‘Oh my god.’ I wince and roll the tape into a ball. When I recover feeling in my lips, I talk. ‘I’m protesting, miss. I’m exercising my democratic rights.’

This makes her frown. ‘One moment, please, Natalia.’

No doubt she has gone to call Mrs Christie on her batphone and receive orders about what to do with me.

I take the opportunity to tuck my sign under my arm and sprint down the hallway towards the exhibition, pretending to be a secret agent while I do it. Now that most people have arrived for the evening, maybe I can stand in the blank space where Chloe’s artwork should be hung. Speeches are going to be every kind of awkward tonight.

I wedge myself into the spare stretch of wall.

At the end of the corridor is a table of drinks and canapés. Parents and students stroll up and down, passing comment on their daughter’s work (the best), their daughter’s friends’ work (a nice attempt) and their daughter’s enemies’ work (a toddler could have done that). I seem to be winning more than a few indulgent and condescending smiles so I keep a permanent scowl on my face so everyone knows how serious I am about fighting the power.

When I’m not demonstrating my political credentials I crane my neck, trying to see who has come tonight. I see Brooke and Bochen and some of the other boarders including that nasty supremacist Jody and wonder if Petra has the gall to be here when she has ruined everything and is clearly anti-Art.

The front doors thump heavily. Even though the entrance is a good thirty metres away I swear a gust of air races up the corridor. A trick of the sunset sends rosy light angling through the glass doors, filling the lobby with dusty sparkles.

Standing in the distance is a still figure dressed in a silk blouse, tailored pants, pale shoes. Familiar blonde hair, spun gold in the sudden beam of light.

The sunset glow smoothes out her skin, turns her into an angel with a halo. When she spots my Marcel Marceau act among the paintings and collages and drawings she grows even more still.

Viewed as if from another world, barely glimpsed.

A cord that connects her to me and me to her.

Mum?

I stare. Fair and golden and good parental angels don’t belong in the school corridor outside the Great Hall when they’re supposed to still be in the office working on the Baker-Hill contract.

She marches towards me, and the closer she gets the clearer it becomes that I’m not seeing things.

I smile quizzically in what I hope is a disarming way and raise my hand hello, but Mum doesn’t smile.