Shadow Sister by Simone Vlugt

face a student with a knife and I know that it made a deep impression on him. Bilal will have to use all his resourcefulness if he wants to force his way in.
    At seven-forty-five I see Jasmine approaching. I finish my coffee, ready to leave, then pause in the doorway.
    ‘Dan?’
    ‘Hmm?’
    ‘Do you think I should have gone to the police?’
    Dan looks at me. I’m expecting him to say ‘no’, but he doesn’t. ‘For you, personally, perhaps you should have.’ He pauses. ‘But I’m glad you didn’t for the school.’
    I wait for Jasmine in the corridor and as we go to the staffroom I find myself talking about it again. I once read that people who have had a traumatic experience need to remember every detail of the event and find an explanation for it. Coming up with answers is a way of processing the trauma.
    ‘I hardly dared get out of my car once I’d parked,’ I tell her. ‘That’s bad, isn’t it? And I’m constantly looking at the playground. Do you think Bilal would have the nerve to simply show up, as though nothing had happened?’
    ‘I don’t think so,’ Jasmine says. ‘No, we won’t see him again, Lydia. Don’t be scared.’
    I’m not scared, I want to say, not here with my colleagues in the staffroom where there’s a large cake box in the middle of the table. We arrive just in time to see people wishing Hans, an older colleague, a happy birthday. I join in, but before Hans has finished cutting his cake, I tell everyone about Bilal.
    ‘Hey you, can’t it wait?’ Jasmine says, but I won’t be deterred. It’s weighing down on me too much, it has to come out.
    The atmosphere changes immediately. Not everyone knows about it yet and the consternation among my colleagues is great. Everyone is talking at once. Hans sits there with a plate of cake and a surly look. He’s one of the old guard on the staff. He’s not usually the most cheerful person, but now he looks like one of his test tubes has exploded and covered him in whatever type of acid corrodes a good mood.
    I realise I’m ruining his birthday, but I can’t help it. It’simportant that all my colleagues know what has happened. More important than singing happy birthday to one person.
    ‘I really wouldn’t have expected that from Bilal,’ Nora, my departmental head, says, shocked.
    ‘Didn’t he once throw a chair at your head?’ Luke asks.
    ‘That wasn’t Bilal, that was Ali,’ Nora says. ‘He’s gone off the rails. And he can’t aim either, that chair missed me by miles.’
    ‘Quite a feat,’ I say, not thinking anything of it until I catch Luke’s reproving look. Nora’s quite large. She gives me a cool look too. I’m about to apologise, but then a couple of colleagues come in and are immediately filled in on the Bilal situation by others.
    Luke moves closer and smirks, ‘Ouch.’
    ‘It just popped out,’ I whisper. ‘I’ll make it up to Nora later.’
    ‘Don’t worry about it. She’s not that tactful herself,’ Luke says. ‘And another thing, why didn’t you just have a nice day at home today?’
    ‘What would I do at home?’ I say. ‘It would only make it harder to come back afterwards. If you fall off a horse, get back in the saddle.’
    Luke nods understandingly. He teaches Dutch as well. He came to the school halfway through last year, replacing a colleague who’d had a serious burnout. In the beginning, I thought he was ten years younger than his thirty-two years, and I wondered whether the students would accept him. To my astonishment, he’s had no discipline problems at all and has even given me tips on how to keep my class quiet.
    As well as being attractive, Luke is also gay, which thankfully he told me in the early stages of our friendship. That slammed a few doors shut in my mind – just as well. His preference is definitely a loss for womankind. I used to pigeonhole all gay men as pink-feather-wearers, dancing on boats on the Amsterdam canals during Gay Pride. I’ve got over that now.