I might as well have been talking to a wall. As Caleb began to slide under the nearest desk, Aaron picked up my stapler and opened it.

‘Aaron?’ I stood up. ‘You could help me by putting that back in the drawer where it…ow!’ The stapler bounced off my chest like a punch. I stumbled backwards.

Aaron screamed, ‘Fuck off!’ Then he charged straight past me, out of the room.

Luke burst into tears. Caleb started screaming. Phoebe cried, ‘Aaron! Come back!’ Turning to me, she added, ‘He’s so stupid. I’ll get him.’

‘No.’ I was already making for the door. ‘Everyone, line up. Line up, please.’ By the time I reached the hallway, Aaron was already clumping across the veranda, so I stuck my head into Deb’s room. ‘We’ve got a runner,’ I said breathlessly. ‘Could you take mine?’

She nodded. I sped off. I could hear her raised voice as she tried to herd my kids into her classroom. They didn’t really know how to line up yet—and I wasn’t sure if Caleb could be prised out of his bolt hole.

‘Aaron!’ I yelled, swerving towards the front gate. He was metres ahead of me, moving fast. But the gate’s heavy drop-bolt was wedged tightly into the footpath. He was still struggling with it when I caught up.

‘Fuck off!’ he screeched. ‘I hate you!’ He lashed out and I stepped back. Then he tackled the drop-bolt again.

‘It’s okay. I know you’re upset. Would you like to come and sit by yourself for a while?’ Dad used to say I was born calm. I’ve often been complimented on the slow, measured way I talk to people. Towards the end, when Troy and I were splitting up, he used to say it drove him mad. ‘Your country drawl’, he called it.

Most kids seemed to respond to my country drawl, but not Aaron. He was screeching as he wrestled with the drop-bolt. When it wouldn’t move, he started banging his head against the iron bars of the gate.

‘Aaron!’ There was a special hold I used on hysterical children. I would approach them from behind, wrap my arms around theirs (so they wouldn’t hit me) then sit down and drape my legs over their legs. Sometimes I would rock them, muttering words of comfort.

I was doing this to Aaron when a pair of navy court shoes appeared beside us.

‘Aaron!’ a sharp voice snapped.

His grandmother was looming over us.

‘Get up. Now.’ For one scandalised moment I thought she was talking to me. Then Aaron mumbled, ‘I can’t.’

When I loosened my grip, he rolled off and lurched to his feet.

‘What did I tell you?’ She glared at him. ‘What did I tell you?’

‘Be a good boy.’ He was barely audible.

‘And have you? Have you been a good boy?’