Thank God she hadn’t been looking at something worse. Imagine if she’d been googling something like ‘weird rash from underwear’ or if she’d logged into her Facebook account, which included photos of the big night out she’d had last weekend with six other teachers from Redmond High. She was always careful to keep her Facebook account locked down tight so that students and parents could never find her on social media, but that wouldn’t help much if she splashed it across the screen at the front of the class for everyone to see.

Right, from now on, always make sure the mirroring feature is turned off before using any computers in class. Lesson learned.

‘Excuse me, Miss, did you find anything?’ Chariot Stevenson asked politely.

Andrea smiled despite herself. She’d been caught out, she might as well run with it. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘Although I suppose there could be a fringe religion with an aversion to flour. Didn’t someone create their own Jedi religion once? Maybe Jedis are anti-flour.’

‘Nah, I reckon Jedi’s thing would be veganism,’ Ahn called out from the back of the class.

‘Are you kidding me? No way Jedis would be vegans. What about Scientologists? They’re into some weird shit, right?’ This from a student Andrea didn’t know.

‘Oy! My mum’s a Scientologist,’ said Grant.

‘Yeah, and?’

‘Yeah, fair enough, she is into some pretty weird shit.’

Andrea knew she should be reprimanding them for swearing, but she couldn’t really be bothered. She was kind of enjoying the religious debate that had sprung up. Only a few students were still keeping up the pretence of following the recipes. The rest of the class had abandoned their mixing bowls.

‘What about food that needs to be halal, or what’s the other one . . . kosher? Is flour kosher?’ put in a student from the back row.

‘I think it is, isn’t it? Kosher is about meat, right?’ said Ahn.

‘All animal products,’ clarified Kiara.

‘I eat halal,’ Tanisha said. ‘And I do Ramadan.’

‘Oh my God. Do you lose, like, heaps of weight?’ asked Chariot.

‘It’s not a diet!’

Was this discussion healthy or disrespectful? Maybe Andrea ought to steer them back to their recipes.

*