Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma CHAPTER ONE Lochan I gaze at the small, crisp, burned-out black husks scattered across the chipped white paint of the windowsills. It is hard to believe that they were ever alive. I wonder what it would be like to be shut up in this airless glass box, slowly baked for two long months by the relentless sun, able to see the outdoors – the wind shaking the green trees right there in front of you – hurling yourself again and again at the invisible wall that seals you off from everything that is real and alive and necessary until eventually you succumb: scorched, exhausted, overwhelmed by the impossibility of the task. At what point does a fly give up trying to escape through a closed window – do its survival instincts keep it going until it is physically capable of no more, or does it eventually learn after one crash too many that there is no way out? At what point do you decide that enough is enough? I turn my eyes away from the tiny carcasses and try to focus on the mass of quadratic equations on the board.

Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma made me do both. It's an incredibly powerful story about Lochan and Maya, siblings born only thirteen months apart. It's an incredibly powerful story about Lochan and Maya, siblings born only thirteen months apart.

A thin film of sweat coats my skin, trapping wisps of hair against my forehead, clinging to my school shirt. The sun has been pouring through the industrial-sized windows all afternoon and I am foolishly sitting in full glare, half blinded by the powerful rays. The ridge of the plastic chair digs painfully into my back as I sit semi-reclined, one leg stretched out, heel propped up against the low radiator along the wall. My shirt cuffs hang loose around my wrists, stained with ink and grime. The empty page stares up at me, painfully white, as I work out equations in lethargic, barely legible handwriting.

The pen slips and slides in my clammy fingers; I peel my tongue off my palate and try to swallow. I have been sitting like this for the best part of an hour, but I know that trying to find a more comfortable position is useless. I linger over the sums, tilting the nib of my pen so that it catches on the paper and makes a faint scratching sound – if I finish too soon I will have nothing to do but look at dead flies again. My head hurts. The air stands heavy, pregnant with the perspiration of thirty-two teenagers crammed into an overheated classroom.

There is a weight on my chest that makes it difficult to breathe. It is far more than this arid room, this stale air. The weight descended on Tuesday, the moment I stepped through the school gates, back to face another school year. The week has not yet ended and already I feel as if I have been here for all eternity. Between these school walls, time flows like cement. Nothing has changed. The people are still the same: vacuous faces, contemptuous smiles.

My eyes slide past theirs as I enter the classrooms and they gaze past me, through me. I am here but not here. The teachers tick me off in the register but no one sees me, for I have long perfected the art of being invisible. There is a new English teacher – Miss Azley. Some bright young thing from Down Under: huge frizzy hair held back by a rainbow-coloured headscarf, tanned skin and massive gold hoops in her ears. Rayman legends steam key free.

She looks alarmingly out of place in a school full of tired, middle-aged teachers, faces etched with lines of bitterness and disappointment. No doubt once, like this plump, chirpy Aussie, they entered. The profession full of hope and vigour, determined to make a difference, to heed Gandhi and be the change they wanted to see in the world. Now, after decades of policies, inter-school red tape and crowd control, most have given up and are awaiting early retirement – custard creams and tea in the staffroom the highlight of their day. But the new teacher hasn’t had the benefit of time.

In fact she doesn’t look much older than some of the pupils in the room. A bunch of guys erupt into a cacophony of wolf whistles until she swings round to face them, disdainfully staring them down so that they start to look uncomfortable and glance away. Nonetheless, a stampede ensues when she commands everyone to arrange the desks in a semicircle, and with all the jostling, play-fighting, desk-slamming and chair-sliding, she is lucky nobody gets injured. Despite the mayhem, Miss Azley appears unperturbed – when everyone finally settles down, she gazes around the scraggly circle and beams. ‘That’s better. Now I can see you all properly and you can all see me.