Harper woke on Monday to pouring rain and the smell of bacon. Then she remembered! She flung the covers off.

The dogs were transfixed in the kitchen doorway as Lolly nudged mushrooms and eggs in the frying pan.

‘Guess what,’ said Harper.

‘You’re hungry and you want a lift to school because it’s bucketing down out there.’

‘Yes and yes, but something else. Mum and Dad are home!’

‘Home?’ Lolly turned off the gas and put the tongs down. They really hadn’t told her.

Harper grinned and nodded. ‘Home. They didn’t want to tell us they were coming in case something went wrong. And they have to quarantine in a hotel in the city for two weeks. They called last night when you were asleep. It’s true, Lolly.’

Lolly had tears in her eyes before Harper had finished speaking. She was silent for a long time, pressing her fist hard against her lips. Then she picked up the tongs as if nothing had happened. She hadn’t said a word.

‘Lolly, are you okay?’

‘Oh, yes! Don’t mind me, pet. So relieved and happy I don’t know what to do with myself. Apart from cooking your breakfast.’ She gave a quick smile. Harper figured that Lolly had some of the same thoughts in the back of her mind as Harper did last night.

‘We’ve still got two whole weeks together,’ said Harper.

‘We have,’ said Lolly. She turned to get the bread and didn’t turn back.

Harper understood. Getting exactly what you wanted sometimes meant losing something else.

They lifted her bike into the back of the ute with the dogs. On the drive Harper was glad Lolly put the radio on too loud for talking, even if the songs weren’t her style. She had a lot to think about.

Will. Her friends. The cadet badge and all her fearful thoughts. The last weeks of Riverlark.

Liz and Larry at home and safe.

Today was new.

Harper wanted to find Will first thing but with the traffic she was only just on time and she had to rush to class. Remembering the embarrassing scenes of yesterday, she sat down without looking at anyone. Mr Kumar said they were going to use the whole morning to plan their graduation day. Cleo, Ro and Corey stood at the front with their blue clipboards and asked if anyone had ideas. In past years there’d been an outing somewhere in the city. This year they had to stay at Riverlark because of the virus.

Sol put his hand up.

‘At my last school, when I was leaving I kept thinking, oh, this’ll be the last time I play footy with my mates, this’ll be the last time I go to the art room, or the music room, or whatever. But I was the only one leaving. Everyone else was staying. So no one else knew what that was like. This time it’s everyone, so we could have a day of doing things for the last time.’

Everyone loved it. The captains at the front could barely keep up with all the suggestions. Mr Kumar leaned on the edge of his desk with his arms crossed and a smile on his face. Harper did her trick of not looking at Corey at all.

An idea for how the library could be part of these plans was coming to her, but it had to be right. When the bell rang for recess, she left the classroom without waiting for anyone. Cleo caught up with her.

‘Where are you off to?’

‘Just to talk to Mr Glass about the library. Don’t tell anyone.’

But the others—everyone who’d been at her house the day before, minus Corey—were suddenly there. This was the ambush she was dreading.

‘Tell her, Cleo,’ said Ro.

‘Tell me what?’

‘Corey told me a rumour,’ said Cleo.

Harper tensed, wondering what was coming.

‘They’re getting rid of the library next year.’

Oh. Harper had not expected that.

‘But we don’t know if it’s true,’ said Ro. ‘Corey makes stuff up sometimes. He told me he has thirty-kilogram dumbbells in his room that he lifts every night. In his dreams.’

‘It could be true about the library,’ said Harper.

‘And we won’t be here but we thought you’d still want to know,’ said Cleo.

‘I’m not sad. I’m angry, if it’s really happening.’

‘Me too,’ said Misha, quietly. ‘I love the library.’

‘Thanks for telling me, but you can all stop worrying about me, okay?’ Harper looked around the group. ‘My mum and dad got back last night.’

Cleo flung her arms around her and at the same time danced around in her irrepressible way. The others tried to get in too, and over Cleo’s shoulder, Harper swapped smiles with Sol.

No one had said a word about the party. It was such a relief. They were still her friends. If Corey’s aim had been to hurt her, he’d failed.

‘Okay, I’ve got stuff to do,’ Harper said, laughing and trying to untangle herself from Cleo.

‘Okay, go, go!’

Asking Mr Glass if she could have the keys to the library was the boldest thing Harper had ever asked a teacher. When he said yes, she felt even more brave and asked if she could look in the small room inside the library.

‘I thought it might be an archive,’ she said.

‘You’re absolutely right,’ Mr Glass replied, and he showed her which key unlocked the door.

When she told him about her plan, he gave her permission to spend any recess and lunch in there until the end of the year. He said he’d have to check her progress, but the way he put it—‘If that would be all right with you?’—it was as if he actually cared how she answered.

She would finally be a library captain and do things the right way.

