The Gaps

drop my iPad into my lap, using the desk as a shield.
Dear chloe, I don’t believe in chain emails but some of these points do seem quite sensible. liss x
WARNING!!! You must forward this email to five people in the next five days or someone close to you will be kidnapped!! Do not ignore this warning!
IN THE UNLIKELY EVENT OF AN ABDUCTION
1) Become an unappealing target. Deviants have fantasies about the innocence of schoolgirls so ruin that by making yourself seem older and experienced. If you have no personal sexual experience to draw on, you can channel a promiscuous character from a TV show.
2) Urinate. Experts recommend peeing yourself to prevent rape. It has never been reported that prior victim Karolina Bauer was raped, but statistically speaking that’s what these perpetrators usually do.
3) In the event that you can’t avoid abduction, remain calm and alert. Mentally record evidence and information. Some examples are: what kind of vehicle are you in? How many minutes was it to your destination? Did the car sound old or new? Did it smell of anything?
If you are taken to another location take note of your surroundings: stairs, paving, grass, type of doors, number of lights. Pay attention to outside noises: cars, trains, buses, trucks, planes, school bells, birds, lawnmowers and other people living nearby.
4) Do not look at the attacker or attempt to see his face. Identifying him is a death sentence.
5) If the attacker ties you up, breathe in as deeply as you can to expand your torso, and tense your muscles to make them bigger. When you exhale and relax, hopefully the binding will have loosened enough for you to free yourself.
6) You should try to be a good girl, obedient and well behaved, and make the attacker like and/or pity you. You shouldn’t try to escape. (This advice makes no sense in relation to points 1) and 5) but this is what the experts say, and it’s all we have to go on.)
DAY 4
I sigh, even though I really want to rip everything to shreds. Another photo ruined. The watercolour bleeds everywhere, turning the paper into a crinkly mess. I dab at it with a tissue, but I can’t save it.
Our final folio has to include a self-portrait, and it’s the one piece I’ve been avoiding. I can do still lifes and landscapes and portraits of other people very happily, just don’t ask me to look too hard at my own face.
Painting over my school photo was the easiest way I could think of to meet the requirement. I had the idea after I stumbled across an interesting photo of a young geisha. The portrait was from the late 1800s, so before colour photography, but it had been hand-painted so well it almost looked real. The geisha’s cheeks were flushed pink, and the floral pattern of her kimono was meticulously coloured, with daubs of red and yellow and green.
I thought it would be a relatively easy effect to replicate, but I’ve ruined five prints so far. It’s hard to concentrate on anything today. I couldn’t settle in bed last night, and when I look around at my classmates’ faces, I don’t think they slept well either.
I fold the latest botched photo in half and thumb through my sketchbook instead, trying to remember a distant era when I had one good creative concept. At Morrison our Art teachers would give us very specific themes and assignments we had to complete, but Balmoral takes a much looser approach. You’d think that would be good, but actually it is a form of torture. My ideas start solid and sure in my brain, but quickly turn wispy when I try to get them out into the real world.
What I should do is complete my self-portrait, accept its mediocrity, and then free myself to focus on my major project. But I don’t. Instead, I start eavesdropping on Ms Nouri’s consultation with Audrey at the table behind me.
‘I was inspired by the work of early female video artists,’ Audrey says. ‘I want to use my own body and face to explore ideas about connection and place, but also keep a surrealist edge to it.’
I want to roll my eyes, but the fact is, I’m intimidated. I have never made a video good enough to call art; it’s difficult not to look amateur, even though we have access to all this equipment. Balmoral has ten art studios, a photography studio, three darkrooms, a printing room, a dedicated woodwork space, this massive pottery kiln, and a tech studio full of 3D printers and computers loaded up with the latest software.
‘I’ve collected images from all the places around the world my family has lived and projected them onto my skin…’
It would be nice if Audrey was all hot wind, but she’s not. She’s good. Her certainty about her art underscores my complete lack.
‘Remember to move beyond technique and fully explore your idea,’ says Ms Nouri.
I realise she could be speaking directly to me about my self-portrait. All I’ve got is the technique of using paint to hand-tint a photo, but no idea behind that.
The art-room door opens.
‘Ms Nouri, could I have a quick word?’
Ms Nouri excuses herself and stands in the corridor with Ms Baker, my Biology teacher. Almost immediately, the speculation starts, as if there has been a river of chatter flowing beneath the surface all this time. It’s painfully obvious that things are going on that we’re not being told about. Teachers keep getting called out of class, extra security guards roam the campus and serious men in suits walk the corridors.
‘I told you, it’s the dad.’
Sarah’s voice is crystal clear, even from the other end of the room—she’s obviously under the mistaken impression that her easel has created a floor-to-ceiling sound barrier.
‘My mum finds it hard to believe that he slept through the whole thing.’
I can’t tell who the other voice is, but it will be one of the Blondes. They only take Art because