Nancy Bailey was still organising things. ‘Take the box over there.’ She pointed at a corner where donations were being sorted into plastic crates. No Good afternoon, Ms Wharton. I was Brunton Primary School principal, but unfolding events had turned me into someone else. It was easy for her to remember that, really, I was an outsider. And my moral fibre had been questioned once before.

Jack must have gone out back. I carried the box and checked donations while I tried to work out how to behave – who I was – in this strange new world. People had donated good brands, some with store tags still attached.

An angry voice disturbed me. ‘You’re Phoebe Wharton.’

The speaker was a woman of about thirty. She had a round, pinkish face and a bandage on her lower arm. I recognised her as Hailey Anderson’s mother. Nodding, I hoped her name would come to me.

‘Caleb Wharton’s mother,’ she added.

Despite myself I flashed back to last time this was an accusation, not a statement of fact. A past I didn’t want to relive. Around the room, people stared. Suspicion gusted, a hot wind, relentless as yesterday’s flames. ‘Put that jacket down. Donations are for the victims, not the firebug.’

‘Hang on. She’s not taking anything. She brought stuff,’ a girl said, nearby.

Penelope, Caleb’s friend, his might be/might not be girlfriend. She was still here, cleaner now and wearing a pair of black leggings and a pale lilac top in place of the skirt and long socks. Her yellow pink-streaked hair was pulled into a ponytail.

‘I saw her carrying it in,’ she continued.

Nancy frowned, parallel trenches between her eyes, while she asked her clipboard for advice.

I put the jacket down. ‘This is a nightmare.’ Where was Jack?

‘This is everyone’s nightmare,’ Nancy said. ‘I seen what your sick boy done to that hurt wallaby. Everyone’s going to find out about that.’

‘It was in pain!’ I insisted.

Nancy sneered. ‘And now you’re here… disturbing things. I want you to go.’

Jack returned. With a strange mixture of exasperation and concern, he held my upper arm. ‘I really wish you’d stayed in my ute.’ I let him lead me outside.

‘Ms Wharton?’ Penelope had followed us. She tipped her head to one side, an anxious bird. ‘Please. How’s Caleb?’

‘I’m sorry,’ I began, inadequate. She looked stupefied. A girl who’d lost her home, and both parents. ‘I… He needs to be cleared. What was he doing during the fire? You know his day better than anyone.’

Penelope ran hands down her leggings like she was wearing a skirt that needed straightening. ‘A tree fell. He pushed me clear. He saved me. My parents died.’

Something in me softened. Her face was as white with sadness now as, yesterday, it had been black with soot. She was, potentially, Caleb’s alibi. ‘I heard. I’m sorry.’