockers and the doors and the rubbish bins are small, even the toilets are made for dolls. Tinytown, infantville, the basement corridor where we can observe the lowest of the low in their natural habitat, the Year Sevens and Eights.
I’m a giant of course, metres taller than the rest—I’ve been almost twice my usual size for six days now. Walking on stilts, walking the corridors like I have army boots on, not scuffed school shoes, stomp stomp stomping on the cack green carpet with my loyal supporters trailing behind. New headphones clamped on, shiny gold ridiculous, but what no one knows is that there’s no music trickling through them. The corridor sounds muffle down to almost nothing and I move to an imaginary beat and that’s how I keep fooling everyone.
Sarah is with me, and Marley too, but Ally is in sick bay with monster period pain under the care of patchouli-reeking Nurse Lee and Nurofen Plus, but only two every four hours because dependency on legal drugs is almost as serious as dependency on the fun ones.
The Year Sevens cling to their lockers like scared little baby dolls, with round faces and big eyes and squidgy mouths and spiky eyelashes. They hobbit about doing babyish things with their lunch hour, building forts with the tables, swapping worthless plastic bracelets, trying to figure out what they can afford at the tuckshop with their last $2.30.
‘That’s Natalia,’ I see one mouth to another. ‘Year Ten.’
Let them see my summer uniform hitched high, hair unbrushed for days, Sharpie tattoos on my thighs. Let them know they don’t have to care about the rules despite what everyone says. Disobey, but don’t get caught.
I ignore the lapping at my ankles, the still-rising tide of if it happened to her it could happen to me, the swishing I need to be ready and what if I’m next. Put your gumboots on because, they haven’t caught him he’s still out there and it’s not going away, how long will it be before he gets the urge again.
I’m high and dry because I gave up at 36 hours, along with the police. Because you can choose to be hopeless, that’s what I’ve learnt.
After six days it’s almost as if she never existed at all.
I wave at Posy, this year’s favourite baby doll, and Posy waves back. Even at twelve you can tell that Posy is going to grow up to rule her year level and be a mega-babe, the sort that isn’t the prettiest, but is the most interesting, the most magnetic. Posy is sweet now, but she’s only months away from realising her superiority and then she’s gonna turn from a sugary little lollipop into a sour lemon nightmare and her parents and teachers will be disappointed because she used to be such a nice girl.
I turn the corner out of Tinytown right as the end-of-lunch bell rings. This next part of the dungeons smells of unwashed PE uniforms and forgotten sandwiches. The Year Eights are smack-bang in the middle of their awkward phase, labouring under their oversized backpacks like beetles.
‘You are no longer cute!’ I yell in celebration because I’ve decided that my Friday afternoon gift to myself is that I’ll stop working at lunchtime. I’ll spend periods five and six snipping off my split ends and planning my weekend with my phone hidden inside my inside blazer pocket because they make secret agents out of us with their nonsense rules and they make liars out of us with their lies.
I stop.
I survey the emptying dungeon with an odd metallic taste in my mouth. Something is askew, like in those puzzles I loved when I was a kid: find five things wrong with this picture.
‘Where’s Amanda?’ I ask the closest beetle.
‘Her parents took her out of school.’
‘Why?’ I ask, even though I already know the reason. Amanda’s older sister Ruby wasn’t in Biology this morning. Cowards run away, and Amanda and Ruby’s parents clearly have no grasp on the statistical probability of teen abductions.
Why is everyone thinking about themselves, when they should be thinking about Yin?
‘I don’t know.’ The Year Eight girl quails, looking away. ‘I’m gonna be late for Maths. Mr Scrutton will give me detention.’
‘Please,’ I say. ‘Scrotum is way too nice for that.’ The Year Eight looks confused so I have to explain. ‘Mr Scrutton. Scrutton, Scrotum—remember it.’
I let her go. She’ll run to her friends and report on what I’ve told
