Why did I push her away? I can’t remember now.

I have a huge red pimple welling up on my chin and a few suspect bumps on my cheek, and it’s typical that I had good skin all week but now I’m breaking out for the weekend.

I unscrew the jar of expensive clay mask that Mum’s allergic to and paint thick lines across my face with the plastic spatula, tough battle lines like a rugby player, and then I don’t stop, I paint my whole face out until it’s nothing but crackly pink mud and I erase all my thoughts with it until I have a blank blank brain.

CHLOE

DAY 10

As soon as school ends I join the trail of girls walking across the main oval to the tram stop. The parklands adjoining the school are visible through the wire fence. Police in navy and hi-vis yellow walk up and down the U-shaped trough of the creek, sweeping across the park in rough lines. They weren’t there last week, so I wonder what’s happened to bring them out now.

‘Let’s see if any of them are hot.’

A gaggle of Year Nines peel off and plaster themselves to the fence. I slow so much that someone behind me treads on the back of my shoe.

More police, in orange overalls and waterproof waders, push through the water. One of the closest police officers—a normal navy-and-yellow—looks up and sees us staring. For a moment it seems she might come over and talk to us, but then one of her colleagues calls her away.

‘I don’t like it. It’s scary.’ A tiny Year Seven looks close to tears. One of her friends hooks her arm and comforts her.

The teacher manning the gate gets impatient.

‘Come on girls! Pick up the pace!’

There are more cars than usual on the side street, a long queue from the gate almost to the highway. Some parents or drivers are paranoid enough to congregate around the gate, scrolling on their phones.

I cram on the tram with the mass of Balmoral students, my face right up against a Year Twelve’s armpit. Three separate groups of Year Tens dominate the rear of the tram; talking too loud and checking their phones and oversharing. More than a few of them hold the letter we’d been given at final roll call, the one marked strictly for parents or guardians. I guess what it contains is too sensitive for an email.

Eventually, inevitably, someone cracks and rips the envelope open.

I hang onto an overhead handle and eavesdrop.

‘It’s an emergency parent info night.’ The girl scans the letter. ‘This Thursday night. That’s not much notice.’

‘Something must have happened.’

‘What is there to say? Don’t be scared even though there’s a Hannibal Lecter on the loose?’