I never knew a school corridor could be this empty, and this scary. Charlotte dobbed us in! Specifically she dobbed me in, because both notes are in my hand-writing. I’m walking behind a skinny, pimply boy who looks like he’s in year eight. He came to our English class a couple of minutes ago and said to Mrs McBain, ‘I have to take Kaitlin Williams to the co-ordinators’ office.’

I feel like I’m watching a TV show about a school where a girl’s in trouble. How could this be me? I never went into my primary school office except to help out. Mainly to make sure I’m still real, I catch up to the boy and say, ‘How come they sent you to get me?’

‘I’m an Administrative Assistant.’

‘How’d you get to be that?’

He shrugs. ‘It’s our class’s turn. Two people have to do it every day.’

He made me sound like I was dumb for asking. ‘I know where the co-ordinators’ office is,’ I point out.

‘They said I had to take you there.’

‘You afraid I might escape?’

This boy has no sense of humour. I think of a phrase from my silver book: As bright as a bump on a log.

‘You’re supposed to wait here,’ he tells me solemnly. He points to an alcove outside the coordinators’ office. There’s four padded chairs, two on one side of a coffee table and two on the other side. I sit down and wait. And wait some more. I still can’t believe I’m in trouble and I’ve only been in high school for a month. How long is that co-ordinator going to keep me sitting out here? There aren’t even any magazines here from 1990 to distract me like at the dentist’s office.

I want to be back in Dad and Sarah’s apartment, with the high ceilings and the tall windows. I wish I was back there in that big, comfy chair with Jake in my lap, reading him The Tar Baby for the twenty-fifth time. Which reminds me. How could Charlotte be such a big dibber-dobber baby?

‘I must admit these have some literary merit.’ The co-ordinator, Miss Southwell, is looking at the two notes I wrote. She’s a bit older than Mum, with black glasses and shoulder-length brown hair. ‘You have mixed your metaphors here,’ she says, peering at the first note. ‘You start out addressing Charlotte as a wildebeest, but by the end she’s changed to a fish.’ She quotes, ‘Go suck on some algae.’

I squirm in my chair. Maybe I shouldn’t have confessed I wrote that. She picks up the other note. ‘More of your conversation would infect my brain,’ she says in a posh accent. ‘Shakespeare, I believe?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say, ‘I think so.’ I got that bit out of the silver book

‘Young lady!’ Miss Southwell bellows. ‘We will not tolerate bullying at this school!’

I’m so surprised by her yelling and her mean face that I almost start crying. ‘Charlotte sent us a nasty note first,’ I say in a wavery voice.

‘Oh? Where might that be?’

I remember Tiffany crunching it into a ball and tossing it into the air. ‘We threw it away,’ I tell her.

‘Hmm …’ Miss Southwell ponders, her voice level back to normal. ‘Do you have any idea how much these notes hurt Charlotte?’

I wasn’t really thinking about Charlotte when I made up the notes. ‘I wrote them because …’ I stop myself from saying more.

‘Yes?’

‘Nothing.’ I was going to say, because my friends wanted me to. But I won’t dob them in. No matter what she says, I won’t be a dobber to my own friends.

‘Well,’ Miss Southwell says, ‘if you’re not going to discuss this, I’ll have to think of a suitable punishment.’

What if she gives me an after-school detention? I won’t be able to keep that a secret from Mum like I did the lunchtime one. ‘Don’t tell my mother. Please!’ My voice is even more wavery. ‘She’s just started Weight Watchers and I don’t want her to have a relapse!’

I’m crying for real now. Miss Southwell shoves a box of tissues across her desk. ‘I’m sorry,’ I sob. I remember all the times in primary school when Mum made me feel better after some girls had snobbed me off or left me out. She never made me talk about it, but she knew. She’d rent a video and we’d sit next to each other on the couch while we ate Chinese take-away. I couldn’t stand it if she found out I’d been mean to someone else. Even if she did deserve it!

‘I really am sorry,’ I say to Miss Southwell, blowing my nose.

‘Charlotte did say the others would have put you up to it.’

‘What? They were all my own ideas in those notes.’

Miss Southwell just looks at me.

‘But I won’t write her any more notes,’ I say quickly.

‘Are you sure? You’re not just saying that to get off the hook?’

‘No, I promise!’

Miss Southwell picks up the notes, tears them into tiny bits and drops them in the bin. ‘We’ll just forget about these then. Everybody makes mistakes. Let’s hope you’ve learned from yours. You’ll be much better off if you save your literary skills for English class.’

I’m surprised at how relieved I am to see the evidence destroyed.

‘I don’t expect you to be friends with Charlotte,’ Miss Southwell says, ‘that’s your decision. Just don’t pick on her any more.’

‘I won’t.’

‘And I think you and your friends should do some environmental duty around the school.’

‘Okay.’

‘You can start with that sticker on Charlotte’s locker. She tore it off, but there’s still a mess left. Come to my office at the beginning of lunchtime and get some cleaning things.’

‘What sticker?’

‘The one that says …’ Miss Southwell consults a handwritten page in front of her, ‘You have killed a baboon and stolen his face.’

I didn’t say Olivia could take that! She asked if she could borrow my book, but she didn’t say anything about ripping out a sticker. There’s a special section in the middle with twenty stickers and I might have had plans for them.

Miss Southwell is waiting for an answer. I won’t dob in my friends. ‘Oh, that sticker,’ I say as if I suddenly remembered its existence, ‘sure, we’ll get it off.’

‘You look nice, Mum. Your stomach’s flatter already.’

‘Thanks, I must have looked pretty gross two weeks ago.’

‘That’s not what I meant!’ I laugh.

She does look good. She got a new yellow shirt to wear with her black skirt and she’s done her hair up in a bun fastened with golden chopsticks. She and Rick are going out for dinner after the Weight Watchers meeting. ‘Won’t you be starving by then?’ I ask.

‘Well I can’t eat before I get weighed.’

‘You could come back and have dinner here. I learned how to make warm chicken salad in cookery class. Have we got any chicken fillets?’

Mum gives me a concerned look. ‘Are you scared to stay alone that long?’

‘No, it’s just …’ I don’t know. I just want her to be here. My brain has felt bruised ever since Miss Southwell yelled at me. But I want Mum to have a good time.

‘I’ll be fine.’ I give her a big smile. ‘I’ve got to work on my speech for the debate, anyway.’

‘How about we come back here for coffee? We could have those little tubs of low fat ice-cream that I bought for an astronomical price.’

‘That’d be good. I can ask Rick whether he thinks people should get a licence before they have kids.’