During recess, Elizabella went to see Miss Duck in the tuckshop.

“One apple please, Miss Duck, and . . .?”

“Mission accomplished,” Miss Duck said, handing her the apple with a wink.

“Excellent,” said Elizabella, giving her fifty cents for the apple. “I owe you one.”

Elizabella skipped over to the handball court, where Huck, Ava and Evie were idly bouncing Huck’s tennis ball, waiting for Elizabella so they could play a proper game.

“What do you think of the new girl, Minnie?” Ava asked the group as she bounced the ball into Huck’s square.

“She seems nice. I think she might be a bit shy,” said Huck.

“Makes sense,” said Evie, “she’s moved all the way from overseas!”

Evie’s right, thought Elizabella. It must be very hard to move all the way from another country to a place where you didn’t know anyone. Even though Minnie hadn’t seemed very shy to Elizabella when she came over to the desk and stuck out her tongue . . .

Elizabella looked around for Minnie. She was nowhere to be seen. This was strange. Anyone as tall as her shouldn’t be hard to spot in the playground. Elizabella was so distracted that she didn’t see Huck whack the ball into her square and, even though it was as slow as honey dripping off a spoon, she completely missed it. The ball bounced up and hit her in the chest.

“Yes!” said Huck, advancing to her square and sending Elizabella down to the bottom position.

Elizabella snapped out of it. As soon as the ball came back to her she slid a low skidding bounce across Ava’s square that went so fast Ava barely saw it, let alone hit it with her hand. The twin chased it down the playground.

Sandy came past the handball court and sat in the reserve position on the bitumen.

“No pool today, Elizabella?” he asked.

“No pool today,” said Elizabella, very seriously.

“How about a jumping castle made of backpacks? Or we could make a pole vault if we tied a bunch of jumpers together and tied them to the two gum trees near the tuckshop?

“No pool, no jumping castle, no pole vault, nothing,” said Elizabella. “Today I am not doing anything naughty.”

Sandy looked at her, his eyes wide, like she’d told him that his baby brother had just become the prime minister.

As the kids filed back into Miss Carrol’s class after recess, they heard a scream that was so high it woke up Mr and Mr Biffington–Crab’s British bulldog Ralph, who was asleep under the desk in the school office.

It was Daphne.

“It’s gone!” she screamed.

“What’s gone?” asked Miss Carrol.

“Fairy-Wren Blue!” Daphne spluttered through her tears. Daphne was holding her Pickles Pencils tin out for all to see – and there it was. Right there between Pea Green and Night Sky was a gap that stuck out like a missing tooth in a kindy kid’s smile. A gap where that perfect Fairy-Wren Blue pencil should have been.

Everyone stared.

This is going to be a BIG deal, thought Elizabella.

“Daphne, it’s just a pencil,” Sandy said.

“Just a pencil!?” screamed Daphne. “Just a pencil!?!?”

“Yeah,” he said, “it’s just a pencil.”

Of course! thought Elizabella. Sandy has probably never owned a set of Pickles Pencils.

She was right. He never had. So he didn’t know the joy of gazing longingly up and down that rainbow, committing all their delightful names to memory, ranking them in order from most favourite to least most favourite colour.

Still, he has a point, Elizabella thought. With the way Daphne’s going on, you’d think Fairy-Wren Blue was her actual pet bird that had gone missing, not a pencil.

“Fairy-Wren Blue is everything!” Daphne exclaimed. “I literally can’t live without it!”

“Now, Daphne, calm down–” said Miss Carrol.

“Calm down? CALM DOWN? Somebody stole my Fairy-Wren Blue!”

“Daphne, let’s not make accusations,” said Miss Carrol, firmly. “You’ve probably misplaced it.”

Daphne looked injured. “Miss Carrol,” she said through a waterfall of tears, “I have never lost anything.”

“Okay, everybody sit down,” said Miss Carrol, exasperated. “Can everyone go through their pencil cases to see if they have accidentally wound up with Daphne’s pencil?”

Ava piped up, “I have a Fairy-Wren Blue, but this one is mine.”

“How do you know!?” exclaimed Daphne, running over to Ava’s desk. She grabbed the pencil out of the twin’s hand and examined it. It was about an inch long and covered in so many bite marks you could barely read those precious words “Fairy-Wren Blue” along the side. Daphne dropped the pencil back on the desk like poison ivy.

“It’s definitely mine,” said Ava. “Sorry, Daphne.”

Daphne stormed back to her desk.

Eventually, after everyone had diligently been through their pencil cases, backpacks, tote trays and everywhere else they could think of, Miss Carrol put an end to the search party.

“We’ve all had a good look, Daphne,” she said. “Now it’s time to get on with the lesson.”

“But–” Daphne started to protest.

“No ‘buts’,” Miss Carrol said. “You’re most welcome to continue searching for it after school.”

Daphne’s mouth gaped open and closed like a goldfish. A goldfish who had never see such injustice.

Miss Carrol went back to her desk and re-gathered herself.

“Now, where were we?”

They were halfway through the lesson on animal extinction that had commenced before recess. They had been learning all about the Tasmanian tiger, which had been the biggest known carnivorous marsupial of the modern era. It had been native to both continental Australia and New Guinea, however by the time of colonisation, it had become extinct except in Tasmania . . .

“Ah, yes,” said Miss Carrol, picking up where she had left off. “What do we call it when a species comes to live only in one defined geographical area?”

“Indigenous?” offered Huck.

