“Oh, Jessa, I wish you hadn’t told us that!” Maggie moaned. She nervously looked around to see if any other students in the Winsbury garden were close enough to overhear.

“Why?!” Jessa replied. “I thought you’d be dying to know!”

“Because Mr Fletcher kept that secret for a reason, and now we’re responsible for it, too,” Flynn answered her, sharing in Maggie’s disapproval.

“Well I couldn’t not tell you, could I? We’re best friends; I have to tell you everything.”

“Ugh,” they surrendered.

“But anyway,” said Jessa, “do you believe his story?”

Maggie’s face crumpled thoughtfully. “Of course,” she said. “I can’t see why it wouldn’t be true.”

“Me neither,” added Flynn. “It seems like a reasonable explanation.”

“Really?” Jessa huffed. “You think there’s a secret group of teachers who are working for the government, inspecting schools? That seems reasonable to you?!

“Well,” said Flynn, “when you say it in that tone you make it sound a bit ridiculous. But at face value, yeah, it sounds plausible.”

“You don’t think it seems like a lot of effort to go to?”

“I don’t think there’s such a thing as too much effort when it comes to regulating the quality of schooling,” Maggie said honestly.

“Okay, then what about these weird super abilities? That’s some superhero kind of crap, why would he be keeping that a secret? Even if this teaching-inspector thing is true—”

“Jessa,” Flynn said, in the voice he always used when Jessa got carried away with her own thoughts. “Is it so hard for you to accept that there are some things we just don’t know about? And why should we know about them? Mr Fletcher had a secret. You found out what his secret is, and he explained why he kept it quiet. He gave you an answer—”

“But he was so vague and weird about it. I mean, an undercover school inspector? Have you ever heard of that?”

“No, I’m fourteen! I’m not a teacher! And I don’t work for the government! And neither do you, so why do you think you’re some kind of expert? Why do you need to know everything? Why can’t you just let it go and stop being so bloody nosy about it?”

Jessa shut her mouth tight and breathed heavily. Her face puckered and for a second it looked like her bottom lip wobbled. Without a word, Jessa flung her backpack over her shoulder and stormed off, disappearing through the cold and back into the school building.

“Uh oh,” said Maggie. “You’ve done it now.”

“I didn’t mean to upset her,” Flynn replied.

“I know,” she replied through the muffling of scarf wrapped high around her face. “And you were right. You’ve never told her off like that before, though.”

“Yeah. I’ll apologise. She just gets so carried away.”

“She’ll be fine, don’t worry.”

#

Jessa had avoided Maggie and Flynn for the rest of the day. Even in the Physics lab when Mr Keeley told the first-years to get into groups of three or four, Jessa made a point of leaving her usual table with Maggie and Flynn to work with Ben Rivers and Emily Edwards on the other side of the room. She didn’t even like Emily Edwards, but considering Emily was Maggie’s rival for highest grades in the class, Jessa knew it would drive Maggie crazy.

She wanted to make up with Maggie and Flynn, but whenever she thought about their disagreement, it just reminded her of the very thing about which they’d been disagreeing, and she started getting frustrated all over again.

“Careful, Jessa!” Mrs Baxter blurted just in time to save Jessa’s plate from overflowing with gravy.

“Save some for the rest of us!” her father jeered.

“Oh, sorry,” she passed the jug to him. She simply couldn’t stop her brain from thinking about the very thing she was trying so hard not to think about.

“You’re quiet, today, Jessa. Everything all right at school?” Mrs Baxter asked.

“Mmhmm,” Jessa shoved a roasted potato into her mouth and avoided looking at her mother.

“You know you can talk to us if something’s bothering you…” Mrs Baxter was interrupted by the twittering chirp of a telephone on a side table. She reached to pick up the device.

“Jessa, Flynn’s calling you. Be quick, though.”

Jessa considered letting it go to voicemail but supposed she had to talk to him at some point. The rest of the day had been awfully lonely.

“Hi,” she answered.

“Hey! It’s Flynn.”

“Yeah I know. I can’t talk, I’m in the middle of dinner.”

“Oh, sorry. Please can I just talk to you, though? Five minutes?”

“Okay,” Jessa walked into the living room and closed the door so her parents couldn’t hear the conversation. “What’s up?”

“Come on, Jess, please don’t give me that voice.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said dispassionately.

“I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean to call you nosy.”

“Yes, you did! You knew what you were saying. I was trying to tell you something that I thought was really important, and both of you just sat there like you thought I was mental.”

“Don’t say that, Jess. No-one thinks you’re mental. We didn’t mean to make you feel that way.”

“Well, you did. You made me feel rubbish.”

“I’m really sorry. Please can we be friends again? Maggie and I felt horrible all afternoon.”

Jessa chewed lightly on her bottom lip.

“Please, Jessa?”

“Okay,” she said. “You’re forgiven. But mostly because I can’t stand Emily Edwards.”

“Fair enough,” said Flynn. “Gotta say, it was very surprising to see you go off with her and Ben.”

“I know! I wanted Tonia and Annora, but Jodie and Claire got there first. You know, Emily is even worse than Maggie about following rules. I was writing down all of our results, and I rounded up 0.58 to 0.6. Emily flipped out like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Oh, I believe it,” he laughed.

“I have to go, though, my dinner’s getting cold.”

“All right. Thanks for chatting.”

“No problem. See you tomorrow.”

She hung up the phone and joined her parents again at the table.

Jessa knew she shouldn’t mention her doubts to Maggie and Flynn again, but she still couldn’t get her mind off Hugo Fletcher’s story. She’d have to keep it to herself. For now, anyway.

She wanted to believe Mr Fletcher, and she guessed that the story itself was plausible. But her suspicion was coming from somewhere else. When he’d told her, there was something in his eyes, that she’d never seen in someone before. She’d seen something in him, something deceitful that she couldn’t explain but she could feel. A feeling coming from a deep place within herself of which she’d never been aware.