Shaun sat through maths trying not to let his brain turn itself inside out with disaster.

He knew he wasn’t mental. In fact, he was sane and important. He now knew the identity of the murdered man.

Will and Shaun weren’t in the same maths class, so they only had a few moments to talk after assembly, before the normal school day resumed. The assembly had turned out to be short. Queen Bitch had stood at the lectern and introduced herself as Sergeant Baker before calmly offering a plea for assistance. Tyson had last been seen at work.

As soon as assembly was finished, Will rushed over to Shaun. ‘Are you going to say something?’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘To the police.’

Shaun hadn’t thought of it. He had told the police and they hadn’t believed him the first time round.

But that felt thin in his mind. He should tell; it was the right thing to do. True, he wouldn’t get the victory parade for having solved the murder like he had imagined. The police would take over, pat him on the head. ‘You did good, Shaun.’ If he was lucky, Charlie might apologise. If he was luckier, his mother might cancel the psych appointment.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Are you going to?’

‘I won’t if you won’t,’ Will said.

‘I’ll see you at lunch.’

‘Yeah.’

But Will had taken only a couple of steps before he turned back.

‘Bugger,’ he said. ‘Tenner reminded me that we’ve got debating today.’

Shaun rolled his eyes. For once, he agreed with Will’s reluctance about debating. It was the last thing on his mind. ‘Megan isn’t here,’ he said.

‘I know, but he said it was important for us to meet and make a plan. It all kicks off super soon. We’re not doing it, are we?’

Shaun didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to hang with Megan regularly, even under these weird circumstances. But there was so much else to think about.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Let’s talk to Tenner at lunch.’

A few minutes later, he looked round at his classmates in the maths room. Some of them would have known Tyson. He’d only been at the school the year before last. So Shaun had been in Year 8 when Tyson was in his final year.

He had vague memories of him: tall, well built, a football player. He was exactly the type of guy Shaun wouldn’t talk to at school. But he always seemed nice enough. He’d even picked Megan up a few times from the pool.

The pool, with its glassy fresh water. The sun bouncing and singing on Megan’s skin. And in another stretch of water, Tyson, hazy from the heat. Shimmering like a mirage.

He shook the image off. But it kept coming back to him throughout the day. Tyson, dead, facedown in the water. Tyson, dead, a ghoulish hand reaching out to him. Tyson, dead, his heavy body dragged through the dust to a waiting ute and driven away to be lost forever.

He would get through the day. He would go to the pool. And if, by some miracle, Megan was there, he would tell her everything.

‘Okay,’ Tenner said, dropping his bag on a desk. ‘So you two weren’t in class on Wednesday.’

Will and Shaun were silent.

‘That’s no way to start the year.’

Shaun had expected a grilling, but Tenner’s mood was unusually soft. He was never like this. Had Tyson’s disappearance affected him so much?

‘But listen,’ he continued. ‘We’ve all, ah, made mistakes.’

Shaun looked up. Tenner’s face was slightly red. He was being awkward. Then it clicked. He hadn’t mentioned the incident with the wooden ruler since it happened.

‘So, how about we all just give each other a clean slate?’ he said.

Will and Shaun looked at each other, unable to believe their luck.

‘Um, sure,’ said Will.

Tenner gave them a thin-lipped smile. ‘So, no Megan, hey?’

‘Do you know what’s going on with her family?’ said Shaun.

‘No.’ Tenner shook his head. ‘I’m afraid not. But I’d imagine they’re worried out of their minds. Have you two spoken to her?’

‘She’s not online or anything,’ said Shaun.

Tenner settled back into his seat. ‘Well, boys. That puts us in a difficult position. The way the school term’s worked out this year I’m afraid our first debate is on the week after next—’

Will interrupted him. ‘Sir, I’m not sure if I want to do it. And I don’t think Megan will be up for it, with everything.’

Tenner raised a finger. ‘I know, but you might be interested to learn where our first debate is. They just emailed out the tournament breakdown. They want us to fly to Brisbane to go up against one of the private schools.’

‘For the first debate?’ Shaun frowned. Usually the outback schools would compete against each other in the heats, and then they’d start getting teams down to Brisbane once the semi-finals started. Last year, he and Will and Megan had been just one victory off the semis.

‘Yes,’ Tenner said. ‘The way the maths works out, one of the schools has to travel down to Brissie. And that’s us. If we have a team.’

Will shifted in his chair. ‘Sir, my parents can’t afford to get me down to Brisbane.’