“Well, yes, that’s a good word,” said Miss Carrol, “and it’s true, all native Australian animals, including the Tasmanian tiger, are indigenous.”

“So is the fairy-wren,” piped up an unfamiliar voice.

Everyone stifled a giggle except for Daphne, who made an audible gasp. Miss Carrol spun around ready to tell somebody off for deliberately flaring up Daphne.

“Isn’t that right, Miss Carrol?” said Minnie, sweet as a lamb.

If it had been anyone other than Minnie, Miss Carrol would have called that cheekiness, but given Minnie was new, surely this was just an innocent remark. In fact, Miss Carrol realised, it was a remark that needed rewarding. It was nice to see Minnie beginning to come out of her shell, and impressive that she knew about native Australian birds.

“Correct, Minnie, well done,” Miss Carrol said.

Daphne did a double-gasp, not comprehending that this slight was about to go unpunished. Minnie turned to Elizabella and winked, then turned straight back to the board and looked at Miss Carrol, virtuously. Miss Carrol continued the lesson. Elizabella looked her new classmate up and down trying to figure her out. She was becoming less and less like anyone Elizabella had ever met before.

“Some species are indigenous to several places. For example, the brown bear is indigenous to North America, however it’s also indigenous to parts of Europe and Asia. But species like the Tasmanian tiger and the Tasmanian devil, which are only found in one specific geographical location, are endemic.”

Despite a rocky start, things are actually going quite well, Miss Carrol thought of the lesson she was running. By the time the bell was about to go for lunch everyone had learned the difference between a species being endemic and indigenous, as well as the difference between being extinct and endangered. They’d also learned that endangered species are categorised into different groups – starting with vulnerable, then endangered, critically endangered, extinct in the wild and finally extinct.

Even though animal extinction was very sad, Miss Carrol loved teaching her children about it. She was an animal lover. Before she became a teacher, Miss Carrol had worked for Greenpeace on their Rainbow Warrior ship, travelling the seas and helping save the environment. It was very important to Miss Carrol to instil these messages in her students, so that they might grow up to love and protect animals too.

Satisfied that the lesson had gone swimmingly, Miss Carrol looked at her watch. Just twenty seconds before the lunchtime bell. She picked up the whiteboard eraser and started to rub the lesson off the board when . . .

SPLAT.

As the eraser made contact with the flat surface, a bright red substance squirted out of it and all over the board. And all over Miss Carrol. She turned to the class, her beautiful white blouse now splattered with red.

The bell rang for lunch. Nobody dared move.

Miss Carrol lifted her shirt sleeve to her nose and took a sniff. Tomato sauce, she deduced. Somebody has filled my whiteboard eraser with tomato sauce.

Ten minutes later, everyone was still sitting at their desks. Miss Carrol was sitting at hers, too. She had wiped off all the sauce she could with some tissues, and was now waiting for one of her students to fess up. As the sun beat down through the classroom windows, she could feel herself smelling more tomatoey by the second.

“I will say it once more. Nobody is leaving for lunch until someone confesses.”

Everyone looked at each other. No one seemed like they were anywhere near close to owning up to this.

Elizabella caught Sandy’s eye. Nice one, he mouthed at her, silently.

She was shocked. It wasn’t me! she mouthed back.

“So?” asked Miss Carrol, searching around the room until her eyes met Elizabella’s, where they lingered. Elizabella was taken aback.

“Miss Carrol, it wasn’t me!” she said. “I promise!” But something in Miss Carrol’s eyes said that she didn’t believe her.

Several other kids were now staring at Elizabella.

“Just admit it,” hissed Daphne.

“Miss Carrol?” asked Huck, timidly. Her eyes shot to Huck, expecting him to own up to the crime, or at least to being an accomplice.

“Miss Carrol, can I please go to the toilet?” Huck asked.

“No,” said Miss Carrol. “Not until somebody has confessed.”

“Elizabella, if you did it, just say so, you don’t want Huck to wee himself!” said Sandy.

Elizabella suddenly started to doubt herself. Did I do this? She couldn’t for the life of her think of anyone else who might have pulled something like this off. But surely if she had done something like this in the last four hours she would have remembered? Also, she had promised herself that she wasn’t going to do anything naughty today.

Elizabella saw Huck’s leg shaking, the international sign of somebody about to wee their pants. And she had a terrible thought . . .

Was it possible that some time ago – weeks, even months – she had loaded the offending eraser with tomato sauce, and Miss Carrol hadn’t happened to use that particular eraser until now? There was a surplus of erasers in the classroom, and Elizabella supposed that on a particularly naughty day she could have done something like this, then become distracted by something more pressing, completely forgotten about it, and then, well, the rest was history?

She glanced over at Huck. A little bead of sweat had started to roll down his face. She couldn’t stand it any more.

“I did it!” she blurted out. Everyone stared at her. Half of them relieved, the other half annoyed.

“All right, everyone, go to lunch,” said Miss Carrol, coolly. They all started for the door, led by Huck who danced from one foot to the other in the international dance of not allowing any wee to come out.

Elizabella remained in her seat, aware that she was not who Miss Carrol was addressing just now when she’d sent everyone off to eat. Miss Carrol looked at her.

“Gobblefrump,” she said. Elizabella nodded, solemnly. She packed up her things and walked herself out the door. She went down to Mr Gobblefrump’s office. As she approached his door she let out a loud sigh. He may not have even read the Sorry Poem, and at any rate it would be meaningless now.

With a heavy heart she knocked on his door.

“Come in!” bellowed Mr Gobblefrump.