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creep?”
    “’Cos he wants to be king himself?”
    “You’re both right. He does want to be king, but it’s also partly to get his own back. No one likes him. ‘Since I cannot be a lover, I am determined to prove a villain.’”
    “He’s misunderstood.”
    “Yes. Because he’s ugly, people expect him to be mean. So he’s going to oblige them.”
    Someone coughed.
    Everyone looked up and realised that Mr Kislinski, true to his nickname, had crept into the room unnoticed. He looked disappointed. They were all studying the play. Even Drago.
    “Coming along I see.”
    No one spoke. Mr Kislinski smiled and edged back out of the door. The class returned its attention to the photocopies.
    “I don’t see how we can write a song about this stuff.”
    “No one asked you to write a song, Jesus.”
    “Taleb? What do you reckon?”
    “I dunno. Lots of songs are about guys saying that no one understands them.” He played a few sad-sounding notes on his guitar. “I’ll have a go.”
    “Great, you can work on it over the holidays.”

C H A P TE R 8
    When Velvet returned to school after the term break, there was a crowd outside the gym. Velvet knew the students at Yarrabank were keen on physical fitness, but surely they weren’t so eager they were queuing up to get into the gym on the first day of term? Then she saw Roula and Hailie in the crowd, and she knew that couldn’t be the reason. Her curiosity got the better of her. She pushed her way towards them.
    “What’s going on?”
    Hailie pointed to the gym wall. Someone had graffitied it over the holidays. Red letters a metre high proclaimed SLINKY STINKS.
    “Bet you five bucks it was Drago,” Roula said.
    “How do you know?”
    “It’s just the sort of thing he’d do.”
    Hailie’s ankle was out of plaster.
    “You’re not wearing your snob-school uniform,” she observed.
    Velvet’s looked down at the secondhand polyester dress and the purple polar fleece hoodie she was now forced to wear. Her mother had sold her St Theresa’s uniform during the holidays.
    Normally, Velvet and her parents spent the first-term break at their holiday house in Port Douglas, but they’d sold that. She’d hoped to spend a lot of time with Rhiannon, Ashleigh and Clara-Louise, her friends from St Theresa’s. But Rhiannon and Clara-Louise went on music camp and Ashleigh had gone to Cambodia with her family. They’d only got together once.
    Over the holidays, Velvet had had one small success. She had begged her parents to let her have a private music tutor outside school hours, but they’d said they couldn’t afford it. Mr MacDonald, Velvet had discovered, used to be Yarrabank’s music teacher before the music program had been axed so that funds could be diverted to the gym refurbishment. He still took instrument lessons at lunchtime. She had managed to talk her parents into forking out for a term of lunchtime piano tuition.
    Only a handful of Yarrabank students took the extra-curricular music classes, so there were plenty of free sessions on Mr MacDonald’s timetable.
    When Velvet arrived in T6 for her first lesson, she was surprised to find Taleb there.
    “I wouldn’t have thought you needed music lessons.”
    “I don’t.”
    “So what are you doing here?”
    “I’m taking this class.”
    “You mean you’re teaching it?”
    Velvet looked around. She was the only student who had turned up. “Where’s Mr Mac?”
    “He’s got a dental appointment.”
    Taleb indicated a dusty upright piano. “How good are you?”
    “I’ve passed my Grade 7 Exam.”
    “That means nothing to me. Play something.”
    For some reason, Velvet was nervous playing in front of Taleb. She’d brought some sheet music with her –
Easy Piano: Andrew Lloyd Webber
. She played a bit of “Memory” from
Cats
.
    Taleb looked like he’d just swallowed something unpleasant.
    “I’m a bit rusty because we had to sell our piano,” Velvet said.
    Taleb rummaged through a pile of sheet