The room went silent as Harry moved towards the podium.

Her stilettos clicked on the cement and she resisted the urged to smooth over her black skirt or hoik up her stockings so that there weren't any wrinkles around her knees.

She cleared her throat, readying to give the short welcome speech she'd prepared. Looking out into the crowd, the students sat on the ground in front of her, squirming. They continued shooting nervous glances towards Troy. Harry tried to do a mentally tally to double check that all students were present, but she couldn't do so without drawing attention to herself.

Her eyes scanned the rest of the of the attendees. Matt smiled at her encouragingly. Sandra and Ray Lichen gave her the thumbs up. She didn't know whether it was cute or sad that they made the same gesture at the same time. Liz looked concerned; probably because Harry was taking so long to start her speech.

She began to read, continuing her surveying of the audience as she spoke. Luci and Gayle must have caught the vibe since they started scanning the students, looking for trouble.

Harry should then have been able to relax however she'd already taken in the expressions of the community members in the audience. Their resentment was evident.
They scowled. They crossed their arms. They raised their eyebrows, and they muttered behind their hands. Harry felt like she was back in high school, giving a speech in front of her Year 8 drama class.

She finished her thank yous and words of inspiration and moved on to introducing the local minister. As he walked up to the front of the gym, Harry crossed her fingers, praying that no one would put their foot out and try to trip him. Having already had a public disagreement with a prominent member of society, then finding the body of what appeared to have been (well based on the turn out for the service) a well liked principal, she wasn't doing too well gaining community confidence. Tripping a minister would get her and her family ran out of town, for sure.

As the minister reached the front, Harry looked over at David holding Charlie in his arms and instantly felt her fear melt. The minister would take it from there and everything would be fine. She had clearly been stressing over nothing, all from fear that her honeymoon period with them may have been ending. A seat was empty for Harry at the front of the stage, but she moved past it to stand with her family. She didn't feel right intruding on the town's grief, and she really didn't want to be up there anyway. Now that her moment of panic had passed, Harry went back to seeing Ranger licking at a pile of goop every time someone said Rachel Lindley's name. She squeezed David's hand. She couldn't wait for the ceremony to end.

She pretended to listen as Gayle read her poem, and Sandra's junior school choir gave their reindition of I believe I can fly. Matt then took the stage without incident reading a moving but long winded speech that he needed to stop to cry during twice. She couldn't imagine how hard this must have been on him. He had worked with her the closest, and he had been the one in charge of her stuff when she left. Harry thought she'd been told that he'd even helped with the clean up in her house when preparing it for Harry's arrival. It must have been awful finding out that she had been locked in the shed, rotting away for all that time.

Harry watched as Sergeant Stone came to the front. The woman looked as interested in speaking on behalf of the community as she had been in interviewing Harry on the Thursday night and Friday morning. Harry wished the woman and her team had been able to find the person who had done it.

As the Sergeant droned, the students fidgeted on the floor. Casey Reed got up, directed a question at a teacher and then rushed towards the exit. Sitting for long periods of time on the cold ground often caused restless bladder syndrome in students; Harry was suprised that it was one of the sentiors needing to rush out before the primary kids.

Liz carefully slipped in on the opposite side to David, she watched Stone mindfully. Comparing Eliza Walter's cheery counentance with Sergeant Jenni Stone's negative demeanour, it was almost impossible to tell the two were sisters. Harry had only figured it out the day before from something Matt had said while they'd all been preparing the shed. The two seemed like chalk and cheese to Harry. She also had a silent giggle over the fact that out of the two, it was Stone who was the married one. She imagined what type of man would be attracted to that dragon of a woman. She seemed much more suited to living alone with ten cats.

She wondered if Stone and Lindley had been close. Lindley hadn't had ten cats, but she did appear to be a recluse. People apparently liked her, but from all Harry could peice together, she didn't really have anyone she was close with.

Would Harry end up like that if she remained in this job? She probably would if events kept going how they had been since she'd started. With all the drama that had occurred so far, things would have to be settling down. She'd have to be out of bad karma by now.

She watched as the Sergeant moved back to her seat and Annelisse moved to collect her guitar. Harry was finding she had a lot of time for that girl. She tried hard in class, was always polite and was an angel to put up with both her mother and her brother. I hope that Maddi turns out like her, rather than the pig of the brother, Harry thought to herself.

Her strumming started. Annelisse's haunting voice cast a spell across the audience. Harry felt the most at ease since starting at Mercy's Creek State School. She stood and got swept away, along with everyone else.

Annelisse's intensity increased. She belted out an amazing high note, holding it long past when most divas would have ran out of breathe. She cut it off sharply and the audience remained silent.

It was then that they all heard the buzzing. It was crowing louder and nearer. Ray raced to look out the side door.

"SWARM!" he yelled.

As the audience rose in panic, bottle necked if the things got in the gym, Annelisse stared at her brother. Her look was fury.