Yin walks into the store and disappears from view. A guy in a flannel shirt and a baseball cap follows her, then stops to look at the sunglasses stand. Yin, wearing the pyjama pants Ally was griping about, comes into shot again, holding a bottle of milk. While she rummages in her pocket for money, the guy in the flannel turns to look at her. She has her back to him, so wouldn’t have noticed. A few moments after Yin leaves the store, the guy in the flannel exits too.

The police are stressing that the man isn’t a suspect, merely a ‘person of interest’ they want to talk to.

Even though Mum is at work and it’s not a good idea to spook myself while she’s out, I watch the footage again and again, until it plays behind my eyelids as I’m trying to go to sleep.

Close to midnight I give up on sleep and search for articles about the abduction on my phone. I find one that includes a list of other recent missing or murder cases in Melbourne. I read through the list and wonder if any of the things Mum talked about has made a difference in the way that they were investigated or reported.

An economics student from China who hasn’t been seen in three months. A trans woman who was beaten to death on the way to her work as a chef. A fourteen-year-old who ran away from home with her boyfriend but has since gone missing. A Gunditjmara mother of three who was found dead next to train tracks and I don’t remember there being a manhunt or media frenzy about it.

All these girls or women from different circumstances, all missing or dead. There’s a burning in my chest about the unfairness of it all. It could happen to any of us.

Yesterday Ms Nouri showed us a documentary where eight famous artists spoke about their careers. They all had very different approaches to their work, but the one thing they all said was that you needed to be passionate, to make art about what you believe in, what you feel most strongly about, what you’re obsessed with.

I wonder if I can turn this burning feeling into anything good, anything meaningful. It seems impossible, I’m not even a proper artist. Still, I flip open my sketchbook, find a blank page and start writing.

DAY 11

I think they’re joking when they remind us about compulsory house cross-country at morning assembly, but they’re not. I’m forced to put on a musty sports bra and crumpled PE top from the bottom of my locker.

The serious runners paint house colours on their cheeks and jostle to get close to the start line. I tug on the awful purple house jersey over my PE shirt and dawdle at the rear. A biting wind whips across the grounds.