‘It’s your report,’ I said.

‘Are you blaming me for those cockroaches?’ She was hissing. Seething. Blotchy with mounting rage.

‘No. I’m not blaming anyone. That’s the whole point.’

‘There’s something wrong with you.’ Her voice was too loud. ‘You shouldn’t be a teacher—you’re unstable.’

‘Enough.’ I rose to my full height. ‘If you want to discuss this, we can talk later. School’s about to start.’

‘Talk?’ she spluttered. ‘I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to Howard. You’re not rational. You’ve got serious issues.’ She turned on her heel and stormed out, still clutching my piece of paper.

For the rest of the morning, Aaron was loathsome.

He spat on heads. He climbed on tables. He chanted nonsense words while I was trying to talk. He wouldn’t keep still, no matter what I did—and I tried everything. Blowing bubbles. Traffic lights. Time-out tent. I made my class lie on the floor, breathing in green and breathing out pink, but Aaron just rolled around making noises.

I always felt sorry for the other kids in these situations. They had to wait. And wait. If it hadn’t been for Linda, silently watching from her chair near the door, they might have started acting up too.

Things didn’t improve much when the parent helpers arrived, though at least the other children managed to get some reading done while I ran around after Aaron. As I peeled his fingers off my handbag, I sensed Beth’s concern and Kate’s disdain. Dixie was quieter than usual. Everything seemed wrong. I was getting more and more frazzled; Linda’s eyes felt like spotlights following me around.

The class were pretending to be echidnas when Aaron, who had been picking at a scab, suddenly got up and wandered over to where Beth was reading with her daughter. He snatched the book away and scurried off.

‘Aaron!’ said Beth. ‘Give that back!’

‘No.’ He sat on the floor and began to rip out a page.

‘Aaron.’ I went to stop him. ‘If you want to read, you should choose another book. You can have this book when Amber’s finished.’

‘Fuck you,’ he said. Beth gasped.

‘I’ll be very sad if we can’t make pigs after lunch.’ I hunkered down and looked him straight in the eye, holding his gaze. ‘But how can we make pigs if you’re angry? You won’t be able to show us what to do.’ I saw his expression change, though I couldn’t interpret the shift. ‘Why don’t you give that book back to Amber? Then you can tell me what the problem is, and we’ll do some volcano breathing.’

To my surprise, he immediately stood up. Then he marched over to where Amber was sitting and slammed the book straight into her face.