The photos had been printed, unmistakeably, with Chetwood’s school library printer. It always did a streak of black ink in the top corner when you printed colour, and no one could work out why. Walden didn’t even need to read the card. She had spent enough time marking their homework; she knew their handwriting. Looping Nikki, neat Aneeta, Will’s flashy schoolboy signature and Mathias’s scrawl.

The photos were from the Leavers’ Ball. There was Nikki, dazzling in a sequinned white evening gown that Ebele must have picked out with her. Aneeta in a beautiful pink-and-gold sari, flushed and laughing. Mathias looking taller, and actually rather smart, in his dark suit and sombre tie. Will had gone for a white suit—ridiculous boy!—and matched his tie and pocket square to the scarlet-and-silver of Nikki’s earrings.

INVOCATION SQUAD! one of them had written under the standard teenagers-having-fun photo of four grinning eighteen-year-olds with their arms around each other’s shoulders. Similar slogans had been scrawled under the other photos. Mathias and Nikki toasting each other with midrange prosecco. Aneeta unflatteringly mid-bite of a canape. Several of Will on the dance floor looking increasingly drunk, and one of Will and Nikki dancing together, captioned with a gel-pen heart symbol. Walden could picture Aneeta drawing the heart, teasing, and Nikki’s glare.

Other shots showed the rest of the party: the dancing, the drinking, the demolished buffet table. Above all, the leavers: Year Thirteen, en masse, looking delighted with themselves in their formalwear. As usual, not every teenager had quite got the hang of formalwear yet. Walden saw badly fitting suits and a number of ill-advised cummerbunds. Several girls had worn cocktail dresses so shockingly short that they would probably look back in amazement at their own daring in a few years’ time. And here was Mathias on the dance floor in a cheering group, and here Aneeta and Nikki were joining hands to spin each other. And here was Will with Nikki again, the lights turned down low for what must have been the slow dance, and another gel-pen heart.

Good for them.

In the background, Ezekiel and Ebele were dancing as well.

Walden had glimpsed several other teachers on the periphery of the photographs as she went through them. The ball was never officially run by the school, but Year Thirteen usually invited their teachers. They did all the planning themselves, with a grant from the Parents’ Association and additional funds chucked in the pot by their actual parents. Much easier to answer the question of Can we serve alcohol? when there were no official risk assessments to get through. Adults made their own choices about these things—and this was a party finally, officially, for adults.

They looked so happy. They looked so grown-up. They’d thought of Walden; they’d sent her the photos. She wiped her eyes with a corner of the bedsheet.

Good for them.

“Are you okay?” Laura said.