Red Phoenix

children at the school, and I had quite enough of teaching at the Academy.
    ‘Bye,’ I said to the teacher, and she nodded and smiled a reply, then rushed to sort out a couple of kids who were arguing over a seat.
    Simone didn’t notice me; she was busy talking to her new friend about the meals provided by the school cafeteria. I knelt so that I was at her level. ‘I’m going now, sweetheart, okay?’
    ‘Okay, Emma,’ Simone said. ‘I’ll be fine.’
    ‘Both of us are downstairs today,’ I said softly. ‘And Michael is up on the fifth floor.’
    ‘I’ll be fine, Emma.’ Simone tilted her head and smiled cheekily at me. She waved me away. ‘You go.’ She turned back to her friend, ignoring me. I went out.
    The year tens were clustered around a set of lockers outside one of the classrooms. Inside the room, the teacher was allocating lockers and telling the kids how to open them. There was less chaos here, so all three of us approached.
    There was a stunned silence when we entered and everybody saw Leo, but it didn’t last long and the loud conversations recommenced.
    I took Michael to see the teacher.
    ‘This is Michael MacLaren, he’s new,’ I said. ‘Can you tell us what we need to do?’
    ‘I’m Jason Taylor, the Year Ten homeroom teacher,’ he said, shaking my hand strongly. He looked at Michael. ‘Weren’t you told about dyeing your hair?’
    I cut in before Michael needed to. ‘I can guarantee that his hair is its natural colour, Mr Taylor,’ I said. ‘Could you let the other teachers know, please?’
    The teacher smiled at me. ‘Sure. Are you his mother?’
    ‘No, I’m the nanny. And this is the driver.’ I gestured to Leo, and the teacher nodded to him, unfazed. ‘Could you sort Michael out for us, please? His little cousin is downstairs in the first grade—it’s her first day too and I want to make sure that she’s okay.’
    ‘Let me handle everything, I’ll have Michael here fixed up in a jiffy.’ The teacher gestured to Michael. ‘Come with me, young Michael, let’s get you organised. Are you half-Chinese?’
    Michael and the teacher went out to the lockers, chatting amiably. Leo and I shared a smile.
    I quickly checked on Simone again as we went back down to the car. She was with a group of little girls who were comparing pencil cases, and didn’t even see me. The teacher saw me, gave me a wave and a smile, and gestured that Simone was okay.
    Leo and I settled ourselves in the car. The children were all in school now and it was quiet. Nobody went in or out. The guards sat around the guard station and chatted in Cantonese and Tagalog.
    I opened the laptop on the back seat, pulled out the budgeting spreadsheets and started going through the figures. I had two sets: the real ones and the figures for my thesis. The real figures didn’t include salaries for most of the staff, who were demons.
    Leo sat comfortably in the driver’s seat and rustled the newspaper against the steering wheel.
    I felt it before I saw it. I jerked up from the spreadsheets and saw it come into the car park. High level, but alone. Not a prince. Looked like an ordinary Chinese workman, in dirty white trousers, a torn T-shirt and filthy canvas shoes.
    There’s a demon downstairs, Simone said into my ear.
    Neither of us could talk back to her. We both swung into action together. Leo threw the newspaper onto the seat next to him, pulled off his reading glasses and dropped them on top of the paper. We slammed the car doors behind us and walked quickly over to intercept the demon. Paul, the head guard, smiled at us. Then he saw us walking threateningly towards the demon and his smile disappeared.
    The demon saw us coming and stopped. It faced us. It watched us for a while.
    We stopped about two metres away from it. Both of us folded our arms and stood quietly, waiting for it to make a move.
    It smiled tightly at us, spun, and walked out of the school grounds.
    As we went back to the car, Leo held out his hand and I tapped it lightly with my fingertips.
    We returned to our spreadsheet and newspaper without saying a word.
    Demon’s gone, Simone said into my ear. There was nothing for a while, then, I’m sitting next to a really nice girl, her name is Helen. She has a new puppy and wants to invite me to her house to see it.
    Leo sighed gently, turned the page of the newspaper, and shook it flat over the steering wheel.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
    T wo Saturdays later I was in my office at the Academy