She turned the door handle to the nurse’s office.

If some of her friends hadn’t turned up, that would be OK. To see just one of their faces would be such a relief she might break down in tears.

She pushed open the door.

The nurse was sitting at her desk. Alone.

There was a space heater emitting a red glow. The nurse was seated in front of it. Kokoro knew the school nurse by sight but had never talked to her. She seemed to be expecting Kokoro. Mr Ida must have let her know.

‘Anzai-san?’ the nurse asked, looking at her in surprise.

‘Is Masamune …’

She was gasping, her voice reedy and trembling.

She looked over to check if anyone was lying on the bed. But no one was.

‘Hm?’ the nurse said, inclining her head. ‘Masa – who?’

‘Masamune … kun. In eighth grade. Did he come here today?’

Which class in eighth grade was he in?

He’d told her, but her mind was so jumbled she couldn’t recall. Fuka was, she was sure, in Classroom 3. Kokoro’s speech sped up.

‘Did Fuka-chan in eighth grade, Classroom 3 come too? And Subaru-kun, and Aki-chan, both in ninth grade?’

As she got the words out, she realized that without their last names the nurse would have no idea who she was talking about. Unless you were particularly close to someone, students didn’t call each other by their first name. Kokoro suddenly reddened at having called Masamune by his first name to the nurse.

Still lingering in the doorway, she decided that if no one appeared, she’d go to Subaru’s classroom, where he said he’d be waiting. She could see him, easy-going, cool. ‘Hey, so what’s up?’ he’d say.

‘Anzai-san, please don’t stress, come in and sit down,’ the nurse was saying.

‘Then what about Ureshino-kun, from seventh grade?’

Kokoro suddenly remembered that she knew Ureshino’s full name. After his incident last semester, the teachers must surely remember him.

‘Haruka Ureshino. Did he come by to see you today?’

As she spoke, an uneasiness came over her.

Masamune, Aki, Subaru, Kokoro – weren’t the teachers surprised all these kids who’d been absent so long suddenly turned up on the same day? Wouldn’t their parents contact their homeroom teachers, as Kokoro’s mother had done with Mr Ida?

The school nurse gazed patiently at Kokoro, a look of confusion in her eyes.

‘Ureshino-kun?’ she said. ‘I’m sure there’s no seventh-grader with that name.’

Kokoro felt like a huge gust of wind had struck her. The nurse looked genuinely perplexed.

Haruka Ureshino. An unusual first and last name. She had to know him.

A sudden thought hit her – what if Ureshino had lied? What if he was the only one who wasn’t at Yukishina No. 5 Junior High but had lied about it to go along with the others?

The school nurse frowned doubtfully.