Assembly was in the senior-school hall, in the oldest of Riverlark’s buildings. It had a stage at one end and no aircon. On a hot day it was like being inside a lunch box. Harper had to sit on one side with her house group, called Park, and Ro and Cleo would be on the other with theirs; an aisle ran down the middle.

‘Don’t leave us,’ Cleo said, holding Harper’s sleeve. Harper mimed being dragged away, wheeling one arm and sticking out her leg.

‘That’s enough!’ snapped Mr Glass, the principal, who appeared out of nowhere. He glared at Harper. ‘A big girl like you could hurt someone, mucking around like that.’ He made his way to the stage, shooing children into neater lines.

‘You didn’t even do anything,’ said Cleo when he’d gone.

Harper felt deflated. That was it, first day ruined, perhaps the whole year. She’d made it through nearly all of primary school without being shouted at by a teacher.

‘Shake it off,’ said Ro. ‘I get told off twenty times a day.’

True.

Harper spotted Misha sitting in the back corner, drawing something on her fingertip. But she felt too moody about Mr Glass yelling at her to chat, so she took a spot at the other end of the row.

On stage, Mr Glass said all the usual stuff about how excited he was for the year ahead. It sounded fake. Mr Glass never looked like he was enjoying his job.

All of a sudden Harper felt a sharp sting in her leg and yelled loud enough that Mr Glass stopped his speech and the whole room turned to see where the noise had come from.

‘Who’s that shouting?’ said Mr Glass.

Harper looked at the floor, holding her breath. There was a tiny pulse where the pain had been. The badge in her pocket must have done it, but she couldn’t take it out while she was so conspicuous.

‘Well? Who said Ow just then?’

There were ripples of laughter around the room. Harper’s face burned.

‘I’ll carry on then,’ continued Mr Glass. The microphone screeched and everyone covered their ears. His mouth was too close. It’s not an ice cream, Mr Glass, Harper thought, hating him more even though, technically, he wasn’t the cause of the pain in her leg. She was relieved that the attention was elsewhere again.

‘Now for the exciting part of the assembly,’ he said. ‘Our senior students are about to receive their leadership roles. These selected students will be role models who will demonstrate the school motto all year: Curious! Confident! Resilient! Riverlark’s school captain will be...’

Harper silently repeated: Please not Corey.

‘Rohit Sharma.’

There was a wave-like gasp and then applause. Harper searched out Cleo, the only person who would truly understand what it felt like to see Ro get the top job. They locked eyes and grinned. Harper thought she might even cry a little so she bit her lip. Cleo did one of her loud finger-whistles and the teachers didn’t tell her off like they usually would. Ro sloped down the aisle and kids reached out to high-five him.

This was as good as it could get.

‘Shh, shh, shh,’ went Mr Glass into the microphone when the applause didn’t die down. He loved a triple-shush at assembly ‘Now then, our two vice-captains for this year will be…Cleo Albertini and Corey Hurst.’

Oh, no. This was unbelievable! Her best friend and the boy she most wanted to see fall into a sinkhole.

Harper clapped hard and made sure Cleo could see. But this was horrible. This was the wrong trio. On the stage, admiring her badge, Cleo was beaming and couldn’t keep still. If Harper closed one eye and shifted her focus, Corey was just a blur.

Mr Glass announced the other roles. Tahira Baqri got sports captain. Augie Roberts got art captain. He was incredible at drawing animals. Jake got music captain. That was a good one because you got to make the playlist for the disco and choose the song everyone had to sing on Graduation Day. Harper stared at Jake to check if she had any new feelings now that he had floppy hair and longer legs.

No change detected. Relief.

Soon there were only a dozen students left who hadn’t got anything. Nearly all Harper’s friendship group had one.

‘Two final positions,’ said Mr Glass. ‘This year we’ve decided to appoint an environment captain.’

This could be it. Harper had been meaning to help the environment for ages.

‘Briar Byrne.’

Disaster. Briar was a backstabber and couldn’t give a stuff about the planet, you could just tell.

