All the school corridors looked the same. Melissa had said the art classroom was first right turn, second door on the left, just past the students' interpretation of Van Gogh's Starry Starry Night. She'd certainly taken the first right, and she was standing outside the second door on the left. But the room was empty, there were no pictures that even vaguely resembled Van Gogh's masterpiece, and the door was labelled "Preparatory Room".

Despite all her navigation training at SKUL and then again at MI9, Zoe had never been able to find her way around the school, except to go to the caretaker's storeroom.

"Zoe?"

Zoe turned around to see Dan walking briskly towards her. She smiled in relief and started talking rapidly. "I know you said to meet at the arts classroom but I couldn't find it and Melissa said the take the first right, which I did, but then I couldn't find the Van Gogh pictures and second door on the left is a science lab, and - "

"Zoe," Dan cut off her extremely long sentence with a look. "Never take directions from Melissa. Come on."

Dan grabbed Zoe's wrist and led her down the corridor where he'd come from, stopping outside a door labelled "Creative Arts".

He pointed at a set of blue and yellow splashes outside the classroom. 'Those are the Starry Starry Night interpretations."

"They don't look like it," Zoe observed with a frown, earning her a laugh from Dan, who nodded vigorously.

Opening the door, Dan gestured for Zoe to go first, trying to act gentlemanly. Zoe rewarded him with a shy smile, and entered ahead of Dan to find Tom and Aneisha already painting away at the separate easels. The four of them exchanged brief greetings, before Dan and Zoe took up their own easels and palettes.

Ten minutes later, Zoe hadn't yet decided what to paint. She glanced around at the others' work. Tom appeared to be painting Blade Quest characters, and Aneisha was painting Flopsy. Zoe couldn't exactly make out what Dan was working on, but it seemed to be a young girl with wearing a blue ribbon in her red hair.

Zoe sighed, picking up her brush again. She definitely would not be taking Visual Arts next year. Maybe she could convince Dan to take Textiles with her.