Most girls lower their heads and close their eyes, even though I don’t believe for a second that all of them are religious. The fence-sitters drop their heads but keep their eyes open. Only a small number rise above the crowd, and they’re not the popular girls or the chronically rebellious. They’re the nerdy girls and the quiet girls, girls who practise other religions and atheists like me. Yin was one of us.

I glance down my row and see Petra’s lips moving frantically. Her eyes are squinched shut; she’s praying as if her life, not someone else’s, depends on it. Even though I’m not a believer, there’s something beautiful about how her faith shows in her face, like there’s a small light inside her. If it wasn’t completely inappropriate and intrusive, I’d like to take a photo of her now, capture that look.

I try not to act surprised when Petra speaks to me in the corridor, as if she somehow sensed me watching her during prayers. The first bell rings around us. Our lockers have been side by side all year, yet we’ve never done much more than nod hello.

‘They didn’t even like Yin,’ Petra whispers around her locker door. ‘I don’t know why they have to make such a scene.’

The scene is most of 10S sitting on the floor in a red-eyed, sniffling heap. Teaghan is hiccup-crying loudly. They look genuinely upset, although I notice one or two girls looking up occasionally to check that everyone is noting their distress.

I wedge my foot under my locker door to stop it from swinging too far open. My phone jitters on the top shelf. I don’t even need to look at the screen to know that it’s yet another episode in the Morrison High meltdown. Liana and Katie have even got the boys messaging me, telling me to come back.

‘They never paid any attention to her,’ Petra says. ‘And now they’re carrying on as if she was their best friend.’

I don’t know enough about school politics to judge if what she says is true.

The inside of Petra’s locker is plastered with timetables, flyers for school societies, inspirational quotes, a list headed ‘Yearly Goals’, and a photo of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Her textbooks are stacked neatly in a tower, from largest to smallest.

‘Are you friends with Yin?’

‘I guess. We’re in orchestra together. She’s first clarinet and I’m second, so we sit next to each other.’

‘Do you think she’ll get released?’ I ask. ‘Safely, I mean?’

I mean alive. Petra might be the only person I get to talk about Yin with today, so I may as well ask.

‘Karolina Bauer was returned after twenty hours.’ Petra clutches her textbooks to her chest and speaks fast. She’s the same height as me, but she hunches.