"Sit down, Florence," Mrs Diamond said, smiling at her. "I've had your Dad on the phone. You didn't go home last night, where were you?"
"I was at a friends," Florence replied.
"Okay. Now, I don't want to alarm you, but your brother and sister were missing this morning. They just disappeared in the night."
"No, they didn't. I went home this morning and picked them up. They've got a childminder's trip today and they needed to be there early," Florence lied.
"Oh, okay. I'll call your mum and let her know that you're safe and that's where Harper and Ethan are."
"No, it's okay Miss. I'll call her at break."
"Okay then, if you're sure. How old are your brother and sister?"
"Harper's 4 and Ethan's 2," she said, feeling guilty that she'd left them on their own at such a young age.
"That's sweet. Do you look after them a lot?"
"Quite a bit," Florence realised what she'd just said and added, "but not all the time!"
"Okay. What do you do in your spare time, Florence?"
"Umm, I go walking and do my homework."
"Really? Well how come you've got lots of missing home works?"
"I.. I.. I don't know" she said ashamed. Florence spent too long looking after Harper and Ethan and didn't have enough time to do home work. If she didn't look after Harper and Ethan, no one would.
"Florence, is everything okay at home?"
"Yes, everything's fine."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. Can I go yet? Mr Chalk's teaching us algebra and I really need to be in his lesson."
Realising that she wasn't going to get any further, Mrs Diamond let her go. "Okay, you can go, but I want to see you at lunchtime. You're doing your missing science homework!"
"Lunchtime? But, I can't"
"No excuses."