Mystery in Malta: Seven clues, old walls, and a harbour city that remembers everything.
Episode 1
When Lizzy arrives at school, her shoes are still damp from the morning rain, and everyone already knows she’s back.
She makes it through the first period on adrenaline. Second class less so. By the time she’s called into the history room after lunch, she’s over explaining why she was away so long. There are only so many ways you can say that your mum hates flying. Five days each way. Miles of driving. Ferries. Malta to Wales and back again. Plus, all the family stuff in between.
Lizzy’s fingers hesitate on the cool metal before she pushes the door open.
The teacher looks up from a stack of papers. Lizzy shifts her bag higher on her shoulder as she walks across the room, like she’s trying to shake the nerves loose.
Red pen marks flash amongst the messy mountain of typed assignments. Ticks, circles, and underlines compete with comments squeezed into margins on dog-eared corners. Beside the pile is a single clean sheet laid flat and squared to the edges of the desk. Lizzy tries to upside-down-read the grades listed in neat columns, scanning for her friends’ names.
“Lizzy, thanks for coming so promptly,” says Ms Vella. “You’ve missed a substantial amount of work.”
Lizzy nods. She’s been doing that a lot today.
“Therefore,” continues Ms Vella. “I’ve created a catch-up assignment.”
Thanks, Mum!
The door opens. A boy walks in, smiling like this is already funny.
“Liam,” says Ms Vella. “You’re late.” She turns to Lizzy. “This is your partner for the assignment.”
“Partner?”
“Yes. It’s a practical exercise.”
“But…” Lizzy trails off. Just her luck.
“Why do I have to do whatever this is?” Liam leans against the doorframe like he’s five seconds away from doing something unwise. “She’s the one who’s been away for ages.”
“Come over here, please,” says Ms Vella. “You know why.” She pauses, letting the silence stretch. “But let’s run through the list, shall we? You ruined the group project with your clowning around. You skip classes. And it’s simply not physically possible to give you any more detentions.”
Her eyes narrow. “You think history is ‘dead and boring’.”
“But Ms, it…”
“Do I have to share his grade?” Lizzy blurts. “That’s not…”
Ms Vella raises a hand. “You’ll be solving a murder mystery. Entirely fictional. But grounded in real locations and historical context. It will require mature decision-making.”
She passes them identical envelopes. “You’ll receive clues over the next week. Some here. Some elsewhere.”
The envelope is heavy in Lizzy’s hands.
“The assignment will need to be undertaken outside of school hours. Of course.”
“Do we have to write it up?” asks Liam. “Like…an essay?”
“All the necessary instructions are inside,” says Ms Vella. “You’re both dismissed.”
Out in the hallway, Lizzy opens the envelope slowly. Liam doesn’t look at his; he watches her instead.
She pulls out a photocopied image of an old stone doorway. Just one of the thousands she’s walked past all her life.
A single line is handwritten beneath:
The truth survives where the walls remember
“Oh great.” Liam groans. “That could be any doorway in the Three Cities. Or Valletta. Or the whole of Malta.”
Lizzy agrees. But somewhere beneath the days she’s lost count of, the endless miles she’s travelled, and the behind-everyone-else feeling that’s haunted her all day, something sparks.
Episode 2
The steps to the palazzo slow Lizzy without meaning to. She’s been to Fort St Angelo on school excursions, but today it feels different, like it’s keeping secrets.
She presses her face to the stone and breathes. Ancient smoke is trapped deep within the pores of the fortress.
“What are you doing?” Liam pokes her arm.
“Can’t you smell it?”
“What?” He squints and shakes his head like he’s trying not to laugh. “Dirt?”
Lizzy shrugs. She can’t explain without sounding dramatic.
“Let’s go back down to the outer walls of the keep.” But instead of moving, she drops onto on a step, worn to the colour of old bone.
“Why?” Liam spreads his arms wide to take in the entire fortress. “We’ve scoured every tunnel and bunker, every hidden corner and lookout.”
He leans over the edge of the balcony. “It’s next level as far as fortresses go, but we’ve found nothing.”
He’s right.
“This is pointless.” He scans the deserted courtyard below. “We don’t even know what we’re looking for. And you’ve read all the plagues. Every. Single. One.”
“Maybe the fort is better at hiding its secrets than we are at finding them.”
