We settled into our new school routine. The periods were shorter to fit the shorter day. My part-time job looking after Leo and Henry in the afternoon didn’t fit with when I got home from school. Goodbye, pocket money.

Being able to go to school again helped. It felt like normal wasn’t so far away. I was glad to have assignments to think about and other things besides disaster to fill my head with.

The city kept changing. In the morning the bus would go past a row of shops with gaping holes where the entire front walls had fallen off. In the afternoon, there’d be no shops, just a patch of bare earth. Bulldozers, cranes, machinery – the city was alive with them.

The days shortened as we got into winter. When school finished for the day we boarded our buses in the dark and travelled home in the dark.

In school, nobody took much notice of an aftershock below four. All the teachers were pretty Zen about them. But we had a relief teacher one day for Social Studies when there was a three point five. Mr Jenks leapt to his feet, yelling his head off. ‘Forswear that, you foul fiend! Fie upon you! Flee and never trouble us again.’ Then he sat down again as if nothing had happened. ‘Do continue with your work, young ladies.’

A stunned silence before our entire class shrieked with laughter.

He lifted his head from his book and grinned. ‘Yes. Well.’

You know you’re in Christchurch when your teacher goes nuts.

Things at home were just about back to normal, with only my family plus Matt in the house. Leo and Henry had calmed down enough to sleep in their own place.

The Chan family were going to rent Mrs Malone’s house, even though the front wall was propped up with lengths of timber. ‘Why isn’t Mrs M coming back?’ I asked. She wouldn’t want to abandon her garden – she was always out in it.

‘The quakes have shaken her confidence,’ Mum said. ‘She doesn’t want to live by herself anymore. She’s settled in with her son’s family and taken over their garden.’

I’d miss her, but it’d be good to have the Chans back in the street. ‘What about Prof? Have you heard from him?’

‘Didn’t you notice?’ Mum asked. ‘His house has been red-stickered. He’s staying in Wanaka until things settle down a bit.’

We’d stopped sleeping on the lounge floor when Natalie and Co moved back home. Our mattresses went back on the beds and everyone returned to their own rooms.

The window in Blake’s room got mended and Matt moved in with him, which Blake didn’t seem to mind.

I shut my door, as far as it would go. I had my very own space again with no kids in the house to come bashing on the door. I didn’t put my new mirror on the wall. Along with anything heavy, like my hair dryer and the lava lamp Shona had found in an op shop, the mirror stayed on the floor.

I liked being by myself, I really did – and if I told myself that enough I’d believe it in the end. It took me a week to get used to being alone in the darkness. Stupid foul fiend earthquakes – I was handling them.

But it doesn’t pay to get too pleased with yourself when you live in a shaky city. Every time an aftershock jerked me awake, what did I do? I trotted off to sleep on the floor in the parents’ room, that’s what I did.

The days rolled on by, punctuated by aftershocks but some good happenings as well. A totally awesome happening was our whole class getting goody bags from a school in the North Island. The kids from Hastings Girls’ High had fundraised and sent us a whole bunch of stuff.

We fell on those bags. Pencils, pens, felt pens, stationery, girly stuff. Just knowing other people were still thinking of us, still wanting to help – that was huge. I carefully packed it all up, took it home and arranged it on my bedroom floor where a) it couldn’t fall b) I could see it and c) nobody would walk on it. Whenever I used a pen or a sheet of pretty writing paper I made sure to put everything back in its place.

That corner turned into my go-to place when I was feeling low, fed up or just vaguely annoyed with life. All that stuff reminded me that other people did care. They couldn’t be here in my city, but they hadn’t forgotten us.

We didn’t know what was going to happen with our house. Its fate was the same old Christchurch story – nothing was certain and things kept changing. First of all the inspectors said our house would be fixed. Then another lot of men with clipboards said it couldn’t be. Next we were told the ground was too unstable and we couldn’t rebuild even if our house had to be bulldozed.

The parents spent hours on the phone to officialdom, but in the end gave up. ‘We’ll live in it till they pull it down round our ears,’ Dad said.

