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.Across the room.Into the hall.Still deserted.Good.Out in the quad, Pryor was restoring order.The crowd of students was slowly moving off to their classes, talking and laughing and glancing back over their shoulders at the scene of the crime.The bin that Jordan had set on fire was still sending up clouds of black smoke and the occasional piece of smouldering newspaper.Even better, a couple of Year 7s were up against the office wall, getting busted by Pryor.Both of them had long, blackened sticks lying at their feet.By the look of things, they’d been using the sticks to pull flaming garbage out of the bin.Idiots.Good for us, though.Couldn’t have found a better way to shift the blame if we’d tried.I crept around behind Pryor, searching for the others.Jordan was at the other end of the quad, waiting in the doorway to the English building.‘Well?’ she said as I reached her.I didn’t stop until I was through the door and out of Pryor’s sight.I collapsed against the wall, silent for just long enough to make her think I’d failed, and then I winked at her.‘Yeah,’ I breathed.‘I got it.’And the look on her face was totally worth the five years that all that stress had taken off my life.We headed upstairs, surrounded by a mob of Year 8s still going nuts over the bin.Seriously, you’d think these guys had never seen a fire before.Luke was waiting for us at the top of the steps.‘Did you get it?’ he whispered.‘Yeah,’ I said, walking past him and heading down the corridor.Luke grabbed me from behind.‘Give it to me.’‘After English,’ I said, shrugging him off.‘Forget English,’ said Luke.‘Larson’s not going to notice if we’re a few minutes –’‘Like I’d care if he did,’ I said.‘We’re not doing anything until we’re out of here.’Luke turned to Jordan for support, but she just shook her head at him.‘Your dad will still be there at three o’clock.’She was agreeing with me.Again.This was pretty much the best day ever.Luke looked almost ready to push us both down and take the phone by force.But then he just huffed at us and slumped off to our English room.I shrugged at Jordan and we followed him.Not that I didn’t feel for the guy, but getting emotional about this wouldn’t help anyone.I hadn’t put my arse on the line for that phone just to get caught using it five minutes later.We walked into English, and I saw Cat up the back, scratching her shoulder.Her usually immaculate make-up was looking kind of thrown on today, like her mind had been on other things.Cat glanced up when I came in.For a second I thought she was actually about to say something to me.But then she spotted Jordan walking in behind me and her eyes shot straight back down to her work.I ignored her and followed Luke to some empty seats at the other end of the room.Larson usually gives us something pretty bludgy to do on a Friday afternoon.Today, we were meant to be looking at a bunch of book extracts on our laptops and deciding which ones were dystopias.It might actually have been an okay lesson if I didn’t have the bloody telltale phone beating a hole in my leg.The longer I sat there, the heavier it felt.This was actually happening.In less than an hour, we were going to make the call.We were going to let the outside world know what was really going on in this place.And then, finally, all of it would be someone else’s problem.I barely got anything done all lesson, but that wasn’t exactly suspicious behaviour for me.And it was nothing compared to Luke.Mr Larson asked him three times if he was feeling okay.Each time, Luke nodded mutely and went on squirming in his seat.Jordan was the total opposite.She tore through the work, like that would somehow help us get out of here faster.How she could focus on anything at a time like this was beyond me.But when Larson finally told us to start packing up, not even Jordan could contain herself.She leapt up from her chair and shoved her stuff into her bag almost before he’d finished talking.‘Somewhere to be, Jordan?’ Larson smiled.‘Uh, no sir,’ said Jordan, putting her chair up.‘Just excited it’s the weekend.’As soon as Larson let us out, we sprinted across to the maths block to get our bikes.Luke’s fingers could hardly work his bike chain.‘Where should we –?’‘Jordan’s place,’ I said.‘It’s closest.’‘Sure,’ shrugged Jordan.Despite everything, Luke still found time to stop and roll his eyes at me.We pushed through the crowd to the back gate and raced up to the end of the street, to Jordan’s.‘Should be no-one home,’ said Jordan, unlocking the front door.‘Mum was going to pick Georgia up from school and go do the shopping.’Luke latched onto my arm again.‘Where is it?’I checked over my shoulder to make sure the street was still clear, then reached down and pulled out the phone.Luke had his Dad’s number punched in before we’d even walked inside.‘Put it on speaker,’ I said, as Jordan shut the door behind us.‘Shh!’ said Luke, turning away with the phone to his ear.His hands were shaking.He looked sick.I shut up and waited
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