“Maybe we’re not even in the right place.” He doesn’t let up. “There’s a gazillion walls in the city.”
“No.” Lizzy’s fingertips trace the dark smudges sunk into the rock. “This is the location. I’m sure of it.”
“Because you sniffed it?”
“Because this fort never fell,” she shoots back. “Not once. Not to attack, or siege. Not to bombs.”
“If you say so.” Liam climbs onto a ledge as if the laws of gravity are optional. He pokes at the mortar between the limestone blocks.
“Hey,” he says. “Come here.”
He offers her a hand up without making a big deal. She accepts, quickly; then balances on the narrow shelf. His fingers follow the line where two blocks don’t quite meet.
“There,” he says softly.
Hidden between the stones is a folded slip of paper.
Lizzy’s heart jumps. “That’s been put there recently.”
“Yep.” Liam eases it out with two fingers. “Here. You open it.”
She unfolds the paper and reads out loud:
MATTEO ZAMMIT
1565
Seller of silence
“Is he…the victim?” Lizzy glances at Liam.
Up close his eyes aren’t just brown; they’re messy and detailed. His pupils widen a fraction as he focuses on her. Her stomach does a stupid little drop. She jumps off the ledge too fast.
“Can’t see a body.” Liam laughs. “That clue is worse than yesterday’s.”
He lands lightly next to her.
Lizzy is suddenly aware of how close he is, of how easy it’s been all day to move with him like they’ve been doing this forever.
She takes two steps back. “I think he was a traitor.”
“Huh? How do you come by that?”
She taps the word ‘seller’ on the note. “An informant. Someone paid to keep quiet, or paid to talk.”
“So, not a hero then?”
Her brain goes into fast forward. “If this fort never fell, and someone tried to sell it out…then they didn’t succeed. Which means someone stopped him.”
Liam’s grin fades a fraction. “You mean they killed him.”
The fine hairs on her arms lift, then settle, and lift again, as a tiny current passes through her. She turns, expecting to see someone standing there. The winter light bounces off the harbour, casting shadows on the old walls.
“Seller of silence.” Liam whistles softly. “That’s not a good vibe.”
Episode 3
Lizzy and Liam claim a corner of the courtyard where the wall makes a small pocket of space. They’re half-hidden but still technically public. Not that it matters. At school, everyone pretends they aren’t listening while absolutely listening.
A couple of girls glance over, whispering with zero volume control. Someone makes a kissy noise. Liam looks across and winks at the group.
“We’re not dating,” Lizzy says casually, loud enough for the walls to hear.
Liam pulls a card from the teacher’s envelope and reads:
10th February 2026
Where voices gather, silence costs more.
BIRGU
“What’s yours say?”
Lizzy slides hers out. “Same.” She imagines Ms Vella smirking into her tea. “Great. No map. No arrow. No help.”
“Band club,” he says, like it’s obvious.
“Or a church. Or a café.” She frowns. “Basically, anywhere people talk.”
“No, it’s specific.” He grins. “It’s band club energy.”
Lizzy flips the card over. Blank.
“Which is annoying,” he adds, already on his phone, “because the opening hours are exactly the same hours we’re stuck here.”
“So we can’t go.”
“We can,” Liam says easily. “We just won’t be here for a bit.”
Lizzy’s stomach knots. “You want to wag.”
“One lesson. Maybe two. We look. We leave. No drama.”
“I just got back after disappearing for a century.”
“Exactly.” He smirks. “You’re invisible.”
Lizzy pulls a face. “That is the worst logic I’ve ever heard.”
“And yet,” he says, “you’re considering it.”
She hates that he’s right.
The bell rings. Lizzy stands with everyone else, but she can’t let go of the words. Did they mean betrayal? Were they a warning, or a trap?
By mid-morning, she’s convinced herself it’s for the assignment; and for not letting Liam do this alone and return with the wrong idea.
She meets him at the agreed spot like it’s no big deal.
“I can’t believe you came.”
“I can’t believe you’re smiling.”
“Your face is priceless right now.”
Lizzy rolls her eyes and starts walking.
Birgu is close enough that sneaking feels ridiculous. Which somehow makes it worse. Everything is normal—the narrow streets, the harbour air. Except her heart taps too fast.
The band club looks stubbornly ordinary. A closed sign hangs on the heavy wooden door.
Lizzy points. “We should go back.”
“No one said the front entrance.”
“Liam!”
