Once

Nine

One of the craziest things about Farway High was that it actually had a theatre. It had a hall, too - a big grey room used primarily as a dining hall on the opposite side of the school - but it also had its own purpose-built, fully functioning theatre, with a raised black stage flanked by heavy velvet curtains in the most lurid shade of royal blue. Every single one of the school's students and staff could fit into the plush bleacher-style seats with at least a fifth of them left empty.

Elle had always wondered about the theatre, and how it had come to be there. It was at least thirty years old, maybe even older judging by the inner parts of the curtains that had faded almost to white over time. Maybe some former student or teacher had given the money for it to be built? Or maybe the school had had it installed hoping to use it for outside events - maybe touring theatre companies might use it, or maybe they planned to convert it at some point into a cinema? If that's what they'd hoped for it had never come to fruition. Aside from the Farway Players (a local am-dram group that put on a few very poorly reviewed plays a year) the theatre was used only for school events and for drama lessons. And since the Year 11 GCSE Drama class consisted of exactly four students, it seemed particularly useless to have given them this enormous theatre to have their lessons in. It would be like converting the school field into a fully-working football stadium, just for the five-a-side team to play in on Saturday mornings.

Half the school was already there when they got there, draped back lazily in the seats, gawping at their phones and looking bored as hell already. The six of them filed into some seats in the third row.

"Y'know, he'd be almost attractive if he did something with his hair - and maybe invested in a suit that actually fit," Russell muttered.

Elle looked up to the stage. Mr Luzlic was organising his papers at the lectern, chatting to Mrs Rosen, the school principal. Normally Elle would raise an eyebrow at Russell's cattiness but on this occasion she couldn't help but agree. Mr Luzlic had an awkward, gawkish way about him, right down to the nervy way he kept fumbling with his glasses and itching at his earlobe. He couldn't have been much over thirty-five, but something about him made him seem much older.

"What's it going to be today, do we think?" Maggie grumbled, already hunkering down with her hood pulled low over her eyes, possibly preparing to fall asleep.

"An Inspector Calls, with any luck," Jax said despondently. "I still can't get my head round it. God knows how I'm going to pass a bloody exam on it next week."

"It won't be anything useful, Jax," Russell groaned. "I'd get yourself ready for a very painful hour on verb conjugation."

They all slouched down and let their heads loll back into the plush blue of the seats, preparing to switch off their brains for an hour or so. All but Elle, that is. She was sitting up keenly in her chair, ready to listen to everything Mr Luzlic had to say. Somehow she felt that something about this talk was going to be significant.

Funnily enough, David was acting in much the same way. Elle was watching him from the corner of her eye and saw that he was actually leaning forward, his face eager and intrigued. He'd never had a talk from Mr Luzlic before, of course - he didn't know what he was in for. But even so, it seemed weird that he'd be so into it.

She didn't get much chance to think about it: already Mrs Rosen's deep bass voice was booming round the room, introducing their speaker for the afternoon. A minute later she was crossing to her chair at the side of the stage, and Mr Luzlic was left alone, gazing out at them nervously all from behind his big round glasses.

He cleared his throat quietly and said:

"Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for having me here today. I'm sure most of you know me already, but for those of you who don't, my name is Mr Stephen Luzlic. I am an archivist and literary researcher, currently working for the Farway Collection categorising the town's archives."