Chapter 21: Lock and Chase

Molcum Corkle watches the big TV in his living room with his first finger’s second knuckle firmly in his mouth. A new feature of the Database, introduced during the last summer holidays, allows live feeds from some schools to be viewed in real time. As part of this, you can view a screen with multiple views - four, nine, even up to sixteen, depending on the cameras linked to the feed. Yarra’s School’s inaugural HP Saturday is the first in their region to compete with the Traditionals in terms of live feeds. Lixmouth and Scarleton have both gone there already.

Not every camera, he’s realised, is included in the feed. Some of the teachers’ body cams are, but then others really can’t be. Maybe because they’re not actually wired up?

Molcum didn’t log in at the start of the feed, at 10 AM. He’d still been too upset from the argument with Lazabel. Plus he’d just been talking to Dickle, a man he knows from the meetings at the Chorus Line, with Lazabel newly sulking in their bedroom - locked in, to be more accurate - confined to quarters like a squaddie on a charge. He now knows what she doesn’t, that the boy will be let into Yarra’s school. Allowed to participate- just, not with his sister. He’d put that blockon threough Dickle himself.

When the kids had gone off, out of the house and headed for the bus, Lazabel had, for the first time in years, completely lost her rag with him.

“HP! Dear God Molcum, a humiliation punishment? Some fool has actually gone and named it that? Did you know about this, Molcum?”

He knew. Of course he knew, he’d been in several meetings where they’d talked about it plainly. But he’d tried to keep Yarra out of it!

Lazable tells him, arms swinging for emphasis, “It’s all gone to your head! Not only your head, but Taudren’s head as well! Yarra found out months ago, I think. She gave it away - I’m not even sure she even realised she’d done it - that Taudren’s been watching that disgusting SPD for months. ‘Yeah, well you want to see that schoolgirl stuff he watches in his room.’ That’s what she said. Then tried to pretend she meant something else. ‘I mean that Billy Hall show.’ It was tacked on the end, I could see her fishing around for it. So I changed the subject like I hadn’t really noticed. In his room, she said. So I went to look. He doesn’t even try to hide it, Molcum! All his viewing history - it’s right there, out in the open, loaded up! And don’t try pretending that’s without you knowing, Molcum. Because you have to have given him the login - just to him! Didn’t you, Molcum?”

He’s too shame-faced, now she’s finally found out, to either confirm or deny this out loud.

“It’s par for the course though in this house though, right? All that horrible, horrible, television, Molcum! Billy Hall about pulling those girls’ breasts - their actual breasts, man! They barely pretend it’s for laughs anymore! That ... Completely Gratuitous Punishment Hour? That’s its actual name? It must have gone the heads of every decent man in Dogaland!”

“He’s a boy. He’s got urges,” Molcum says limply.

Lazabel just stares. “Admit it. Say it! You gave him access to that endless schoolgirl filth.”

“It’s everywhere, Lazabel,” Molcum mutters, “he was bound to see it sooner or later.”

“So you thought - let’s make it sooner? I was shocked to my boots! It was all there, Molcum, every last thing he’s been looking at. It goes back near a full year! Near as pip and pop, as soon as that site was an actual thing! That’s how you respect the women in this house! And - whoop-de-doo, surprise! It’s even happening in the actual family now! You let that boy pinch and poke his own mother?”

“You let him too,” Molcum says. “You’re the one being pinched and poked, Laza.”

She glares back at him. “Maybe. Probably. Yes. But as part of our agreement from way back when. You insisted - you’re in charge. All the - sexual decisions.” Her voice has dropped to quiet. She stares at nothing. Then her anger comes back. “He’s a boy, just a boy! He’s barely finished puberty yet!”

“He’s a bit further on than that now, Laz...”

“You let him watch those records with it still coming on him! His first, most powerful experiences, Molcum! And you know how it works. He’ll be like that for life! And now, your daughter too? Made to wear that joke of an imitation skirt, barely covering her bum bits? Letting every pathetic inadequate at that school smack her bum and ... cane her, and goodness knows what else? You should be out there at those school gates protecting her, Molcum! Instead of sitting here watching filth every night. It’s all addled your brains! It’s your daughter, you weakling!”

Molcum is looking increasingly glum. In fits and bursts, his face shows defiance. Then she hits him with another tirade, which saps out any resilience left. “Laz, there’s really nothing I can do about that.”

“Nothing you can be arsed to do about it, more like. I bet you even voted for these animals, didn’t you? Admit it!”