Fine by me. The floor sloped, none of the doors would shut properly and there were gaps in some of the corners. But we were lucky: we had a house that kept us dry and reasonably warm. The drains got fixed, the water flowed from the taps – yep, we were one of the lucky families in a city where people were living in garages and tents with nowhere else to go when winter properly hit.

Veronica in my class had moved five times already since February and she said they’d have to move again before the end of June. Louisa’s house had a tarpaulin instead of a side wall; they wanted to move out but rental places were almost impossible to find. Becky, Freya, Aimee and Christie’s houses were wrecked and they hadn’t been able to save anything.

I went to school on Monday of the third week in June with everything ticking along nicely. I still missed Katie and Shona, but I now had earthquake friends like Matt, Joanne, Freya, Millie and Jess. Some days, I even added Feral Clancy to my list.

We were in our first lesson for the day and all was well until it wasn’t. The room rattled and shook, desks skidded around on the floor. Mrs D yelled, ‘Drop, cover, hold!’ but we’d already all dived under our desks.

Somebody near me was crying. Veronica. As if she hadn’t had enough drama already this year. Mr Jenks and his hissy fit flicked across my memory. I yelled, ‘Forswear, foul fiend! Fie upon you! Flee and never trouble us again.’

Veronica hiccupped; Freya and a couple of others laughed. The siren was going – evacuation. Out we trooped onto the sports field. ‘A five. That was at least a five.’

Some of the guesses were wild – nine point two, eight point seven. No way.

We found out later that it was a five point five.

The school had to be closed for inspection to make sure it wasn’t going to collapse on our heads. We went home.

Natalie, you want me to collect the boys?

Got them thanx. Glad yr ok.

I walked slowly from the bus stop. Bloody ground – why couldn’t it just stay in one place? Who needed earth that upped and bounced around just for the fun of it? Not me.

I turned the corner before our place and, oh joy, Mrs Nagel’s car was parked across the gutter.

I can do this. I can be polite. I wished she hadn’t chosen an earthquake day to visit – my nerves were still rattling and my heart grabbed any old excuse to do the pile-driver drum riff.

I shoved the front door open, dropped my bag, stuck a smile on my face and walked into the lounge. ‘Hi, Matt. Hello, Mrs Nagel, would you like…’

‘Lyla Sherwin, can’t you see I’m speaking to my son? Where are your manners? Leave us alone. Go on. Get out.’

Matt held his head. ‘Mum! You can’t…jeez!’

Rage, red hot and burning, filled every atom of me. Force ten on the quake scale. I jammed one fist on my hip and pointed at the door. ‘This is my house, not yours. You get out. Right now. Leave!’

Mrs Nagel sat there, going red and doing the stranded fish gasp, then heaved herself up. ‘Come on, Matthew. We’ll leave this young lady in charge of her house.’

Matt kept his butt firmly in his chair. ‘Goodbye, Mum.’

‘The door’s that way.’ I took a massive stride towards her. I was mad enough to grab her.

She gave me a snooty look. I glared; she caved and scuttled around me.

I didn’t move till we heard her car take off with the engine revving.

The adrenalin faded. I looked at Matt. ‘Sorry.’

‘She deserved it.’ Short, sharp, didn’t want to talk about it.

Fine.

The house shook, the earth rumbled, I fell down, Matt got thrown from the chair. We hunkered down on the floor, turtle style. This felt worse than the earlier quake. My heart felt as if any minute now I’d be spewing it up on the carpet. I couldn’t stand it, couldn’t take any more.

But you have to, just like you have to pick up the stuff from the pantry, put back the contents of the fridge and clean up the spills.

And text the parents and Blake. I’m ok. You?

They were all good, but Mum and Dad would be working late. Damage in the city. The emergency room busy with the injured.

We gathered the neighbours for a communal meal. That night, Leo, Henry and their parents slept on our lounge floor with Matt, my family and the Chans. I was so glad to be one of a crowd.

Aftershocks shuddered through all night long.

But it turned out that nature still hadn’t finished with my city.