Miss Tickell checked off the final nine names in the register. ‘Now, I’m putting you on your honour to be quiet and remain in your places while I go and see Miss Morgan. You may talk quietly amongst yourselves, but I want no raised voices. Understand?’ She looked hard at a few of the boys huddled in the back row and bustled out of the classroom.

‘I always thought there was something weird about Rose,’ Willy Philpott, sitting in the back row, proclaimed.