“Laz...”

“Your own son is going to that school with his sister, making sure she gets there? I heard you last night, Molcum. ‘He can watch if he likes!’ And what would that do to the pair of them, eh? To watch her being punished by those filthy boors! What half-decent father lets his son do that? But you - you! You gave him your special permission! We all heard you, Molcum!”

“They won’t let him in. It won’t make any difference. He’s just making sure she gets there. I was angry,” he adds. “I was angry she’d been given-”

“You think it’s her fault?”

“No, Laz, I was angry that ... that she can be given -”

“Oh yes, so angry you’ve been letting your son watch filth from those Traditional schools - right there, in his history, night after night. With their - laughing men just - being beastly as beastly can be to girls who they’re meant to be protecting! Not even being beastly to grown-ups, Molcum? At least Billy bloody Hall does his filthy things to adults. Or at least, he used to. Schoolgirls now, Molcum! And now my poor baby ... It breaks my heart, it breaks her mother’s heart.”

There’s silence between them, She’s backed him into the corner of his sofa. She never stands and berates him like this, she’s always been the quiet one, the one who just nods yes, if you says so.

“It happens to them all now, Laza.”

Lazabel slowly lifts her eyes to his face. “Really, Molcum? That’s your excuse? That it happens to them all? It’s your daughter! Your son?”

“I know, Laz, but...”

“What? But what? There’s no but any decent man can put in there. God, how I wish her dad had been that lovely Mr Ullerade. Not you!”

This really stings Molcum. “He’s the one who put her in that bloody orange skirt!”

“He’s the one who tried to teach those girls what’s right and wrong. Yarra told me, the only choice he had was to pick those girls or lose his job!”

“Well I didn’t have any kind of choice either, Laz!”

“Yes you did, Molcum Corkle! You made a choice to watch those filthy programmes! You made the choice to give Taudren the keys to all that filth! You had a choice to tell Taudren he could pinch me or not! And yes, I’m stupid too, because I let him! But I didn’t tell him he could go with Yarra to her punishment today, and I didn’t tell him he could watch her get it, for all you cared! Just imagine if they actually let him do it! Let him watch her be humiliated! Let him ... gloat? Let him ... cheer those animals on? You think he’ll try and protect her? After all you’ve let him watch? If he’ll pinch his own mother, and pull up her skirts, and spank her - here, Molcum, here! Right here!” She’s pulled up her skirt and is pointing to her inner thigh, directly under her knicker line. “And he yanked these back! Pulled his own mother’s knickers right up her ... wotsit. And then, every pinch he did was getting ... closer and closer. Like he was daring himself to go further, you ... bastard. If he’ll do that to me, his mother - what d’you think he’ll do to his sister?”

“So I’m a bastard, am I?”

“Yes, you ... bloody well are. You nasty, stupid bastard.”

“Right,” says Molcum. He pushes himself up and out of the sofa. “Right. Get upstairs, Lazabel.”

“What?” She just glares.

“I said get upstairs. I’m teaching you a lesson.”

“Oh,” she says. “Really? That’s your best answer?”

“Get upstairs! Now!” he orders. And when she doesn’t move, he takes her by her upper arm and forces her to turn.

She shakes him off and says, “Keep your hands to yourself, you ugly, nasty, repulsive man.” And stomps upstairs in front of him. She heads for their room and goes inside. She says, “Don’t expect any nookie from me tonight. Or this week. Or this month. I’m on strike for as long as it takes, you nasty bugger!”

He’s rummaging in a drawer. He finds a key and goes and locks the window. Takes another, goes to the landing and slams their bedroom door shut, then locks it from the outside with a key.

“Oh yes,” she says from inside, “that’s so mature! I can see where Taudren gets it now!”

“You can stay in there till you cool down,” Molcum mutters.

“And what are you going to do?” she asks. “Go downstairs and watch some schoolgirls getting tortured? Your own sodding daughter? That sounds right up your street!”

She’s still shouting as he lumps his weight back downstairs.

He turns the TV on, then turns it back off. Sits stewing in the mire of his tail-chasing thoughts.

Then his phone rings. It’s Pieter Dickle, asking him if he wants to let his son go into the Yarra’s school.

Afterwards, he sits there staring at the blank TV. Would he have done it - let him go in - if Lazabel hadn’t lost her temper with him? He flares his nostrils. He’s a sucker for letting Taudren get what he wants. Of course he would.

