The twins hadn’t always been like this. Not too long ago, they’d had a whole lot of that same boyish energy as Trevor had, but with a burgeoning sense of leadership that had stopped them from engaging in a lot of the really silly teen behaviour and, by extension, that had stopped it in others.
But then their parents had died.
I stared at them without expression, deliberately. Being upset, being angry, reacting, would just fuel the need inside them to hurt others so that they didn’t have to deal with their own pain. And anyway, I didn’t give a shit about the stupid dress. I should’ve binned it the minute Mum gave it to me, but that was a whole other story.
“Good to see you this morning, fellas,” I said, then nodded to the tables. “Take a seat, because we need to talk about your essays.”
A groan went up throughout the classroom, although Felicity sat straighter. I met her eyes with a smile for a second, hopefully sending a wave of reassurance her way. Her work had been amazing, as always, and yet her anxiety spiked each time I talked about feedback.
“But before we start,” I sat on the edge of my desk. “Who’s got some good news to share?” I smiled as Trevor’s hand shot up. “Lemme guess, you made a goal from the one hundred metre line again?”
“One hundred metres?” one of his friends spluttered. “That’s footy, Miss!”
My ignorance about sport was legendary and a running joke in the class, which I often played on to build a positive class culture. But today, as the Walker twins and their friends sat down in the back row, they all stared at me steadily, no trace of humour on their faces.
“Phones away, ladies,” I told the two girls on the end of their row of desks, then turned back to the class. “Alright, Trevor, tell me about your latest basketball exploit in… twenty words or less…”
He went over the word limit, but damn if the boy wasn’t an excellent storyteller. He had the class eating out of his hand as he described his nightly game, but I needed to remind myself not to let it run on for too long. I’d learned early in the year that he could talk and talk if given the chance so, at a salient point, I curtailed the conversation and turned to the rest of the class.
“Anyone else got news to share?” I asked, and was met by a customary silence. Another reason why I tended to let Trevor talk was that he was one of the vocal ones, while the others often clammed up the minute I opened the floor to them. As I looked around the room, Knox Walker smiled slowly.
I wasn’t going to like what he had to say, I just knew it from the glint in his eye. So, as he raised his hand from his position in the back row, I scanned the rest of the class, desperately looking for someone else to call upon. But, even if there had been, I didn’t get the chance. His phone appeared in his hand and then he held it up for the whole class to see.
And that’s when my already fairly dreadful day got so much worse.
“Nice bikini, Miss,” he drawled.
Chapter3
These kids were in Year 10 and still had that meerkat-like vibe of younger students. They were all turning to look back at him, peering at the phone, and I knew exactly what they were looking at.
I just had no idea how he’d got access to it.
Being a teacher, I followed the education department rules about social media to the letter: no accepting friend requests from students. I stuck to ‘old people’ platforms like Facebook and Instagram and, being a fat woman on the internet, I kept my Insta profile locked down, so that only friends could view my posts.
Like this one.
Colleen had taken the photo when we were on holiday to Bali. I remembered the warm humid air as well as the faint feeling of shame when I’d dared to walk onto the white powdery sands in a bikini, despite my body not fitting the ideal of what a ‘bikini-ready’ body was. But I’d straightened my spine as I strode out like I owned the whole place, Coll egging me on, while we found a spot on the sand with plenty of sun and lay down. The sun had caressed my body as I’d never experienced. All my life, my mum had insisted on covering me up in the longest cut of swimsuit she could find, pushing me to add a voluminous cover-up on over the top. But that day I’d sun-baked, feeling like a damn goddess, and when Coll had encouraged me to kneel up and strike a pinup girl-like pose, I’d agreed.
Only my friends would see it, that’s what I had assured myself when I posted the pic on my Insta profile. I could do this. I could be happy with… no, I could be proud of my body.
But I felt none of that confidence now.
Keep your cool, I told myself, even as my heart pounded.Keep your damn cool.Nothing good ever came from losing your temper and yelling at students. It traumatised the kids who didn’t deserve it, and just encouraged the ones that did, giving them the reaction they were looking for all along.
“Knox, you know you shouldn’t have your phone out in class. Put it away and then go outside and wait for me. I’ll talk to you in a tick.”
I managed to get that all out with only a slight waver in my voice, but that little wobble was perhaps enough for the whole class to go quiet. The kids’ eyes flicked back and forth from me to Knox as he shoved his chair back then stalked to the front of the class.
“Why?” Wherever there was Knox, there was his twin, Maddox. He bristled at me from his seat, despite it being clear to everyone here that his brother had over-stepped. “It’s not like he took the photo.”
“Mad—”
“This is bullshit!” Maddox shoved his desk forward, resulting in a bark of irritation from the boys in the row in front as it pushed into the backs of their chairs. He got up and went after his brother, the two of them sharing a conspiratorial smile as they walked out the door, slamming it behind them.
“Right, so I’m going to put a paragraph up on the board,” I said, clicking on the data projector. “And I’m going to need you guys to copy it down.”
“What? How come—?” some yelped.