‘If you were anaphylactic, it would depend on what you were allergic to. But you’re not, so it’s irrelevant.’

‘Okay, but what if I had a religious reason? Like, it’s against my faith to use flour or something.’

‘I can’t say I’ve heard of any religions that are against flour. But as I’m confident that’s not the case for you, it’s once again, irrelevant. Get baking, Menasse.’

There weren’t many enthusiastic faces in the class in front of her and Andrea wasn’t overly thrilled with being roped in to cover for the food tech teacher herself. She wasn’t supposed to have any classes on this afternoon and her plan had been to mark her Year Eleven history assignments.

They had the ceiling fans turned up to the highest setting but it was still sweltering in the classroom. Although Andrea shouldn’t complain; one of her university friends had ended up picking up a teaching job out in the far west of Sydney. At least here on the North Shore it didn’t get as hot as it would out there.

Now that Grant Menasse had stopped trying to argue his case against baking, the class settled down and started on their recipes. Andrea did a lap through the tables, checking in on them all, and then headed up to the front of the classroom and sat down at the teacher’s laptop, which was sitting open on his desk. Apparently he’d left in a hurry after lunch. Food poisoning. She wondered if it was from tasting his students’ food. Either way, she wasn’t planning on doing any taste-testing herself during today’s lesson.

She found his password on a Post-it in his top drawer — very secure — and logged in. She opened up the web browser and found herself idly googling ‘religious beliefs against flour’. She clicked through to an article on religion and dietary choices and was skimming through it when she heard snickering coming from the class. She looked up and the snickering erupted into full-blown laughter.

‘What? What’s the joke I’m missing?’

Several students pointed behind her and she turned around to see that the smart board was mirroring the laptop screen. They could all see her search.

Grant was looking positively delighted. ‘She took me seriously,’ he shouted. ‘She actually believed me.’

Andrea pursed her lips and minimised the browser window before snapping the laptop shut. ‘I did not,’ she said. ‘You made me curious, that’s all.’