‘I guess. We’re in orchestra together. She’s first clarinet and I’m second, so we sit next to each other.’
‘Do you think she’ll get released?’ I ask. ‘Safely, I mean?’
I mean alive. Petra might be the only person I get to talk about Yin with today, so I may as well ask.
‘Karolina Bauer was returned after twenty hours.’ Petra clutches her textbooks to her chest and speaks fast. She’s the same height as me, but she hunches.
‘The exchange student, right?’
Petra nods. ‘It’s now over twenty-four hours since Yin was taken, give or take a few hours because they don’t know the exact time, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything bad has happened.’
‘So you think it’s the same guy? They wouldn’t say on the news last night.’
‘Almost definitely.’ Petra lowers her voice. ‘The modus operandi is very similar. I’ve been comparing. In both cases, entry was through a ground-floor window, and family members were tied up. And if I’m right, then the weapon he carried was a gun.’
I try not to raise my eyebrows. Petra is intense. The second bell rings, setting off a chorus of slammed locker doors.
‘Karolina survived because she kept quiet and did what she was told,’ Petra continues when the bell stops. ‘She memorised important details about her surroundings, even though none of it ever got released to the public. Do you know why the police never reveal all the evidence? They keep it under wraps so they can use it to verify—’
Petra breaks off as her best friend Audrey joins us.
‘You ready?’ Audrey doesn’t look at me. If I was asked to name the most aloof girl in our year level, Audrey would win, hands down. She is so above everything I almost admire her for it.
‘Sure.’ Petra gives me a brief, polite smile. She wrestles a music case out of her locker.
‘I need help with Chem.’ Audrey all but clicks her fingers as she walks off, Petra at her heels. The boarders stick together, and Petra especially sticks to Audrey. She’s undeniably the suckerfish and Audrey is undeniably the shark.
DAY 3
Day three of Yin missing, and the student distribution in the quadrangle is out of whack. Normally groups of Year Tens spread out to every part of the courtyard, but today we huddle close on the steps. Even those who are pretending not to take part sit close enough to eavesdrop.
We’re not supposed to have our phones out during school hours, but that’s not possible now. Not when there’s rolling news coverage online, comments and theories and prayers and wishes. Some girls haven’t stopped crying yet, and none of us look like we’ve slept.
My usual lunch spot is the low brick wall above the steps, putting me higher than the rest of the quad, with the dangling branches of a willow screening me. Claire and Milla, Yin’s closest friends, are the epicentre of the gathering. They look incomplete without Yin, a triangle with one of its sides missing. I’d seen them walking around school, heads together, in the library, hauling their musical instruments from one place to the other.
‘They were wearing normal clothes, not police uniforms,’ says Claire. ‘We talked in the lounge room and my parents had to be there.’
Teaghan sits close to them. ‘What did they say? Do they have any leads?’
‘It doesn’t make sense. I mean, if I did have something to tell them, a secret, I wouldn’t do it with Mum and Dad there.’
‘Did I miss anything?’ Lisbeth slides onto the wall beside me. I shake my head and move over so we can both see.
Lisbeth and I have joint custody of the quad wall; sometimes we lay our sandwiches between us and swap halves. I don’t have that much in common with Lisbeth, but she’s always been friendly to me, and that counts for a lot. She doesn’t seem to have many friends and I think it’s because her family are Pentecostal Christians, the full speak-in-tongues type. Even her sandwiches taste religious.
Claire looks stunned by the attention. Her face is blotchy and her eyes puffy. Teaghan pokes her until she answers the question.
‘They asked if Yin had been upset recently, or if she’d had any fights with her parents or teachers or anyone else.’
‘See? I told you. They think she’s run away,’ says Sarah.
The Blondes, normally in their own secluded corner, sit on the bottom step. Sarah lies on Ally’s lap; Ally is wedged up against Marley. With the tree masking me, I can watch Natalia unseen. She sits slightly apart, touching no one, drawing biro patterns on her bare legs. She seems oblivious to everything around her, but something tells me that she’s listening intently. She’s still wearing her summer dress, even though we were meant to have switched to winter uniform at the beginning of the term. It’s entirely possible that cold blood runs through her veins. Natalia is like one of those ships that power through the polar ice caps. Good at everything, with zero effort. An A-student, makes sporting teams, gets leads in school plays, rules the roost.
‘And has she run away?’ Teaghan mimics a current affairs reporter. ‘Is there something you’re not telling us?’
‘They asked me if she ever talked to strangers online.’ Milla’s eyes aren’t as puffy as Claire’s but I notice her nails are bitten down so far they’re bleeding. She chews on them now. ‘One theory is that she has a secret boyfriend.’
That makes Sarah snort into her juice. She has the unusual good grace to turn it into a cough. I want to speak up, to say that doesn’t make any sense—because who trapped Yin’s mum in the bathroom?—but I don’t.
‘Has she been acting worried or scared recently? That was another question.’ Milla’s voice drops and the whole year level leans in. I almost topple off the wall. ‘Was she scared of anything?’
Everyone is quiet for a few seconds, running through, I imagine, the old monsters and bogeymen of their childhoods, and the new teenage ones as