Not letting him touch Yarra though, he thinks, that was the right thing to do, for sure. And, in context, he feels smug and virtuous.

When Burris Eccar first gets to the Teachers Common Room, Tund is just loafing there, watching in a slouch. It’s short-arse Koffa, the ‘Well I got trained at Lixmouth Trad’ pouff, who’s bossing the girls. At least he’s using his hands though, and not a fucking whippy stick. Eccar is not a fan of canes or straps or any of that arm-extending failure of muscle. You don’t need those props to put youth in its place. Weakling’s props, Burris Eccar calls them.

He generally likes Tund. More or less. Well, tolerates him, anyway. Tolerates is about as good as it gets with anyone for Eccar. If he has friends or equals, it’s down at the gym in the arches under Kennigwort Central. Weight press buddies. Kindred muscle men - real men. Not that he hangs out with them afterwards. A side-by-side shower, a towel-up chew-over of the pumpers and gym candies, the latest shotgun stackers. That’s as far as Burris ever lets it go. Fuck the private invites, he can hold all that at full arm’s length - that side of the gym isn’t really real, not if he won’t let it be.

Obviously, it pisses him off that he has to ply his trade in a girl’s school. Teaching boys to build proper muscles would definitely suit him better than this. He’s aware, of course, why all these other buggers push their scooters up the ladies’ lane. Snatch sniffers. Oestrogen addicts. Ladies’ bicycle saddle lickers. Eccar doesn’t need all that pink stuff in his laundry of a morning. He tried it out to ease off the parental pressure, back in the day. Didn’t like it. Didn’t need it. Bitch left him off her own bat, and good riddance, so far as Burris was concerned. That was how he rationalised it to his parents, anyway, though - no need to dredge up the past - it wasn’t what she’d been complaining about.

As for this job - well, you do what needs must. It pays the utilities, keeps the taxmen at bay in their rat’s nests. You make the best of the hand that’s been shuffled.

Pint-sized Koffa starts peering at him now. Looking wary, pissed off. “I suppose you’ll be wanting at the girls then, Burris?”

The short-arse god’s gift has actually addressed him. Keep your offer to yourself, you weak little lickmouth. Instead, he says to Tund, “How come you’re sitting it out there, Dunnel? Can’t remember where you put your favourite stick? It’s stuck behind your head, if you turn and squint.”

Eccar’s now circling round the back of all the sloucher buckets - overstuffed bum traps where those academic weaklings loaf. Tall-boy Tund slumps in one of the fattest, twisting his long gift of a spine like a pretzel. Comfy chairs are for fucking weak-backs. If Eccar’s got to sit, he’ll take an upright so his spine can do some work.

But Tund, now Eccar’s in there, is relaxing - even if he’s making a performance of it. There, he’s lacing his fingers, elbows out and up on two fat arm rests. “Well thought I might watch the show for a change.” Tund is sliding narrow hips to the squishy leather chair-edge, till they’re angled as flat as if he’s lying in bed. He perches a stick-thin, black-socked ankle on a straight-up knee, at the top of a calf like a scaffolding pipe. “Got all day, pretty much, haven’t we Burris? Thought I might analyse Koffa’s technique. See if the Trads have clued him up.”

Eccar squints at the tableaux of girls and grunts, “Don’t look much to me like those chicklets are suffering.”

“No, yeah, that’s what I thought. Plus, one of em’s confused about what suffering should sound like.”

“Who, the Corkle girl?” grunts Eccar. “I reckon that one thinks she’s a practicing stoic.”

“No, watch,” says Tund. “I meant one of our mate Shrimp’s little toilet girl dykes.”

Koffa takes this cue by smacking up at Carrel in a hip-shifting flurry. The girl squeaks, and now she’s blushing as well. Yarra squeezes her hand back. When she glances at Misty, the girl says, “We’re not, we never did that!”

“Shush,” says Koffa and slaps Misty’s leg. Misty squeezes her eyes tight, muscles locking up in shock.

“You see which one I meant now?” Tund asks.

“It’s her jerky friend I’ll go at,” says Eccar. “At least you know when that one’s feeling something.”

Yarra glares at the pumped-up, bull-necked sadist.

Eccar glowers back. “You can take the staring stoic, Tund.”

Tund says, “Fair enough. I had enough fun with her last night, didn’t I?” He reaches behind his head for his cane and starts to feed it out. “Koffa,” he says, “time to split up the trio.”

