The Great Between

Gracie's Vanishing Act

As Max and I step into the art room, I have a sinking feeling that this will be my last time in here. It's probably my favourite room in the whole school and it's definitely the one most familiar to me. I take my seat at the desk I've occupied every lesson since Year 7 – next to the door with Max sitting beside me – and survey the rest of the room. The tubs by the sink are overflowing with paintbrushes and the light is catching the marker patterns on the windows, the ones Kath scrawled there when I was in Year 9. Through those windows, you can just about see the science block, where Leo spends most of his classes now. The wall behind me is full of posters from exhibitions in the city. There is a whole row of postcards I've added, sticking up a new card every time I've been to a gallery with the class. It's become my role and Kath checks at the end of every excursion that I've got one. I forgot last year and she made me sketch one up, so now my little cubist drawing sits between a tiny Van Gogh print and a still life on the wall.

Some of my favourite school memories have happened at these paint-flecked desks. It's where I met Charlie in Year 8. We were both too nervous to speak to anyone and she bumped my jar of water, destroying my painting and forging one of the strongest friendships I have in the same clumsy second.

'Are you getting all weird and sentimental?' Max asks, kicking me under the desk as Kath takes her place at the head of the room.

'No.'

She gives me a look like she doesn't at all believe me and I shrug. Surely I'm allowed to get misty-eyed in the art room of all places.

The class runs pretty much as usual, with huge lists of holiday homework handed out as Kath encourages me to find a more settled idea to work on. My folio is still a mess of indecision and circular ideas, but she keeps telling me she's excited to see what I make.

Near the end of the lesson, Kath hovers near my desk. Max sits up straighter, like she's taking a meeting. 'What can we do for you this morning, Kath?'

'I just wanted both of you to know that you can contact me at any time. If you need me during these holidays and whatever comes after, send me an email or call or do whatever you need to. Not just for school stuff. If you need anything, you can call me. Okay?'

Of course we know this already. In Year 7, just after Max's mum died and we were both struggling at school, Kath was the reason I came to school every day. She has an ability to see students clearer than we can see themselves. It would make her a great psychologist or criminal mastermind. It must help with teaching too, because she sees the best in people, even when they're being as indecisive and irritating as I am with my folio. Kath has always been there when we need her and it's nice to hear her extend that support into the future.

'Thank you,' I say.

'We will be in touch,' Max says seriously.

Kath rolls her eyes at Max and slips a folded sticky note into the pages of my sketchbook. She gives Max one too. Both have her phone number scrawled on them.

'I'm serious, Miss Lovell,' she says to Max. 'If you need me, I will be the most supportive teacher you've ever fucking seen.'

'Yes, sir.' Max salutes her and Kath rolls her eyes again, wandering back to her desk, slumping in her spinning chair.

'Back to work, Miss King,' she says, winking at me.

*

At lunch, Edward has decided to be as irritating and infuriating as he possibly can.

'If the Virus were to infect sixty percent of the population before we get a vaccine,' he muses, swinging on his chair, 'and it kills about a quarter of the people infected, how many people are likely to die?'