Harper felt sick. It was only now that she realised how badly she wanted a leadership position. The remaining kids were left and there were two types: boys who were never out of trouble and girls like her who barely said a word. Couldn’t she be curious, confident and resilient? Maybe she’d always put so much into being curious that she’d neglected the other two.

Harper checked on Misha. She had her head bowed, still drawing on her finger, hoping not to be noticed.

Harper wanted not to be noticed and to get a position.

She looked at the leaders crowded on the stage. Maybe Harper wasn’t as shy as Misha but she wasn’t a natural captain of anything either. She was a nothing.

‘And our library captain position goes to…Bella Monroe.’

‘Brilliant,’ Harper said under her breath. Bella didn’t even go to Riverlark any more. Her family had moved to a new suburb.

Barb the secretary got up from her chair and shuffled over in her heels to whisper something to Mr Glass. He took the microphone again and said: ‘Harper Moss.’

Finally! The library! All thanks to Barb.

As she made her way to the stage, Harper tried not to care that she was an afterthought. She promised herself she’d be the best library captain that Riverlark had ever known.

It was recess straight after assembly but Harper couldn’t find Cleo and Ro. When she finally did they were in the new garden that had been put in over summer. Corey was with them. There was already a leadership meeting happening: they had clipboards.

‘Hey,’ she said, when none of them noticed her.

Ro said, ‘Hey,’ without looking up. Cleo beamed at Harper, then nudged Ro and said, ‘Compost bin. How much, do you reckon?’

‘Thirty?’ said Corey.

‘Have you got money then?’ Harper asked.

‘Mr Glass is giving us a budget,’ said Cleo, and then she turned back to the boys: ‘Put thirty for now.’

Harper felt like she’d missed a whole day instead of half an hour. The three of them looked cosy. Corey had called Ro fat less than two hours ago.

‘I thought Briar was the environment captain,’ she said. ‘Isn’t the compost bin her job?’

Ro thumb-typed on his phone. ‘Briar has a guitar lesson; we’ll give her the notes later.’

Harper waited for his joke to come—Briar had teased Ro since Prep and his impersonations of her were brilliant—but, nothing. Ro had said her name as if she was no longer the girl whose favourite thing to say was ‘You’re the odd one out because…’ while her eyes flashed trouble.

Harper had stumbled into an alternative universe where her friends had forgotten who their enemies were. Was a leadership badge so powerful?

‘I’ll ask my dad to get us a compost bin for free,’ said Corey. ‘He’s awesome at that.’

Corey’s dad stood for election in their district every year. He’d never been elected but the way Corey acted you’d think his dad was King Riverlark. They had a swimming pool.

‘Don’t forget to save me some budget for the library,’ Harper said.

‘What would the library need?’ asked Ro. The way it came out, he already thought the answer was nothing.

‘Books, obviously?’ she replied.

‘Too many books in it already,’ added Corey.

Cleo shrugged and said, ‘No one uses it, to be fair. No offence, Harps, but it’s locked most of the time. We only go in for half an hour a week during literacy and most kids take their iPads.’

‘I don’t,’ said Harper.

‘But you want to be a writer and you like old stuff. It’s too late for the library. That place is a museum. My mum says there hasn’t been a librarian since my sisters were here, and they both have babies now.’

Harper tried to get her head around what her best friends were saying. Did everyone hate the library?

‘Why didn’t I know you wanted to be a writer?’ said Ro.

‘Writers don’t make any money,’ Corey piped up. ‘Anyway, books suck.’

‘You suck,’ Harper blurted out. Her heart started to beat too fast.

Corey looked calm as he said, ‘Can you actually go? This is nothing to do with you.’

‘There’s no need to say that, buddy,’ said Ro.

Buddy!

Cleo held Harper’s sleeve but Harper pulled her arm away. She had no choice but to go before she humiliated herself by crying. She hadn’t wanted anyone to know that writing was her ambition; it was embarrassing. She wasn’t even the best in her class at English.

Most of all, she didn’t want to be captain of a place that her friends didn’t like. She took the library-captain badge off as she walked away

‘Cricket nets!’ blurted Ro, and they were back to scribbling, Harper and the library forgotten.