Mum has the night off work and I’m secretly relieved. Her hands travel over my woollen school tights, darning the holes. Sam is safely in his bedroom playing games on Mum’s phone. We’ve had to ban him from watching any more news reports about the abduction.

‘Remember, Chlo? She was the only one that would talk to me. Oh, that’s even more awful now.’

I remember. Mum said that she’d felt like a fish out of water at the Balmoral Mother’s Day breakfast. Apparently the rich blondes huddled on one side of the room and the rich Asians on the other side, and she hadn’t fit into either group. It sounded scarily similar to my own experiences.

Sometimes I want to launch myself at the international students and beg to be adopted into their group, even if I can only speak English. The boarders from East Asia hang together, but they overlap a lot with the East Asian day girls. There are hardly any South Asian boarders, but there are lots of South Asian students and they seem to form their own friendship groups.

There are so many exceptions to the rules though, and I can’t help wondering if it’s only me that’s hung-up. Melody is biracial too, but she grew up in Hong Kong and can speak Cantonese. Anjali is swim-squad royalty and hangs out exclusively with jocks, and Anusha and Sunita form a four with Bridie and Ming-Zhu and I couldn’t draw a Venn diagram of all of it if I tried.

Maybe I’m making up divisions in my head that don’t really exist. But then Jody carries on about there being too many Asians at the school, and I know I’m not making all of it up.

‘I consider Yin to be my own daughter,’ Mr Mitchell says on the telly. ‘I have been very lucky to find myself with this family, long after I thought my time for it had passed.’

Even though he must be used to speaking in front of people, his voice during the press conference is tissue-paper thin. His white hair and wrinkled skin explains why Yin copped so much at school about how old her dad is. It’s good that Mum doesn’t want to get involved in anything at Balmoral. It’s best not to provide the ammunition.

‘Our house is very quiet without Yin, too quiet,’ Mr Mitchell continues. ‘Usually I have to tell her to turn her music down every night. Yin, if you are listening to this, when you come home you can play your music as loud as you want. Your mum and brothers miss you very much.’

Mum kicks her legs, as if she’s trying to get rid of pins and needles. ‘The worst thing is, I’m sure he’s the first suspect on the police’s list. And look at him. He’s devastated.’