Jemimah had barely put her things out on her desk when the moment she’d been dreading arrived.

Heavy footfall on the wooden steps.

Impatient footsteps across the verandah to her classroom door.

An angry barrage of knocking.

Jemimah closed her eyes as long as she dared, breathing “Please help me, God”, then, without moving called out, “Just a minute.”

“So you are in there, Jemimah Parker!” Angie’s furious voice sounded through the door. “I hope you’ve got a decent explanation! Of all the selfish, thoughtless things to do--”

Tears of relief overflowed Jemimah’s eyes as she pulled herself stiffly from her chair and shuffled across to the door as quickly as she could.

“---I don’t know why I put up with you sometimes! How hard would it be to have rung and--”

Angie’s tirade stopped mid-flight as the door swung open.

“Jemimah! What on earth’s happened? You look . . .” her face screwed up in distaste “. . . awful!”

The sight of her welcome friend was too much for her, and Jemimah began to sob. “I feel awful.”

Angie shoved her back inside the room and closed the door, locking it again for good measure. “Has something really awful happened to you?” she demanded.

Guilt flooded Jemimah. It had only been a few days since other members of the Turnbull family had asked her the same question after finding her in distress. She had to stop upsetting other people with her personal disasters.

“No, nothing really awful,” she hastily assured Angie, then went on, “I just got yelled at by angry parents, caught in a storm, lost all night in the bush, chased by a yowie, picked up by the police, and accused of taking drugs. And being a religious fanatic.”

Angie seemed to think for a minute, as though reviewing the list in her mind. “Well, that’s not so bad.”

That made Jemimah laugh through her tears. “No, nothing really.”

Angie grinned. “So what’s all this fuss about then?”

She followed Jemimah back to her desk and sat on the corner of it as Jemimah mopped up her face with several tissues.

“Anyway, you’re lucky you have a decent excuse -- I was so angry with you! When you didn’t come and see me after work, I thought you must have been working back or something -- and then when you wouldn’t answer your phone I had no option but go home with Gabi. And then, when you didn’t turn up for the Bible Study--”

“The Bible study! I completely forgot you would have expected me--”

“Thanks, I’m really feeling the love now,” Angie faked a scowl. “So I thought you must have been at home sulking or something --”

“Thanks a lot! While I’m out, lost in the bush, you think I’m at home sulking?”

Angie shrugged. “You usually are. So anyway, I rang and rang and rang until about 1am and when I rang Marlene first thing this morning she said you hadn’t come home and had thought you must have spent the night at our place. So I came straight into town and if I hadn’t have found you here I would have gone to the police. So what did happen? Did you make that up about being lost in the bush?”

“I wish I had.” Jemimah blew her nose and then told Angie the whole story.

“You idiot,” Angie chided when she had finished. “How could you have seen a yowie? There aren’t any such things.”

“You tell me. But I saw what I saw and I can’t pretend I didn’t just so that people don’t think I’m an idiot.”

“Who cares what people think, anyway?”

Fresh tears flooded Jemimah’s eyes. “I do. I really do. I’ve worked so hard all year to gain people’s respect and now ...”

“And now what? You’re going to give up and cry? Really, Jemimah! Brazen it out. If you want to say you’ve seen a yowie -- well, make them believe you. Carry it off with confidence.”

“Ha.” Jemimah sniffled. “Look at me! I don’t even see how I can face my class.”

“No. I see what you mean.” Angie stared hard at her, then started rummaging in her handbag. “If you’re going to stay today you really have to make an effort. The way you are you might as well give up and go home.”

Jemimah pressed a fresh tissue to her eyes. “I know. But I’m just so tired and so sore and so miserable ...”

“And so lucky I’m here to help.” Angie produced a handful of cosmetics with a flourish. “You are going to make it through today, okay? Let’s start with making you look half decent.”

For once, Jemimah was grateful for Angie’s taste for heavy cosmetics. After she was through with Jemimah’s face, she assured her the scratches and grazes were barely noticeable, and then only if you looked for them.

“Your eyes are still awful though,” Angie frowned. “No wonder Sergeant Beavan thought you were a druggie.”

