‘Of course I’m insanely jealous that you’re so talented,’ Natalia says eventually. Her face and voice are uncharacteristically flat.

‘Are you sure you like it?’

Light slants through the high windows, striking Natalia’s face at an odd angle. She’s pale, and there are blue marks under her eyes. She doesn’t look like someone coming off the back of two weeks holiday. Then again, I probably look equally pasty after spending all my time in Dad’s shed.

‘It’s great. I like it. I look good for a dead person.’

‘Or asleep,’ I remind her. ‘Hibernating attractively.’

‘I wish I could believe that,’ she says.

Sarah pushes Ally into position and takes a photo of her looking at me looking at Natalia, which is so many levels of meta I can’t even figure it out. I’m still not convinced that Natalia isn’t mad at me for leaving the exhibition opening early. If the others weren’t here I’d ask her straight out.

The bell rings and Marley sidles up to me. ‘I feel very disturbed, Chloe,’ she sighs, with a hand on her heart and a smile on her face.

In fourth period English we troop down to the main corridor and view the exhibition as a class. Mr Purdy wants us to use the artworks as writing prompts, which I’m pretty sure is a convenient way to keep us busy so he can play Solitaire on his iPad.

‘Devices away!’ he shouts. ‘I want you to try writing by hand. It’s good for your brains.’

‘Can I do a graphic novel?’ calls out Teaghan.

‘No.’

Mr Purdy always wears brown suit pants that are too tight. It means that when he’s standing in front of us, with his legs apart and his hands on his hips, we all have to look away.

Audrey raises her hand. ‘What about poetry?’

Purdy is more irritated by us than he should be. ‘Sure.’

‘No fair.’ Teaghan slams her folders down.

I ignore my entry and spend my time looking at the other work in the exhibition. A Year Eight girl has made some surprisingly good felt toys, mushrooms and fungi and moss. The Year Nines have obviously been working on still life recently, because there are several paintings of flowers, vases, jugs and fruit. Up the far end is a mannequin dressed in an amazing Marie Antoinette-style costume made from recycled rubbish by a Year Eleven.

I sit down in front of Bochen’s entry—her pencil portrait of Mercury Yee. Bochen has rendered Mercury’s face with painstaking detail in orange and blue and pink, showing her sucking on a bubble cup with her mouth twisted comically to the side. Her style is exaggerated and realistic at the same time. The drawing must have taken hours and hours to complete. She’s incredibly talented.