I want to ask him about the case, what the police asked him and why, but I can’t.

One day he’ll have a stroke or a heart attack or an ulcer from too much work and I wish he could just say he’s taking time off work for himself, because he needs a break too.

DAY 60

We are alarmed by the censorship of Chloe Cardell’s artwork, Someone’s Watching, and are dismayed by the restriction of free speech in our school. Balmoral’s motto, Sapientia et Libertas, encourages its students to think independently, which we believe Chloe Cardell has done.

We demand that Someone’s Watching be put back on display and that it be rightfully considered for the Balmoral Art Prize.

Sarah thinks that I should put the petition online, but I disagree. Anyone can click ‘like’ or join a group, it doesn’t mean they believe in it, they just want to do what everyone else is doing and be seen looking like they care. What I need is to look people in the face and know for sure that they think that Nouri and Christie and Petra are wrong and we are right. I need them to agree with me.

So, I’m going old school with this: a paper-and-pen petition, something that Christie and the School Board might understand. Dad helped me with the wording and it made him tragically happy.

I use the photocopier in the library and get a surprising amount of encouragement from the librarians who are all secret anarchists except when it comes to the Dewey decimal system. But they laugh when I ask them to sign and say it’s not their place to get involved. I stick petitions up on every corridor, and then I go around with a clipboard and I talk people into signing and I am a proper campaigner.

I hit up our year level first, at morning recess, starting with 10Q, Chloe’s class. It’s not easy. I have to convince everyone you can’t get in trouble for having an opinion.

‘You were in the photo right?’ says Teaghan. Because Teaghan signs, Brooke and Ella do too. ‘Looking scary and dead.’

‘Thank you for your support,’ I say because I am a born diplomat and I’m genuinely surprised that Teaghan still talks to me after we replaced her with Ally in eighth grade. ‘But I’d do this anyway even if someone else was in the picture because I don’t think the school should infringe our civil liberties.’

I can tell they don’t believe me and I wouldn’t either and I don’t actually know anything about civil liberties, but I don’t waste time worrying. I’ve gone into what Dad calls the zone, which apparently happens to him sometimes when he’s playing golf or drinking aged whiskey.