“I did try but I was told that, without evidence, it would be difficult to do anything. My senior said the boy had never given a moment’s grief to any other teacher and perhaps I was misunderstanding. He insinuated that as I had difficulty controlling my classes, I may be reading something more into what was probably just high spirits.”

“Was there no one else on campus you could talk to?” Ken asked.

“I tried, but by then I was struggling with my classes and I didn’t want anyone to know how badly I was doing. I avoided the staffroom. Some days I would lock the classroom door and eat my lunch alone. I put up with unruly classes, with senior teachers walking in and telling them off without a look or a word to me and then, wherever I went in the school, I was always watching my back…I felt powerless. Every afternoon, I would collect my things and go home and, when my parents asked me how my day had been, I would say fine, as if it all was.”

“You couldn’t talk to them?” Euan asked.

“They’re such perfect teachers. They never have trouble with their classes. They wouldn’t understand.”

“Perhaps you didn’t give them the chance,” Euan said. “Although it sounds like the management of that school needed a kick up the bum. This wouldn’t happen at your school would it, Ken?”

“I would like to think not.”

“It’s not the school,” Keely said. “It’s me. It must be something I do. That boy this afternoon…it was just the same.”

“I don’t know a teacher who’s never had trouble with a class.” Ken drew his seat up next to hers. “And today was not the same. That’s what I came to talk to you about. I feel a bit responsible. We’re all used to Raff. He can say the wrong thing sometimes but he’s nothing like the boy at your last school. Raff has a type of autism and his parents and teachers have put a lot of effort into his development. They would hate to cause you any grief and, most of all, so would Raff. He came to me, very distressed, after you left. He knew he’d done the wrong thing but he was so upset I couldn’t get a full sentence out of him. What did he say to you exactly?”

Keely dragged her gaze away from the river to look at Ken’s concerned face.

“See how stupid I am? He said I was nice and he liked me or something then he reached towards me. I overreacted.”

“That’s understandable, given what happened at your last school,” Euan said.

“Was it your hair?”

Keely looked at Ken. “My hair?”

“Was he reaching for your hair?”