Natalia is not still, not calm or relaxed or resigned. She’s wound up, waiting for the right moment, muscles coiled like a panther. She’s a weapon about to be unleashed.

I follow her across the common room, to the corner where a group of boarders—Brooke, Petra, Audrey, Jody and others—are sitting on couches.

Natalia slows to a saunter.

‘Hi guys!’ Natalia’s voice is friendly bright. ‘Mind if I sit down?’

Instead of waiting for them to make room she muscles into the group, forcing herself into place right next to Petra. I hover a few metres away.

‘How are you going, Galbraith?’ Natalia slings her arm across the back of the couch and Petra cringes away from her. ‘Been up to anything interesting lately? Like, sorting your pencil case, or…ruining someone else’s hard work perhaps?’

The group finally catches Natalia’s tone, because they start melting away, until it’s just Petra and Audrey.

Petra doesn’t say anything. Audrey looks intently at her feet.

‘I’m trying to figure out why you would do this,’ Natalia continues to Petra conversationally. ‘Is it because you’re a bit of a jealous bitch? You can’t stand that Chloe’s not only smart but creative too? I mean, you get good marks, right, but there’s something robotic about you, isn’t there?’

‘Tal—don’t, I don’t need you to—’ I say, even as I’m wondering if she’s gotten it right. Why would Petra do this to me?

‘Or perhaps it was me that offended you? Oh, that Natalia, she’s always looking for attention, she thinks she’s so hot. Is there something about me that bothers you?’

Natalia has never looked more of an evil little pixie, with a mouth full of knives and eyes that can slash.

I have to ask. ‘Petra, was it you?’

Petra looks up at me, stricken. I remember her fidgeting in the library this morning, and all of a sudden I don’t need her to answer.

‘Why wouldn’t you say something to me directly? I wasn’t trying to upset anyone.’

I was trying to pull on a thin thread of meaning from deep inside and convince myself it was worth something, that it was significant enough to show.

‘The photo is disrespectful, Chloe!’ Petra blurts out. ‘Even if you didn’t mean it to be.’

‘I definitely didn’t mean—’ I try to interject but Petra is bursting with things to say.

‘You haven’t been here as long, so you don’t know what it feels like. You’re making fun of something awful that’s happened to us. Death is serious, death is forever…I don’t know why you of all people don’t see that, Natalia! The whole thing is really tacky.’

That word takes my breath away, even as I was starting to feel sorry for Petra, being pinned down by Natalia’s force.