Jemimah would have thumped her except she was so grateful for her support. She looked up at her friend expectantly as she dug in her handbag again, re-emerging with a pair of huge sunglasses.

“Here you are,” she said, positioning them on Jemimah’s nose. “You just say: ‘I have a headache today’.”

“I have a headache today,” Jemimah mimicked in Angie’s faux posh tone.

“That’s good -- so long as your conscience doesn’t hold you back from actually doing it.”

“There’ll be no problem with my conscience -- I really do have a headache. A rotten one.”

“Have you?” Angie dived back into her bag and produced two headache tablets and a hand mirror. Jemimah took the tablets gratefully, wondering why she hadn’t thought of that herself and then held up the mirror to inspect Angie’s craftsmanship.

“Thank you. Thank you! That is so much better,” Jemimah impulsively hugged her friend. “I love you so much for coming to my rescue. Now, all I have to do is get through the rest of today.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard, should it? Don’t you just have sit up the front at your desk? Give the kids some worksheets or something and there you go.”

“And there I go,” Jemimah murmured, wishing it really was that simple.

Angie was gathering up her things back into her voluminous bag. “I’ll come and check on you at lunchtime, anyway, okay? I’ll order sandwiches from the general store and bring them with me.”

Jemimah thanked her again, and walked her to the door, hoping that even a little of her friend’s nonchalance about the whole ordeal would rub off on her.

She needed it.

Even with all of Angie’s help and encouragement before school started, the proceeding hours were almost too much for Jemimah to bear. When Angie arrived with the sandwiches, the relief was so great that Jemimah only just got the door locked behind her before she burst into tears again.

Angie dumped the lunches on Jemimah’s table and began pulling down the blinds. “Please tell me you haven’t been crying all morning.”

“No.” Jemimah shook her head. “But it’s been horrible. They didn’t even come.”

“Who didn’t?”

“Kai and Beau Gatley.”

“Well, isn’t that a good thing? One less hassle to deal with today.”

Jemimah took off the sunglasses and wiped her eyes. “Don’t you see? If they’d come to school and carried on as normal, I’d know it was all over ... but now ... it’s obvious they are still determined to make an issue over this. Who knows what they’re going to do.” She slumped down in her chair. “And all of this -- staying today at school when I feel so awful -- it was all for nothing.”

“No, I don’t think so. Julie would know if you’d stayed home, they’ll hear that you were here and that Kai’s name is still on the board. Here, have your sandwich.”

“I’m sorry, Angie -- I can’t eat it. I feel too sick.”

Angie shoved it into her hands and sat down in front of her. “Don’t be stupid, Jemimah. If you don’t eat, you’ll only make yourself feel sicker. And if you don’t waste any more time, you’ll have time for a decent nap -- you could lie down on the cushions in the reading corner. I’ll make sure no-one disturbs you.”

“Thank you,” Jemimah murmured and did her best with half a sandwich before she had to run to the staffroom toilet. Her stomach had been cramping painfully all morning, and now she was suffering all the effects of a tummy bug -- undoubtedly from all the emotional turmoil.

When she returned Angie had wrapped up the rest of the sandwich and made her promise to eat it later, and then insisted she take a nap. Jemimah had been fighting tiredness all morning and she fell into a deep sleep the moment she closed her eyes. It seemed like no time at all that Angie was waking her up, and she felt worse than when she had laid down.

She must have looked as bad as she felt, as even Angie looked sombre as she helped repair her hair and makeup. “Do you think you are going to be able to drive home?” she asked.

Jemimah’s shoulders slumped. She didn’t think she could think straight to drive safely, let alone be sure she could stay awake behind the wheel.

“Do you want me to take you home?” Angie offered, handing the sunglasses back to her.

“Would you? Please -- do you think you could stay the night too?” Jemimah didn’t know what she thought might happen, but the thought of having to deal with anything alone overwhelmed her. Then she remembered the hours between the end of school and the end Angie’s work day. “Maybe, you could take my car now? Then, after school ends, I can close up my classroom and no-one will know I’m in here until you finish.”

“I’ve got a better idea. I’ll knock off at three and take you straight home then.”

“But, what about your boss?”

