Oh great, I thought. So Joyce will be getting a full rundown. I glanced at Kate, but she was on her knees shelving books and I couldn’t see her expression. I couldn’t see Pat, either. Where was she? Then I spotted her out in the hall, waiting. She wouldn’t meet my eye.

‘Joyce loves that kid,’ Dixie went on. ‘She’d do anything for him. I guess that’s why she gets a bit stroppy, eh?’ Dixie’s booming laugh almost rattled the windows. She threw back her head and opened her mouth so wide I could see the fillings in her molars.

I didn’t have to answer because Luke started crying and I went to comfort him. Then the parents all left, and the recess bell rang, and I found myself in the hall, wrangling children. ‘Stop running, George! Kayla, don’t forget your playlunch. Oscar—slow down!’

The kids’ backpacks hung off labelled hooks outside the classroom door. Watching some of the little buggers pull food out of their bags was like watching them disembowel an animal. Pockets were left gaping, with hats and spare undies spilling out. There were always a lot of stuck zips and leaky juice boxes. I would keep my eyes peeled for kids who didn’t have any snacks, in case I had to break out the emergency biscuits in my desk drawer. But everybody seemed to have food that day. Phoebe had enough for a three-course meal.

I was helping Caleb extract a muesli bar from his backpack when I heard a shriek and a clatter. Turning, I was relieved to see no one flat on the floor. Aaron had simply dropped his lunchbox. An apple was rolling down the hallway. A sandwich lay near a shoe.

Then Phoebe started screaming.

2019

2019

‘DARREN SAYS HE wanted to use the phone,’ Warren informed me.

It was Tuesday morning and we were sitting in my office. Out on the parade ground the campers were doing PT; I could hear Shaun yelling at them. But I hadn’t been near them since the previous night.

After lying awake till the early hours, wondering if Aaron was going to come back, I felt too tired to cope with a herd of teenagers.

‘The phone?’ I echoed.

‘He’s saying he wanted to call his mum. And he knew there had to be a landline in here somewhere, so…’

‘So he decided to break in?’ I thought fleetingly of the lepers, who would also have been desperate to talk to their families. Their children had been forced to wave at them from moored boats. Their wives or husbands had been allowed to visit for just thirty minutes every six months. Kissing was forbidden. Hugging. Shaking hands. Even the letters sent by inmates were disinfected with formalin.

As for the phone: official use only.