When we get to school I make Dad park as close as he can, so he can see the main doors clearly. The entrance lobby is lit up but it’s abandoned and there aren’t many cars in the front car park.

‘Okay, what’s the plan, kiddo?’

‘Enter the building, find a place to situate myself for the duration of my peaceful protest. Engage in passive resistance.’

‘And leave if you’re asked to by the security guard or teachers,’ finishes Dad.

He makes me pose quickly by the side of the car with my mouth tape on, holding up the placard, taking pics with my phone. I have the good sense not to send any to Chloe. Maybe later, when she’s calmed down, I can show her, and she’ll say, you were right, Natalia, I was afraid to grab the attention and acclaim that I so clearly deserve.

It is maybe a tiny bit possible that perhaps I overreacted a small amount when Chloe brought up Yin, because of course someone told her how close we used to be. It’s not ideal, but I am admittedly a notorious and interesting person that others talk about.

‘Remember, if they try to expel you, I’ve got your back.’

‘Comforting, Dad.’

I trudge towards the main doors, thinking about how Dad is almost certainly having his second mid-life crisis and I’m only enabling him and Mum would definitely not approve—if we had told her about our plan, that is.

I manage to wiggle my sign through the school doors. My breath comes in little snorts and it’s hard to tell if it’s because I am beginning the very slow process of freaking out completely or if I’m still adjusting to breathing only through my nose.

A sandwich board announcing the Arts Sparks cocktail evening has been set out in the lobby, beside the fugly towering balloon thing that I saw the workmen lugging around earlier. I peer down the corridor and can see a few students and others milling around right at the end.

‘Ahem.’

Two Balmoral mums sit at a table about ten metres away and I literally did not realise they were there until now.

Their table holds matching glasses of champagne and a full bottle of champagne on standby, which seems quite keen for a cocktail evening that starts at 6 p.m., plus an array of school merch and some amateur ikebana and raffle tickets. Their expressions are set somewhere between puzzled and disapproving and they’re sporting the Balmoral Mum uniform of tailored asymmetry, chunky jewellery and patterned scarves—Old Girls for sure. Women who never got over the glory days of their time at the school and still hang their entire identities on being Old Collegians and making sure their own daughters repeat their very same experience at Balmoral. So very very sad.