PETCHALL: Yes. Kelly.

TAMARA: No.

PETCHALL: Yes. Have a pen each and come out and write something on the board.

TAMARA: Kelly? Write?

PETCHALL: Come on, you two.

TAMARA: Kelly, don’t write—she rolls her eyes—looks down at her runners.

PETCHALL: Five things you have a strong opinion about. Now.

TAMARA: Oh Miss.

We’re out there in front of the others, me with Petchall’s red marker Kelly with the black one for the tags ’n’ shit on bus seats—cheeky bitch—not writing just looking at her—at Miss just looking Miss’s way like/ this

SQUID: This is shit, Miss. Who cares about opinions? No-one gives a fuck about what we think.

PETCHALL: Thanks for sharing that language and that opinion, Jasyn. Now you two: five things you have a strong/ opinion about.

TAMARA: Girls, older girls slowly pass the window giggling, in no hurry carrying hoops ’n’ shit/

SQUID: Hey Miss, can we do hula hoops?

TAMARA: They grease us through the window/

SQUID: Sluts/

TAMARA: Yeah, sluts/ with hoops

PETCHALL: No hoops, we can do opinion.

TAMARA: Why they doing hoops at school anyway? What do they reckon we are? Seals?

PETCHALL: Opinion, Tamara. Write!

TAMARA: Pen squeaks 1: h-a-t-/e.

SQUID/PETCHALL: Hate racists. Racism sucks.

TAMARA: 2.

Out the window last girl passing with a pink hoop, Kel writes fast./

SQUID/PETCHALL: Diet drinks suck.

TAMARA: I write: 3.

TAMARA/PETCHALL: Global warming sucks.

SQUID: 4.

SQUID/TAMARA: Immigration sucks.

PETCHALL: But/

TAMARA: Phone rings up the back Diana Filokostis groaning skank with big hair says Miss it’s my sister really is Miss me mum’s sick ’n’ I need to take this call can I take it I gotta take it I’m going to take it I’m goin outside to take it I’ll only be a… door slams.

Miss shrugs. She’s looking out the window now. Up at the sky no plane right now just two clouds look like—two clouds look like/ two little monkeys.

PETCHALL: Two little monkeys.

Jasyn. Do you want to come up and have a go? Come and write something?/

TAMARA: He doesn’t, clear he don’t, he grips the desk swings back on the back two legs of the chair.

PETCHALL: Legs!

SQUID: Sorry Miss.

PETCHALL: Go on, have a go. Think about the world. When you look around what makes you angry? What gives you hope?

SQUID: Hope?

PETCHALL: Yes.

TAMARA: Formal dresses give me hope. A silver dress like a mirror and I’m inside it, dancing in the middle of the/ dance floor and—

A bell sounds in five long chilling rings.

PETCHALL: Lockdown.

TAMARA: Screams—horror film screams—outside inside.

SQUID: A lockdown, Miss?

TAMARA: Screams then silence and through the window/

SQUID: Miss?

TAMARA: See girls outside running back to E Block screaming

running back the way they came

running squealing hoops flying

look like they’re having one big joke all running