Angie grinned, walking over to the nearest window and pulling up the blind. “Give me a ring as soon as you finish --then I’ll tell my boss that my friend’s just rung and is sick and I need to take her straight home. They can’t complain, I hardly ever take sick leave.”

She opened up the next blind and peered out through the window. “There’s a police car here -- I wonder what’s going on?”

Jemimah’s stomach churned even more. “It’s probably Sergeant Beavan. Ms Armstrong said she would probably discuss with him my suggestion about notifying the parents about the -- about whatever I saw in the bush last night.”

She parted with Angie just as the end of lunch bell rang, and within an hour her assumption about Sergeant Beavan’s visit had been proved correct. One of Linda’s ‘senior girls’ had brought in an envelope to her, with a note to Jemimah accompanying a draft letter to the parents and asking for her approval before it was copied for all the children to take home that afternoon.

The note briefly outlined that the Infants’ School teacher had reported sighting a wild animal in the bush behind the school, and after consulting with the local police, the school was notifying parents of the sighting so they could make their own decision about keeping their children from entering the bushland in question. It also stated that there would be no school activities taking place in the bush for the immediate future.

Jemimah signed the note with a sinking heart and returned the envelope to Linda’s waiting messenger. How she wished none of this had ever happened! She was grateful that the parents had been warned -- even if the note was worded in such a way as to make clear that neither the school nor the police were saying there was anything in the bush, just that Jemimah (it wasn’t like there was any ambiguity of which Infants’ School teacher was being referred to) had reported something.

She wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or not that the note referred to a “wild animal” rather than anything more specific. That could mean anything from a wild boar - respectable - to the black panther - apparently regarded on the same mythological level as the yowie, according to Angie - but she could only hope that the parents would pay heed simply on the grounds the school felt it wise to notify them. And maybe Linda was right and the fewer people who knew she’d seen a yowie, the better.

At least the mention that there would be no school activities taking place in the bush put Jemimah’s mind at rest that she would not be expected to continue with the cross country for the time being. There was nothing in the world that would induce her to go back into the bush behind the school.

Ms Armstrong’s messenger duly appeared a short while later with enough copies of the note for each of her students, and Jemimah saw them placed into each backpack on their way out the door that afternoon.

She was able to thank Linda Armstrong in person for preparing the note when she met her at her classroom door, shortly after she made the arranged phone call to Angie. After her interview that morning she’d been worried that Linda would like to sweep the whole thing under the mat.

“Well, it’s done,” Linda replied. “And if word does get around about what you reported, the parents can’t complain that we didn’t let them know.”

Her words stung Jemimah with a fresh realisation that neither Linda nor Sergeant Beavan believed her at all -- the note was merely a public relations exercise to absolve the school of any liability.

“And Jemimah, I had a good chat with Alex -- Sergeant Beavan,” she clarified in response to Jemimah’s initial confusion, “about what happened this morning. Perhaps it might be wise if you take some time off. I know it’s been difficult for you, your first teaching position and moving so far away from home, and this term has been especially stressful -- and now the trouble with Kai’s parents. It might do you the world of good to take some leave and get a fresh perspective on things. I could cover your class until I line up a casual teacher to fill in for a week or two.”

For a moment Jemimah was touched by her headmistress’s sympathy, but then a horrible fear gripped her heart.

“Are you -- are you suspending me from duty?”

Linda stiffened. “No. I was merely suggesting you might choose to take some sick leave.”

Jemimah tried to keep breathing evenly. Did Linda really think she was incapable of continuing with her duties, or would it be better for Linda’s position and reputation if it were known that the religious and hallucinating Infants’ teacher had been advised to take leave from her duties? But she could hardly accuse Linda of that -- she could only respond to her offer at face value.

“Thank you, that is very kind, but I am sure that after a good night’s sleep I’ll be as good as new.” She was incredibly grateful for Angie’s dark sunglasses which hid her tear-filled and fear-filled eyes. “Please excuse me, I must go -- there’s my friend who is driving me home.”

She thought she heard Linda say something about being glad she wasn’t heading home alone, but Jemimah didn’t wait around to hear it. It was all she could do to get to the safety of the car before her misery overwhelmed her.