He straightened up.

‘Well, I felt the urge, obviously, but that’s just me, children. When I am on yard duty outside and watch you play, I see running, I see jumping, I see skipping. But I definitely do not see chicken impersonations.’ He paused. ‘At least, not yet.’ Mr Meredith turned towards us and spread his arms wide. ‘But I am being very rude to our guests who almost certainly want to get out of the spotlight. Please welcome two new members of the class. This is Ashleigh Delatour and her twin brother Aiden Delatour. Can I hear how lucky are we, children?’

Everyone clapped, which made my face go redder. I glanced over at Aiden, but his face was emotionless, as always.

‘Would you like to sit together?’ Mr Meredith bent and whispered to us when the applause had died down.

‘No, thank you,’ I said. ‘We are quite independent.’ I was trying to be confident, but my voice was a little shaky. The teacher nodded.

‘Then pick a place,’ he said. ‘Anywhere you like.’

I looked around the room, but it wasn’t a difficult decision. I was desperately in need of a friend and it seemed obvious that the girl at the front, Charlotte, was probably in the same boat. Know-it-alls, I thought, would be left alone during playtime on the grounds that you got your fill of them in class. Plus, it was a good strategy to sit towards the front. Not only did it allow you to hear everything better, but those at the back, from what I’d read on the subject, often got a reputation. Not a very good reputation. Charlotte beamed at me as I sat down, but I placed my hands carefully on the desk and looked straight ahead.

Aiden, it turned out, sat at the back.

‘Mr Meredith can be a bit of a spoilsport at times.’

Charlotte and I sat on the school verandah, under a huge fan. Mr Meredith had checked his tablet coming up to lunchtime and told us we couldn’t go out to play because the UV levels were dangerous. This was no surprise. The UV levels were always dangerous. The class had groaned and offered to wear extra sunblock and legionnaire caps, but he still wouldn’t let us.

‘And a chicken,’ I pointed out.

Charlotte laughed.

‘Yes. He does that kind of stuff all the time. He’s funny. You know, with some teachers it would be like he’s trying too hard to be funny, but he’s … I don’t know. He’s genuine. He likes kids. And there are too many teachers who seem to hate us.’

This was true, but I hadn’t really thought about it until Charlotte said it. Quite a few of my old teachers had obviously not liked kids at all, judging by the way they treated us, even in distance learning when we were all hundreds of kilometres away from each other. I wondered why they’d gone into teaching in the first place. It’d be like a farmer who doesn’t like animals or crops, or a doctor who doesn’t like medicine.