‘I know. But I’ve spoken to Mr Hagger and he’s prepared to foot the bill. Scotts mines have given the school a nice sponsorship deal for exactly these types of events. We’ll need to find billets down there so we’ve got a place to stay, but that shouldn’t be too difficult. You’d have to stick with debating for the whole year, though. I want commitment from you both.’ He looked at Will as he said this. ‘You need to think about your school participation, okay? Debating will help with your English, it’ll help with university—’

‘I’m not thinking about uni,’ said Will. ‘I’ll just end up on the mine, like my dad. Like everyone.’

Tenner pressed his lips together: a familiar sign of frustration. He was often frustrated when talking to Will. Then he turned to Shaun. ‘Not everyone wants to work on the mines, do they, Shaun?’

No answer. Shaun was too busy processing the idea of Brisbane. ‘We’ll do it,’ he said. ‘We can go. Give us a chance to talk to Megan.’

Will was about to object, but Tenner spoke first. ‘Let’s give Megan a couple of days and see what the situation is then. We may need to start thinking about a replacement, at least for this first debate.’

‘We can’t do it without her,’ said Shaun.

Megan was their best speaker. Will was relaxed and funny and charming, half-improvising his speeches from a single scrunched-up palm card. Shaun wrote out everything on his cards and forced himself to look up when he was speaking, like Tenner told him to. But Megan was the best.

‘We may need to think about it,’ said Tenner. ‘I’ll notify your parents about the trip. Okay?’

Will nodded. ‘Yeah, okay,’ he mumbled.

They gathered up their bags.

‘Good to see you, boys,’ Tenner said, clapping his hands together. ‘We’ll wipe the table this year. And I’m glad to see your eye’s good again, Shaun.’

‘Um, thanks.’ Shaun could tell that Tenner had scared himself with that incident.

Tenner gave him a hearty pat on the back. What a dork.

‘Man,’ Will said the second they were out of earshot, ‘what the hell? Brisbane’s cool, but Megan won’t be okay by then. It’s less than two weeks away.’

Shaun hoped he was wrong. The idea of a plane trip and overnight stay with Megan was almost too exciting to think about. But it wasn’t the only reason he was so desperate to go.

‘The car,’ he said, ‘from Scotts. The early car hire return and flight to Brisbane. It’s got to have something to do with Tyson. It has to. There’ll be answers in Brisbane.’

Will didn’t look convinced. ‘We don’t know that. And we can’t just fly into Brisbane and walk around investigating a murder. It’s massive. Besides, what kind of connection have we got? We’re just going to walk into the Scotts office and demand answers?’

Shaun was silent, but Will was right. He hadn’t been to Brisbane since last year. His mum had taken him there just after his dad died. It was supposed to be a fun holiday to make him forget about everything. But it hadn’t worked.

‘There’s a chance, though,’ he said. ‘And you’re great at debating.’

Will rolled his eyes. ‘Please. I’m amazing. But that’s not the point.’

‘Let’s just see if we can talk to Megan this afternoon, okay?’

Will hesitated.

Shaun noticed the awkward silence.

‘What?’ he said.

‘Wellllllll,’ Will began, ‘you don’t want to tell the police first?’

‘No. Like I said, they didn’t believe me the first time. They just went and told my mum, and she thinks I’ve lost it. We’ve got to tell Megan first. She deserves the truth. I want to tell her.’

He took a deep breath. If he wanted people to believe him, he’d have to stay calm.

‘She needs to know,’ he said.

‘She’s not here,’ Will said after they had completed their lap of the play area that surrounded the big pool. There were half-a-dozen small kids taking lessons from a burly coach, and a bored attendant at the front counter was sucking lazily on a rainbow Paddle Pop. But no Megan.

‘I guess we’ve got to go tell the police. Don’t we?’ Will lifted his hand up to block the glare from the sun.

‘I don’t know.’

Will stopped and looked at the pool. ‘Didn’t you say the body came up at you?’ he said.

‘What?’

‘When you saw the body, you said there was nothing at first, but then it came to the surface.’

Shaun bit the inside of his cheek while he remembered the image. ‘Yeah.’

‘That’s weird,’ said Will. ‘It means that the body must have been weighed down by something, at the bottom, that then came loose just as you stood on the shore and saw it float up.’

‘Yeah, I guess.’

Shaun hadn’t processed it like that before, but now that Will had said it, of course it was bizarre. What had the body been weighed down by? And why? Had the killers drowned him, tied some sort of anchor to him and then come back to get the body? It didn’t make any sense.

A sudden thought lit Will’s face. ‘Maybe there are more bodies down there, weighed down, waiting to come up.’

‘Maybe,’ Shaun said, thinking about the possibilities. The film flashed through his mind. A serial killer on the loose in their little town. Hard to believe.

‘Look, we’ve got to tell the police,’ Will said, ‘if there’s a possibility of more than one body. Or—’

‘Hey.’ There was a quiet voice behind them.

Shaun turned around.

It was Megan.