Eccar starts to finger the camera at his chest. Tund holds up the cane with his right hand, lazy, then, still slouching backwards, flicks it back and forth in an air-whipping wave.

There’s a sudden crack outside, like a stone hitting glass. Even through the double glazed glass, they all hear it clearly. Eccar has turned to the windows behind him. He looks down, left and right, straining his face tight up against the glass. Then he’s working at the window catch. He slides the thing open, sticks out his head - stares, incensed - then just as quickly, he’s pulled it back inside. He barks out an order. “Tund, with me!”

“What?” says Tund. “Why?”

“Quickly!” Tund is marching through the Common Room chairs, ignoring the girls, who shrink back from his bulk.

“Why?” Tund asks again.

“Two girls, no uniforms! Here, on school grounds! Quickly! Let’s catch them!”

Scowling, Tund rocks himself up from the deep pit of the beige leather chair. Moving the cane to his other hand, he slashes it carelessly at Yarra’s nearby bum. The stick shifts her flesh in a pair of brutal waves. She hisses and sucks spit in through her teeth.

“You’ll be seeing me soon, Corkle. Guarantee it! Mark my dance card!” Then Tund thumps angry feet out after Eccar.

“Stay where you are please, girls.” This comes lightly out of Koffa. He strolls to the window, looks out - leans out. He looks down left and right. Then shrugs. He slides the window shut again. The three girls are still standing up on the table. Koffa lifts his wrist watch to his face.

Carrel crouches down to look at Yarra’s bum. With her left hand, she touches the nasty welt that’s growing. Yarra flinches.

“God, sorry if that hurt,” says Carrel.

But Yarra’s eyes are on Misty, not the crouching girl. She looks really upset - it’s bubbling up freely now that Eccar and Tund have left the room. Yarra, still holding her hand, feels it quaking. Then she’s turned her head to Koffa. Her eyes flick to Misty’s face, then back to the man. She quickly shakes her head, then flicks eyes back to indicate Misty.

The light-built man moves closer. With the back of two fingers, he lightly touches Misty’s inner knee, which is visibly quaking. Misty jerks and lets out a high-pitched shriek. When he looks at her face, Yarra knows he must see the look that’s so plainly there. Misty’s teeth are even chattering.

“You see that?” Yarra asks. “That’s what you sods are doing to her.”

“Yes, I see,” says Koffa, and lets out a sigh. He catches Misty’s eyes and says, “You’re just not enjoying this on any level, are you?”

“What?” Misty asks, like she has no comprehension how anyone could. Koffa lifts his watch again and stares for several seconds. “Those stray girls might have done you a favour.” He bites a lip. “By my watch, technically, the first hour is up. You could say she’s done her time. And there’s only me here right now to make that decision.”

Carrel’s mouth falls open. “Will you let her go home?”

“Her?” Koffa asks, eyebrows lifting.

Misty’s hand is crushing Yarra’s. She asks in a high voice, “Are you letting us go, please?”

Yarra’s eyes meet Koffa’s next. He points back with a finger, shaking his head. “Dickle upped yours to three, think you know that, Corkle. Egged on by that Governor. More than my job’s worth.” Then his head tilts to Carrel. He laughs, relaxed. Cheeky. “What about you then? Got half a mind you might deserve a wee bit more.”

In reply, Carrel lets out a breathy squeak. Misty’s eyes blink wide, then flick to Yarra’s.

“He can’t let me go,” Yarra says. “Dickle bumped me to three like he said.”

Then Carrel is picking at her fingers, gabbling, “You can make me stay behind, but you’ve got to let Misty go home right away! Because if Yarra’s got to stay-” and then she falls silent.

“Wow,” says Koffa. “Now that sounds like a sacrifice. With maybe, hidden benefits?”

Carrel starts to blush again.

Koffa is now pressing a code into his camera. “Guelder, right? That’s your name?”

Carrel nods.

“I don’t want to leave you - it feels wrong,” Misty moans.

“You’ve got to go,” says Yarra. “Misty, don’t feel bad. You don’t need what’s coming, it won’t be just him.”

“Meckle Koffa, teacher,” Koffa says to the camera. “Guelder needs another hour’s HP today. Misconduct - suspected - of the squidgy kind.” He detaches the camera and aims it at Misty. “But this one - Lutyens? She’s free to go. Lutyens’ H is complete. Let’s just say - she passed?”

