By the time Gorman came round, later that evening, I had been on the phone to Charles Beckerman, the superintendent of Lucas County schools, and had managed to arrange a compromise. We couldn't cancel the FunTime videos without trying them out for a full semester, but Charles had accepted my point that most of the students knew the material already, and he had been willing to concede that the highest-scoring 15% could switch to another Edu-Fun program, AR-GAP, for gifted students, which was already being piloted this year at Federle.

When I told Gorman about this, he groaned (which, I have to admit, did sound rather Jabba-like). 'So, what you're saying is, I lose the brightest five kids from my class, but I still have to sit through Professor Funtime with the rest of them? And I'll have to go on doing that for years?'

'The brightest of them are the most bored with this,' I pointed out. 'They're the ones who are complaining the loudest.'

Well – except Dwight Tharp, who seemed to cave in and give up on the Rebellion when I threatened to phone his mother. He's terrified of getting into any more trouble. And why wouldn't he be? His parents are divorced, and children usually worry about whether it's their fault when that happens – and admittedly, with a child as unpredictable as Dwight, there could well be some truth in it. Until about a year ago, he hadn't really started to make any close friends among children his own age. As his mother says, he doesn't find making friends easy – but frankly, while his difficulties in socialising are partly because of his own challenges, having a mother like Mrs Tharp probably makes it even harder. Just when he had started to find his own (very weird) way to having a social life, through inventing alternative personas like Origami Yoda and Captain Dwight and Sherlock Dwight (and, most recently, Magic Squirrel), I accused him of bullying, on the grounds of (a) one occasion when he had fought a bigger student who was bullying one of his friends, and (b) one occasion on which a student had misunderstood something he said, and so I had suspended him and come close to expelling him and referring him to reform school.

If anyone is a bully, I am. And if Dwight hadn't felt that the school needed him (or at least, Origami Yoda) to organise a rebellion, he might not have come back to McQuarrie at all.

At times like this, I don't like myself at all. And yet, someone out there thinks I am not the real enemy. I have to prove them right.

'No,' I admitted. 'It's not a solution. But I think Charles needs to see that for himself. And I think it's a decision for the students themselves to make. Charles is due to come to the school tomorrow anyway, to announce the AR-GAP program. If we invite him to meet some of the students who would likely be moved to it, I think they can explain the situation to him better than I can.'

'And after that?'

'After that – we just do whatever we can to provide something more interesting than Professor Funtime, for the rest of term. And for the students who really aren't getting good enough grades – that's more like 35% than 85%, and the Funtime videos don't seem to be doing them any good, either.'

'Why did you ever think they would?'

'I guess – a presentation with songs and animations reminded me of Adam, and how creating Soapy helped him, when he was young. But,' (I thought about it a bit more) 'that helped him because Soapy was a character he invented, the same way these students created their own origami figures – I mean, even if they're based on Star Wars characters, the students still give their versions of them individual personalities. And – what helped Adam wasn't just making a puppet. It was having someone who was willing to listen to him and give him one-to-one attention. I guess what the struggling students here need is the same. Tutoring. Maybe from students at this school who are ahead in a subject, or maybe we can arrange some sort of scheme with the high school.'

'Mr – Adam means a lot to you, doesn't he?' Gorman said uncomfortably.

'As a friend, yes. He's someone I've been friends with since I was fourteen. He's the reason I became a teacher. But if you mean do I fancy him – aarrrgghhh, no! I can't imagine kissing him. He'd want to gargle with mouthwash for twenty minutes afterwards.'

'Is there anyone you do fantasise about kissing?'

'Yes. You. Just in case tomorrow goes down so badly that I have to resign from this school in disgrace and flee the state, I want you to know – I love you.'

'Actually…' Gorman said, 'I have a confession to make. I was the one who sabotaged your meeting with the parents. I created the mixtape of Professor Funtime's direst ever hits. I had the remote control in my pocket the whole time. I'm the traitor.'

'I know,' I said. 'You're a complete disruption to the learning environment.'

'Oooh, "disruption"!' he said, with a very Han-like smirk. 'I like the sound of that!'

'Good,' I said. 'Because I'm going to need your help in doing a lot more disrupting.'

