Caroline bit on her left index finger for a moment and then replied, ‘I think so. For example, if it were okay for everyone to punch each other then no one would be happy.’ She reached out and patted the arm of Ethan sitting next to her. ‘Ethan can slug me much harder than I can slug him, but if I stand to stretch, he’d probably be able to see around me much easier than I could if he were standing in front of me.’

‘Great example,’ Michael said.

No it’s not. She’s talking about guys assaulting people. If some guy slugged me, my mum would be suing in no time.

‘You can’t have rules that are equal but unequal,’ another kid said.

Michael jumped up from the floor and wrote on the board:

‘The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.’

Anatole France

Michael explained, ‘Anatole France was a nineteenth-century novelist and it just so happens that he was French. What does France’s quote tell us about equality?’

He was really starting to annoy me now. The teachers at Wattleside looked like teachers, not hipsters like Michael, and they didn’t recite mind-bending stuff like he did.

‘It’s not equal, in the example,’ Ashley said.

‘Why?’ Michael prompted.

‘Because the rich have money and can afford a bed and food,’ Matilda explained.

But they work hard for those things, I thought.

Michael replied, ‘How does this apply to you and everyone else in regards to establishing the class, Caroline?’

‘Well,’ Ethan jumped in, ‘if we keep the tables in rows, the shorter people need to sit up front or else they won’t be able to see. Tall people like me can see no matter where we sit.’

Michael eyes lit up. ‘Should this be our first freedom? That people have the freedom to see and hear what is happening in the class at all times?’

‘Yes,’ said Ashley and I couldn’t believe it, the other students started clapping and Michael went up to the board and wrote down the first freedom.

Ages later there were less than ten ridiculous freedoms written on the board and I was far from impressed.

‘Good decisions take time,’ Michael said.

I had no idea how taking so much time to establish class rules was going to help me get a law degree. I was dying to see Mum and badly wanted school to be over.

‘Let’s review the school’s major events for the year,’ Michael said. He wrote on the whiteboard:

• Autumn Fair: 27 March

• Music Performance night: 20 June

• Work Experience in the human service field: week of 25–29 July

• Outdoor education camp hiking along the Larapinta Trail – forging connections with the natural landscape and Indigenous communities: 19–23 September

• School play: 17–18 November

• Christmas markets: 11 December

Michael explained each of the events and what was expected of us. He clarified that the school play wasn’t compulsory and I wanted to believe that participation in the music performance night wasn’t compulsory either. I mean, I’m not exactly musically gifted.