Laurinda by Alice Pung Page A

Katie.
    “Yeah?” challenged Chelsea. “Well, you’re part of this too, so don’t pretend not to know about it, you self-righteous bitch. You sat in the classroom and did nothing. You wanted to see what would happen.”
    Brodie examined the room with her murky lion’s eyes. “All of you are part of this,” she said.
    “I need to go to the toilet.” I stood up.
    “Oh, for crying out loud!” Chelsea didn’t know whether I was being funny or smart or what. “Piss in your pants.”
    I sat back down.
    “No one say a word,” hissed Chelsea.
    We sat for a minute or so in silence, broken only by Chelsea giggling once or twice in panic. I didn’t dare look at Amber, in case she saw the expression on my face. Stupid bitches, I thought.
    The wait seemed like a small eternity, even though it was less than a minute; I wondered why we sat there glued to our seats instead of dispersing because there was no longer a teacher in the room. But deep down, we knew there was nowhere for us to go, and that if we did that we’d get into even more trouble.
    In some self-denying part of their brains, the Cabinet probably thought that things could continue as normal, that if they did what we were trained to do at this school – be Young Ladies, innocuous, innocent and well behaved – the repercussions would not be so bad, that the incident would be put down to Ms Vanderwerp’s fragility, and how she could not control a class.
    But I knew that every teacher would see through this lie.
    After a time, we heard heavy, determined footsteps outside. The Growler stormed into the room, looking around, making sure we felt her gaze. “Who is responsible for this?” she hollered.
    No one said a word.
    She slammed the door shut. “Despicable, vile act of bullying!” We would all get detention and stay in at lunchtime unless someone spoke, she announced. “Come on, own up – all of you are witnesses.”
    Then it dawned on us. As if we thought we could lie about it! As if we could pretend it had never happened! All that time wasted hiding evidence, when the Cabinet could have spent the remaining moments of the class devising one good collective story.
    Mrs Grey looked around. Her eyes were like a sniper’s, and when they stopped on a student, her words became ammunition. “Siobhan?”
    Siobhan looked down at her desk.
    “Meredith? Isabelle? Stella?”
    They all remained silent. Then she turned her gaze on me. Thin red trees of veins had etched themselves into her cheeks. “Lucy?”
    I kept my jaw clamped and lowered my head.
    “Oh, for heaven’s sake! None of you are going out to lunch until somebody owns up. You’ll have a whole hour to think about what you have done. I expected better than this from Year Tens.”
    An hour. I could see Amber’s back relaxing, curving back into the chair. During that hour, she would be able to rally the troops and concoct a convincing story. She looked at Chelsea – but that was a mistake, because Chelsea could not stop a smirk from insinuating itself on her sharp little face.
    “Chelsea!” hammered the Growler. “What do you have to smile about?”
    Chelsea looked down at the table again.
    It was peculiar: the Growler had not asked Chelsea whether she knew who was responsible for this vile act. In fact, she’d not asked any of the Cabinet; she hadn’t even glanced their way. Surely the next person to be asked to report on school transgressions would be Brodie, the prefect? But no.
    “When I leave, the teacher on yard duty will stay with you through lunchtime,” the Growler said.
    Amber’s shoulders slumped. All plans of insurrection were thwarted.
    *
    The teacher on duty was Mr Sinclair. He came into the classroom and didn’t say a word as he closed the door behind him.
    From his seat behind his desk, he looked at us for a long while. It was not a good look. Even Gina, who would have given her mum’s signed Michael Bolton album to have Mr Sinclair look at her for longer than three