(Next day)

I am so proud of my students! Well, okay, I wasn't exactly thrilled about Harvey Cunningham interrupting me every sixty seconds in front of the superintendent of Lucas County's schools, and thrashing around with excitement in my small, crowded office, or Dwight Tharp announcing that he now identified as a magic squirrel. But overall – I'm so proud of the courage and loyalty of all of them, and especially Sara Bolt and Thomas Lomax.

Thomas is a quiet, not very confident boy. I noticed in his 'case file' (the folder of students' writings that landed mysteriously in my office) that he constantly complains that his parents don't care about him and are only interested in his older brother. Of course, all siblings complain about not getting their fair share of attention, but I have to admit that in the Lomaxes' case, there's a fair amount of truth in it. When Jacob Lomax was at this school, Mr and Mrs Lomax regularly attended every event he took part in: plays, sports matches, debates. With Thomas, they only come if he's in serious trouble and facing disciplinary action: if, for example, he wants to speak up for a friend who is facing disciplinary action, either a classmate's parents give him a ride over, or he brings himself, by bike.

I wasn't sure why Dwight Tharp/'Origami Yoda' had cast Thomas in the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi, apart from Thomas having been a loyal friend to him. I knew that some of the other members of the Origami Rebellion thought he was a bit of a wimp. But today, when he politely, firmly refused Superintendent Charles Beckerman's compromise offer of the AR-GAP class for the top 15%, because, as he said, 'We have not fought this battle to win luxury for ourselves. Rather . . . we seek freedom and peace for everyone,' then I understood. He wasn't just a little boy playing at being a Jedi; he sounded genuinely noble and Jedi-like.

He looked terrified when I kept him in my office for a talk, after I'd sent the other students back to class and Charles back to central office when it was obvious that we weren't going to reach an agreement. But all I wanted was to talk to Thomas in private, to congratulate him – and to give him his case file back, thank him for Princess Leia Origami, and ask him who had sent it and her. But he insisted that he didn't know, and seemed perplexed that I didn't, either. I don't think he was being unhelpful. I'm fairly sure he did genuinely trust that I was on his side, by the time he left.

Maybe Dwight was right, Leia Origami admitted when Thomas had left. There is still some good in you after all.

'It was Dwight, then?' I said (in my head, in case anyone was eavesdropping).

Search your feelings. You know it to be true.

Yes, I did. Not just because Dwight Tharp had been the only person not to react in surprise when I had held up Leia Origami in the meeting and said, 'You definitely picked the right character for me.' As he was staring into space, seemingly lost in a daydream, I hadn't expected him to react to anything anyway. But I knew that it was true.

First of all, of course, the conversations recorded in the case file itself said that Origami Yoda had been the only person who kept insisting that they needed to show the case file to me. And even if Dwight is notorious for not following Origami Yoda's advice even when everyone else does, Origami Yoda is part of Dwight's personality, just as Leia Origami (the version of her that she became when I picked her up, rather than the 'Princess Labelmaker' whose comments appear on black tape in the file) is part of me.

That isn't the only reason that you know, Leia Origami argues. Dwight is the only person here who would still be willing to forgive you and give you another chance, after everything you've done. Just as, last year, he was the only one willing to believe that Harvey could turn back from the Dark Side. He's like Luke.

'So why isn't Luke Dwight's origami avatar?' I asked.

Because he needed to create someone who could be a mentor to him. If he'd wanted to create a figure that represented himself – Yoda probably wouldn't have been it. Yoda wouldn't have believed you were redeemable. Neither would I.

'Do you now?' I asked.

Maybe. But that doesn't mean the students are going to want to work with you. If Vader had survived and Luke had brought him back and said, 'Hi, this is my dad, he's decided to join the Rebellion, and by the way, he's also Leia's dad,' do you think I'd have run up to him squealing, 'Daddy!' and given him a big hug?

'Probably not,' I admitted. 'But what can I do?'

Don't hide in your Death Star and summon students into it, for a start. If you want them to trust you, go out into the school library and talk to them where people can see you.

Author's note: I know that canonically, we aren't told that Ms Rabbski admits to knowing about Mr Howell's activities until the school board meeting. But I just wanted to write this conversation between them - particularly because I wanted to work in the Darths & Droids reference. This was the scene that I wanted to write in the previous chapter, that my husband warned me was too early.