When I arrived at school that day, I didn’t know. No-one could have known, really, but for some reason I always felt like I should have. But whether I should have known or not, the point was, I didn’t. Not until everyone else did.

It was Monday, and everyone had that look they get on their faces as they prepare themselves for another week of education. The one that says, being uneducated can’t be as bad as they say it is. It can’t be worse than being here before 9am on a Monday morning. Chances were, I was wearing that look too. Trudging down the corridor toward my locker seemed like the longest walk of my life - my feet felt heavy, and I didn’t really want to get there anyway because I knew the work I hadn’t done over the weekend wasn’t going to have magically appeared. Feeling defeated, I decided to bypass my locker completely and headed straight to registration.

Tom was waiting for me in his usual seat furthest away from the door, draped nonchalantly over the back of his chair like a Persian rug. It crossed my mind that he was one step away from lying spread eagled across the floor. No matter what time of day I saw him, Tom always looked like he’d just stepped off of a photo shoot. So at 9am on a Monday morning, while the rest of us were still squinting at the daylight and pulling uselessly at our hair to make it sit right, he was sitting there waiting patiently with his shiny teeth, not a crease in sight nor a hair out of place.

“You’re late.” He grinned. He was right, too - most mornings I arrived long before Tom did, but today my younger brother had discovered a new game, and that was hiding every pair of shoes I owned. It never ceased to amaze me how resourceful toddlers could be when left to their own devices.

“Eli is forever finding ways to pass the time,” I offered by way of explanation. I waved my hand absently about the room. “Where is everyone this morning?”

“They left already,” he replied, rising from his seat and stretching. “I said I’d wait for you and bring you to the auditorium when you arrived. There’s been an emergency assembly called or something.”

It’s a very odd feeling, walking down the empty corridors of a school. Whether you’re there late at night or early in the morning, the sensation of eyes on the back of your neck never quite leaves you alone. Our footsteps echoed, and I realised that whatever this assembly was about, it wasn’t going to be good.

We managed to catch up with a group of stragglers before reaching the auditorium doors, and all walked in together. Everyone was still getting settled, talking to one another about the things they’d done that weekend, the people they’d seen. The teachers were huddled in small groups, speaking in hushed tones. At the front of the stage stood our head teacher, Mr Cartwright, looking pale and grim. I wondered, as I took my seat, if he’d had much sleep at the weekend, and voiced the thought to Tom.

“Who cares? He’s probably just going to dump another lot of ridiculous rules on us. They probably caught the younger children smoking outside the science blocks again and want to give us a lecture about responsibility and setting a good example. We are pillars of the community, you know.” He waggled his eyebrows at me, crossed his arms, and settled back in his seat.

But that wasn’t what Mr Cartwright wanted to tell us. Not even close. As a silence settled over the crowd, he coughed quietly into his handkerchief, readjusted his tie and gazed at us with sad brown eyes.

“Some of you may have heard the news already,” he began, “about poor Cassandra Skinner.

“Last night she was found in the bushes behind the Community Centre. The police have told me that it appears to be suicide, but they are looking into other lines of inquiry.” He stepped back then, to call forward two unfamiliar people I had not noticed until now. A tall, balding middle aged man dressed in police uniform was clearly there to provide and gain more information. The woman, small and mousy and standing slightly behind him, I was less sure about. She moved forward to address us.

“My name is Sarah, and I’m a grief counsellor. This is a difficult time for some if not many of you, and it’s my job to help you work through whatever it is you’re feeling. If you want someone to talk to, I’m here. Mr Cartwright has kindly given me one of the conference rooms on the third floor as an office. Feel free to drop by at any time.” She had a quiet voice and twisted the wedding band on her finger in nervousness, I noticed. I took a second to glance around the room; all eyes were staring down at the front, some wide in shock and surprise, some teary and blinking hard.

Cassandra Skinner was not a girl I had known well, but ours was not a large school, and you tended to know the faces if you didn’t know the names. She was a girl with blonde curly hair and huge, watery blue eyes, a couple of years younger than me. I remembered her as the kind of girl who bounced from one classroom to the next, but apart from that, she was unremarkable. Once you got outside of the people in your year you only tended to hear about others if they were notorious, and that wasn’t a good thing.

When I looked at Tom, there was none of the concern that I had seen on everyone else’s face.

“I didn’t know her.” He muttered. “You can’t grieve for someone you didn’t know.”

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Author guidance for This story

A new idea I had recently, I've been challenged to actually finish this so let's see how that goes...

Hope you guys like it, anyway. I've never really written in first person the whole time before properly.

updated Jan 16 by chazpez