Carrel stares at Misty, smiling, full of emotion, “Go on, Misty! I’ll be alright, I promise! I’m staying with Yarra!”

“You’ll have to come along now,” says Koffa to Misty. “You two as well. I need to escort Lutyens out, but I can’t leave any girls unattended today.”

He waves them down from their perch on the table. They follow to the door, just as Eccar thumps past in the wrong direction, heading towards the far set of stairs, shouting over his shoulder, “Tund, I said you should follow me!”

There’s a small crowd at the head of the near set of stairs. Two men standing back, plus the backsides of two more and the heads of two girls, who are almost at the top of the stairs. One man at the top is tall turd Tund, who stares after Eccar - flicks his eyes to Koffa - then turns back to watch the event just below him.

Keet has brought a catapult. Solid polished wood, strong, with thick elastic and a nice rubber cups. She fishes it out and shows it to Farthing, who tries to pull the cup back - it’s hard - then hands it back to Keet.

The girls shuffle along, low down beside the school block so they’re not seen from the windows. When they get close to Cuckles’ windows, last classroom, ducking down to stay low, they hear a girl grunting as slaps thump her bum.

“There’s something happening in this one!” Keet hisses, turning her hoodied head to Farthing.

She hunches to a halt and holds her hand out to stop the girl behind her. The creeps forward, listening, one step at a time. She starts picking up pebbles from a strip of gravel underneath the window. Quite a a few are round ones, like pebbles you see at the seaside when it’s stones, all rolled and chipped down by waves till they’re smooth.

Farthing looks back, squinting past the edge of her own up-turned hoodie. There’s no-one outside. No-one is following. She creeps forward too, listening. Then frowns. Then scowls. She’s heard some voices. Is that her dad? She knows he’s here, she’s seen him from the atrium roof, heard him talk about his prodgny to this foppish-looking man she hears now too.

“I want to see!” she hisses.

“We’ll get seen,” Keet hisses back.

But Farthing’s quickly scooted on past Keet and out the other side. Keet shuffles behind, making sure she’s not seen. There’s no clear place she can spot where they can see into the classroom without being seen. But Farthing is ahead of her, fired up, already moving. There’s a plant climbing up the side of the men’s urinal block and Farthing, light, is using it to shin up to a half-way-rotted window ledge holding dirty frosted glass. Then she’s grabbed on the side of the corrugated roof and stuck a leg up and over it.

“Careful, Farthing!” Keet insists. She starts to climb too, because Farthing is crawling away along the top. The single slope of the roof is angled away from the playground and down towards bushes at the playing field edge. Ducking low, keeping flat, just Farthing’s head can be seen above the playground-side roof edge.

Keet is soon over and shuffling up beside her. She inches her head up. Her eyes focus on one of the governors, the foppish one behind another man, leaning against the front of the desk. She’s only seen this one from the top before and doesn’t really get who he is. She fishes out a pebble and fits it into the catapult cup. There’s movement in the room - it’s the desk-leaning one, he’s started to move towards these half-hidden girls who are bending over stools or something. Farthing snatches the catapult out of Keet’s hands, cup and pebble first. The elastic stretches, till Keet drops the handle. Then Farthing kneels up, takes aim, pulls the cup back.

The look on her face is angry, but she’s not strong enough to get the stone flying high. It goes off, curves down, and cracks the bottom corner of one window. She might have missed her aim at her dad, but the crack of the pebble sounds out like a gun shot.

“Why’d you do that?” Keet whines, grabbing the catapult back from her friend.

“My dad! He was going to have a go at Minty and those others!”

Keet pulls her back down. As faces come to stare through Cuckles’ classroom windows, their heads can’t be seen. But then a window cracks open in an upstairs room and it’s bull-neck, short-arse Eccar leaning out. He’s staring right at them. He shouts, behind him, “Tund, with me!”

They hear, “What? Why?”

“Quickly!”

And Eccar’s face is gone.

“Quick! They’ll be coming!” Keet tells Farthing. She’s turned around on her bottom and she’s shuffling to the lower edge of the corrugated roof. Tipping legs over, she jumps the single storey to the ground, landing in a gap between privet bushes. Farthing’s just behind her. She hesitates a bit longer before committing to the jump. And then they’re both up and scrambling along beside the bushes next to the long toilet block, away from the school.

There’s a shout behind them. Keet risks a look back. But it’s not Burris Eccar. It’s Farthing’s wiry dad, and he’s accelerating. “Run!” she says, but Farthing’s already ahead of her.

