Fox disappeared whenever she could. She didn’t go home—too far away. Fox’s favourite ‘running away’ places were three secluded playgrounds where she could jump from one piece of equipment to the next without having to push off other kids. And the Merrigang shops. Most of the shop assistants recognised the eight-year-old with the matted dark hair and manic grin, and they would ask her to turn out her pockets. Occasionally, she’d sneak packets of chewing gum and chocolate bars down her socks. Lately, the supermarket manager had been walking her back over to school, with the promise of a chocolate milk when she got to Kathleen at the front office.

Three weeks ago, right after the episode with the paint, Fox had disappeared. She’d been doing extra PE with Jeff and the year five class, running around the bottom oval practising for the cross-country. At the end of the session, Fox was gone. Half an hour later, they discovered her in the bakery at Merrigang shops. Fox had managed to wangle a cheese and bacon roll and a chocolate croissant from the new shop assistant. Brendan left a message on the mother’s phone to inform her of the incident but the woman had never rung back.

Fox’s mother never rang back about anything. Not about the running away nor the chair throwing nor the punching nor the paint incident. That one had really pissed him off. While the rest of 2P had been concentrating on their pictures for Father’s Day, Brendan noticed Fox walk over to the shelf with the paint bottles. What now? So far, Fox had stolen another girl’s paintbrush and trodden on someone’s lunchbox. She had teased three kids, saying their paintings were ‘ugly’. And before recess, Fox had pulled all the blue-level readers out of their boxes and scattered them in the corridor. And this was a good day.

‘Why do you need more paint, Fox?’

‘I’m doing a black sky. It’s night-time.’

‘There should be enough paint on each table.’

After wresting the paint bottle from her hands, he checked the girl’s desk. Her painting had a single yellow moon in the middle of a white page. Fox had already screwed up four pieces of paper because she wasn’t happy. The paint tray on the table only had blue left in it.

‘What happened to all the other colours?’ Brendan asked the three children at the table. They stared down at their own work, refusing to raise their eyes to the teacher or to Fox.

‘Dunno,’ Fox said. ‘They’re gone. I need black.’