Check phone, check Facebook nothing.

Nothing.

Think about the formal. Me coming downstairs in my dress—Dad’s mouth dropping. Dad smiling at me like he used to smile at… Mum.

Used to sit on their bed and watch her put on perfume for him. She’d spray it and walk right through the mist like a film star.

Dad’d smell it and smile—kiss the back of her neck.

Six weeks three days four hours—me and Squid.

He’ll look hot in a tux. We’ll turn up together in a white stretch limo him like a football god and me like a rock star. My killer dress and my killer hair.

The moment we walk in together.

Cameras flashing and us dancing together in the middle of the dance floor right under the mirror ball.

We’ll always remember it.

END OF ACT ONE

ACT TWO

The lockdown bell rings.

PETCHALL: So many questions. Questions people would have asked over and over again. What happened that day? Did I sense that the boy, because they always call them that, did I sense the boy was…? Was he on edge? Was he taking something? Had he been taking something?

In classes the week leading up to the incident how had his behaviour been? Did he sit up the back and stare out a window or did he fidget like pins had been stuck in all over his legs and arms or did he do work? If he did work, what work was done? Did anything he did or wrote or said signify anything? So many questions.

What were his family like? Did he have friends? How did he relate to the other kids in the class? Was he a leader or a follower?

And then of the day. Questions about the time it happened, about the weather about what I was teaching when the lockdown bell rang and did I think it was a drill because schools have drills and what made me realise that it wasn’t a drill—that it was actually happening?

SQUID enters, then TAMARA.

TAMARA: Excursion Wednesday. Sitting up the back/ of the bus.

TEACHER: We are letting you all go today but do not abuse the trust. Be mindful of your behaviour/ that you are in public,

TAMARA/SQUID: Yeah yeah.

TAMARA: Careers expo, heaps of stalls giving away showbags full of logo-covered shit—crap bribes to make you want to be a nurse or a teacher or…

Free food ’n’ shit—Subway’s here, look/

SQUID: Yeah, that chick’s a babe.

TAMARA: She’s a lying slut in a Subway uniform—look at the way she’s smiling at him as if you’d have a career there shithouse pay—fooling all them fat people—smell of that bread in your hair every day till…

I’ll go and tell her my boyfriend works there and he can’t even afford to buy me/ [formal tickets.]

SQUID: Don’t.