There are people like Sarah, who think they have something amazing to offer the world, and who do not in fact have anything to offer, and simply want to be internet famous. And then there are people like Chloe. She has plenty of interesting things to say, and yet she persists in acting like a creature lying at the bottom of a lagoon covered in mud, like a mythical mega-slug. Am I the only one who notices these things?

‘You should enter,’ I tell her. ‘I can tell you love that class and you love Ms Nouri. God knows why, but you like that sad, hairy lady. And you’re actually talented, so you should. I’d go for it myself if I wasn’t completely hopeless and lazy, and I’ll drop out of school if Audrey wins again.’

She looks at me with surprised hazel eyes and doesn’t seem to have anything to say to that, and then my cheeks start to go pink.

‘Well anyway—’ I say, right at the same moment she says, ‘I’ll think about it?’

And then it’s even more awks for sure and I juggle the paperback I took off the shelves from hand to hand and Chloe jumps in, trying to save this sinking ship.

‘The real history of Hanging Rock is more interesting than that book.’

‘You’ve read it already?’

Chloe nods but only for a split second before she realises she has done a big fat nerd tell. She read this term’s English texts last holidays, in advance, I know it. Maybe she even read them all before the beginning of the year.

‘All that spooky fictional stuff distracts from the actual meaning and history, which is that the rock is an important ceremonial place, and huge numbers of the traditional owners were murdered in the area by settlers or died from introduced disease or got forcibly moved to missions.’

I look doubtfully at the beautiful lily-white girl on the cover. ‘That’s…disturbing,’ I say, and then I run out of things to add. I focus all my mental energy on the carpet beneath me, but the floor refuses to gape open and swallow me. I didn’t do anything to stop that tasteless too-many-Asians conversation in art class and now I have nothing to say about our country’s genocide so I’m pretty much living up to the low standard of who I’m supposed to be.

‘Look up the history,’ says Chloe. ‘It’s true.’

‘I will.’ I rise to my feet and I’m about to go when I turn back and say, ‘Do you know why we’re not studying this anymore?’

Chloe’s cheeks are flushed; she blushes a lot when people speak to her. ‘I guess, because it’s about missing girls?’