They sprint up the near edge of the playing field, sticking close to the bushes, since the playing field itself has zero cover. Past the toilet block is a break where they could cut and run across the top of the playground. But there’s cover further on as well. Off the top edge of the playground are storage buildings, the great big bins, a crest of the hill with a dip behind that and the school fence behind that. Down below is Coal Brook - but there’s no way to it, unless they want to climb up a twenty foot, rusty cross-mesh fence with a string of razor wire clipped along its top.

They duck behind one of the storage buildings. From there they can go left or right - left along the end of the playing field. There’s a series of bushes growing near the fence there, to try and hide the view of their school’s field from the boys school fields. But it’s long and their cover will be patches in places. The other way takes them out past the bins. There’s an access road behind them, just wide enough to get a bin man’s lorry in. It goes down and out through the Headmaster’s grounds, with a gate in the way.

“Whoever you are, I’m gonna fucking catch you!”

Farthing looks to see if Keet is still holding her catapult. She wants to shoot a stone at her dad - give him a dead leg - crack his shin a good one. Instead Keet takes her hand and starts back up running. Across the top grass slope up from the back of the playground and in between the bins where they’d topped the two janitors. Then around the retaining wall behind them and down the access track.

It’s blocked a short way in by a pair of swing gates. There’s a padlock and chain which bolt the gates together. There’s mesh right across the gates, but it’s covered in green plastic. The gates might be tall - about seven foot maybe - but they aren’t topped by spikes, or razor wire or barbs. Keet jumps at them and she’s climbing without thinking. And Farthing’s beside her, just to her left. As they top the gates, they have to turn to scale down the other side, just as Scunner Pelling comes into view. Fathing just jumps. Keet freezes for a moment and he’s staring at his face - red, angry, cursing at her. Then she drops as well, and they turn and run.

When Eccar leaves the Teachers’ Common Room to head for the top of near stairs, his face is red, his body language urgent. “I’ve - got to get past,” he says, to Needan and Fairlaw, who are busy with two girls half way down. Then he turns to his left. “Tund, hurry up!”

“These girls are trying to climb the stairs,” says Roman Reghunt, standing on the half landing down below and scowling up at the steroid-pumped teacher.

“Girls! Outside!” says Eccar.

“We know!” says Eastman. “Dickle is with them.”

“He’s what? He can’t be!”

Tund has now joined Eccar at the top of the stairwall. He’s slouched into view with a sour look on his face, but when he sees the scene below, his mood is suddenly brighter.

Eccar insists, “We have to get past!”

“You will wait,” says Idward Eastman, voice dropping lower, face hardening to a scowl. “Stand back and wait or go some other way.”

“We’ll lose them,” Eccar hisses to Tund.

“So?” says Tund. “I’d rather watch this.”

Fairlaw has now taken another fierce grip on Croutier’s backside. Needan has only relaxed his grip on Tanty to creep his fingers closer in.

“Shall I give the order?” asks Fairlaw of Eastman.

The Governor nods.

Fairlaw orders, “Knickers tight, girls. Outer legs up!”

Both girls pull tighter with their knicker-gripping fists, Croutier grunting with frustration as she does so. She lets out a quick squeal - really hot and bothered now - with the effort of lifting her right leg up and onto the next step.

Above, another figure has drifted along the upstairs corridor to join the crowd. Enton Mittles is now peering down. In frustration, Burris Eccar stamps a black plimpsoll. “We’ve got to get them,” he hisses to Tund. “Follow me!”

Dunnel Tund stares back, then frowns and shakes his head. “Follow you yourself,” he says.

Tund stands there, tapping a foot with frustrated energy as the girls below struggle, unable to do the seemingly impossible.

Cherryy Croutier hears Eccar’s shout from half way down the upstairs corridor. “Tund, I said you should follow me!” Croutier sees Tund stare after Eccar, but Tund doesn’t follow.

Eccar knows his chance to catch the girls in hoodies is fading fast. He thumps past the Teachers’ Common Room just as Meckle Koffa looks out. Koffa’s head turns, watching him recede along the corridor.

Mittles, Governor owner of the Chorus Line, relaxes against the upper corridor side wall. Eccar’s exit has made a nice spot for him to watch. Having let Scunner Pelling go, he’s wandered up the far set of stairs, past the room that Yarra and her friends are in. He’s been curious to see what’s keeping Tund so engaged and Eccar so frustrated.