‘I see. Well, I’m sure you’ll find yourself in good company here. Sign here.’ Mrs Edge thrusts a clipboard at me, tapping at the bottom of a heavily typed page, where there’s a dotted line. ‘I take it you’re from the forest. You can write?’

‘Yes.’

The reference to the forest unsettles me, and I don’t quite know what she means by one of those, but it doesn’t matter, because I can hardly concentrate on anything she’s saying. I try to read the page before me, but my heart is thumping so hard, it’s difficult to see straight. I catch the words behaviour and discipline but not much else.

This isn’t how I thought a school would be. It doesn’t seem like the ones in books, where there are corridors full of kids, and fish fingers for lunch, and kindly librarians. Maybe there will be once I’m through this bit, I reassure myself. There’s a pen caught in the clip at the top of the page. My hand shakes, and the snap as I pull it out makes me jump.

I wanted to come to school, I remind myself. This is the school, and I’m here now. I take a deep breath and finish the signature, handing the clipboard back to Mrs Edge. Her eyes flick from me to the page, and then she whips the paper off the board and thrusts it on to the gleaming silver spike. I flinch.

‘Wait over there,’ she says, indicating a row of plastic chairs along the wall next to a wide door with little green wire hexagons in the glass. ‘I’ll get somebody to show you to your first class.’

‘I didn’t see anybody outside,’ I venture. ‘Are the other students already here?’

‘The school day begins at 8.40 a.m. sharp,’ she says. ‘So they are already in their classes. There will be plenty of bustle to come, don’t worry about that!’

‘OK.’

I settle back into the chair, clutching my bag on my lap. My calf muscles twitch with the urge to run out of here, so I shift in the seat, screwing myself more firmly into it. Mrs Edge gets a brass call bell out of the top drawer, sets it on to the counter, and then slams her hand down on to it twice, two clear notes sounding out. She returns the bell to the drawer and folds her hands upon the counter, staring at the door.

Who would have heard that, through the door and the whitewashed walls?

Just a moment later, though, a slender boy with longish chestnut hair opens the door.

‘Yanny,’ she says, looking him up and down.

He is a bit scruffy. And a bit . . . something. He catches me staring and gives me a glittering smile.

‘This is Stella. She is here with us for a trial period, while we sort out paperwork. Could you take her up to your form room and introduce her to Miss Olive, please?’

‘Yes, Mrs Edge.’