‘Well, that was a waste of time,’ Jem murmurs into Lucy’s ear, drawing her out of her reverie. Apparently, the meeting’s over. Harry brushes against her arm as he stands. Lucy isn’t sure if it’s the contact that’s coloured him red like that or if it’s because the hall is so stuffy with recycled air. On his other side is Flo. She’s chatting to a woman Lucy recognises but doesn’t know the name of.

‘Yeah?’ Lucy asks.

‘I mean, they basically said that the tide and swell were a perfect storm, but it was nothing, and they have no plan for the future except to wait and see. It’s just like after all those fires in Victoria last summer, when the PM said that we still don’t know if it was global warming because there’s inconclusive proof or some shit, so we shouldn’t make hasty decisions about energy production, which will affect the economy. Instead, the council’ll make everyone cut the trees down on their properties to “minimise risk”, as if that’s not one of the things that’s contributing to the problem in the first place. Pack of morons, the lot of them.’

As he’s speaking, everyone begins filing outside. The school chairs are being kicked out of their rows and the room becomes a sea of plastic debris.

In front of her, Harry’s like a wall, blocking her view of the exit and the icy currents she knows are curling in through the open door because she can taste fresh water on the air—it had rained, earlier. It’s been a record-breaking week, apparently. And it’s already a record-breaking August, even though they’re only halfway through.

Behind her, Jem’s still talking: ‘Or what about the bullshit in South Oz? With that storm and the massive power outage, and then they’re all like: the power outage is the fault of unreliable renewable energy. But no one mentioned that the storm was the fault of the coal industry they’re clamouring to reinstate.’

‘I think the Greens might have mentioned something to that effect,’ Lucy says.