‘Is there anything else I can do for you?’ said Mr Glass.

There was Corey’s rumour about the library being taken away. But the truth was she didn’t want to know right now. She asked something else: ‘Can I cover the windows? I want to keep my plan secret until it’s ready.’

Mr Glass’s eyebrows shot up. ‘A big reveal. I like it.’ He opened a drawer, and passed over another set of keys. ‘The archive room is the blue key on that bunch. Riverlark’s history is in there. I’m sure I can trust you with it, Harper.’

After the last bell, Harper said goodbye to her friends and slipped down the path to the back of the library.

At the door, she heard someone call her name behind her.

‘Misha! Hey, um,’ Harper said, panicking. She was anxious to see Will.

‘You don’t have to tell me, but are you doing something special with the library for graduation?’ Misha asked.

‘Oh, well…’

‘It’s okay, it’s your thing. It’s just’—Misha was bright red and almost in tears—‘as it’s nearly the end of Riverlark, and I’ve always loved the library, I was wondering…’

As Misha ran out of words, Harper felt terrible. How could she have missed this? Misha was always reading. She’d stood right next to Harper and said that she loved the library. Harper had ignored her and it wasn’t fair. This was everyone’s place.

‘Mish, did you know this back door’s always open?’

Misha shook her head and smiled. Her face went back to its normal colour.

As they went inside, Harper had half her mind on whether Will would be here and the other half on Misha.

There was no sign of Will.

‘You like history and stuff, don’t you?’ said Harper. ‘In this room I think there’s a lot of history about Riverlark. My idea for the last day of term is to do something with that.’

Harper took out the keys and opened the door. It was a room with no windows. There was a wooden desk with a lamp on it and not much else, and grey filing cabinets along two walls. She shivered, thinking about all the layers of history.

On top of the filing cabinets were framed photos and certificates, rolled-up papers secured with elastic bands or ribbons, old paintings, and bulging black rubbish bags.

Harper and Misha poked around. One of the bags was filled with clothes—the Riverlark uniform in a paler green with a different logo. The framed things were covered in grimy dust. When Harper and Misha pulled open the cabinet drawers, the room started to smell woody, like old paper, and earthy, like mould. The files were stuffed full.

The size of this job suddenly loomed. Harper didn’t have a clear idea of what she wanted, except to find anything about Mae and Molly, Vince and Will.

Misha took a file out and opened it on the desk. She spread out papers and photographs, which had rounded corners and strange colours like too much food dye in a cake mix.

‘My mum came to school here,’ Misha said. ‘These look like the photos they had when she was young.’ She pointed at a boy with shaggy blond hair. ‘That boy looks like my Spoodle. I think this is the 1970s. My mum was here in the 1980s.’

So was Francis Lamb, Harper remembered.

‘Tell me if you find the surname Lamb,’ said Harper.

‘Okay, I love doing detective stuff,’ said Misha. ‘But what’s your idea for graduation day?’

‘It’s not really a proper idea yet. You know when you walk into a room and the idea is just…there?’ She grabbed the air the way Will had done the other day by the river.

Misha nodded. ‘Let’s keep looking. The idea will come.’

‘Are you sure you want to?’ said Harper. ‘Some people would think this was boring.’

‘Harper,’ Misha rolled her eyes. ‘I wanted to be the library captain. I was happy you got it instead of someone else, but still.’

‘I didn’t know. Sorry, Mish.’

‘It’s fine. I mean, I kept seeing the badge in your pencil case, and a couple of times I thought about taking it.’ She smiled and shrugged. ‘But I got over it.’ Harper was hungry to get into every file but Misha was methodical and calm. They decided that whatever they found that was interesting, they’d write down a description and the file name it came from, and leave it out so they could think about what to do with it once they’d seen everything.

There were old leaflets for concerts, a homework book from the 1930s with neat looping writing in faded blue ink, black-and-white photos of girls dancing with flowered hoops, silver trophies the size of egg cups, school magazines, a bottle of ink, an old football, and so many other curiosities.

They’d been there for half an hour when Harper realised that the woody, earthy smell now had a smoky tang. She turned without thinking, and dropped a file when she saw Will in the corner of the room sitting on a filing cabinet.

‘Are you okay?’ said Misha.

‘Yes! Fine. I thought I saw a spider but it was an elastic band.’

Misha went back to what she was doing, while Will mouthed A spider? at Harper, and she tried not to laugh. He was quiet while they worked. She liked him just being there.

It was nearly five o’clock when Misha’s phone rang. Her dad was waiting for her in the car outside school.

‘You’re not going to stay here alone are you?’ said Misha.

‘I’m not alone,’ she said. ‘Joking, obviously. I’ll leave soon. Shall we do this again tomorrow?’

As Misha left, Harper had a floating feeling as if she’d made a new friend. Except Misha was an old friend. It was so funny and unexpected.