Students who wished to play a musical instrument at Bairnsdale Secondary College did not have a fixed rehearsal time, but simply had a lesson in place of one of their other classes for one period each week. Which class their music lesson replaced each week was chosen almost at random. This appealed to Tristram. Today, he missed out on a math period. He was grateful for that, not because he disliked the subject or the teacher, but because it was with his ‘home’ class – the class that had just witnessed his confrontation with Ivan MacAllister. Tristram needed time to formulate some answers to the barrage of questions from his classmates.
The music centre was a red-bricked, beige tin-roofed building. As Tristram approached it, he heard a clumsy flutter of flutes and then the light, engaging