“Relax.”
He slips into the side alley like he’s done it a hundred times. Lizzy follows, muttering. The alley narrows. The light thins. The air cools.
At the back, there’s a door that looks like it belongs to nobody. Liam tries the handle.
It opens.
Lizzy’s stomach flips. “That’s not a good sign.”
“That’s literally the best sign.” Liam slips inside.
Lizzy follows because she’s already made the stupid decision and refusing now would be even worse.
The corridor is darker than it should be. The air smells old, of stone and fabric shut away. There are faint sounds somewhere, impossible to place.
Liam edges forward, cat-smooth. Lizzy stays close, telling herself it’s tactical.
A shadow shifts at the end of the hall.
They freeze.
A sound, soft and deliberate, like a foot finding a squeaky floorboard on purpose.
Lizzy’s skin prickles.
A torch snaps on. The hallway is flooded with hard, white light.
“Oi.” The voice isn’t loud, it’s worse. “What are you doing here?”
Liam raises his hands. “Sorry. Wrong door.”
Lizzy’s throat locks.
The caretaker steps forward. He’s broad-shouldered and holds heavy keys in his hand.
“This isn’t a playground. Get out. Now.”
They stumble back into the daylight.
“Don’t come back.” The caretaker slams the door.
For a second, they just stand there.
Then Liam lets out a deep belly laugh. “That was intense.”
Lizzy turns on him. “That was stupid.”
“We didn’t break anything.”
“We broke the rules.”
“Yeah, and still found nothing.”
Lizzy pulls the card out. No note. No marker. No Matteo. No anything.
Ms Vella said outside school hours.
The club hours match school hours.
The clue points here anyway.
“It was a decoy,” Lizzy says suddenly.
Liam nods slowly. “On purpose.”
“We’re doing this wrong.” She pockets the clue.
Their eyes meet.
“Tomorrow,” Lizzy lifts her chin. “We do it our way.”
“Great,” Liam’s face shines. “I’m done playing along.”
Episode 4
They’re called out in history class.
Ms Vella stands at the front of the room. “Two students were seen leaving campus yesterday during instructional hours.” Her fingers tap the desk twice. “Liam. Lizzy. After-school detention.”
The class erupts in exaggerated gasps and snickers like it’s the best entertainment they’ve had all term.
Heat floods Lizzy’s face.
Liam gives a tiny salute.
She doesn’t look at him as the class files out.
“Liam, you know what to do.” Ms Vella places reflection sheets on their desks. “Lizzy, the instructions are at the top.”
Liam finishes in minutes and starts doodling a fortress under attack by stick figures. Lizzy writes slowly, neatly, filling every line.
“Hey,” he whispers. “You don’t have to mean it.”
She keeps writing.
When they’re finally dismissed, Liam swings his bag over his shoulder. “Loosen up. No one died.”
“That’s not the point.”
“It was detention, Lizzy. Not exile.”
“It isn’t funny.”
He leans in slightly. “From memory, you walked there on your own legs.”
Lizzy checks her watch as if the time matters. “I’ve got things to do.”
She walks off without looking back.
Detention sticks to her like a rash. Not just the punishment or the whispery looks, but the calling out. She hates slipping up. She wants something she can get right.
The Inquisitor’s Palace isn’t welcoming. It squats behind thick limestone walls like it’s guarding its own secrets. The kind of place where things are written down, dated, filed.
Inside the foyer, a Heritage Malta noticeboard is layered in flyers. Beneath an outdated notice for a Talk Tonight: What the Stones Remember – Marks, Dates & Graffiti on Old Walls, hangs a newsletter.
Lizzy almost misses it.
On the first page is a transcription from 1565:
Matteo Zammit, messenger
Deceased during siege
Not a traitor. Not executed. Just…deceased.
She slumps against the wall.
Had she got it wrong?
She unpins the newsletter and leaves before anyone can ask why.
The harbour glows honey in the late afternoon light. Boats tug gently against their ropes. Lizzy sits on a bench, tracing the faded text on the newsletter with her thumb.
A shadow falls across the page.
“Interesting,” says Liam.
She jerks, instinctively scrunching the paper.
He’s standing just behind her shoulder. Her body goes still, every nerve suddenly aware of how close he is.
“What are you doing here?” she asks.
“Existing. You?”
“Same.”
He tilts his head. “Doesn’t look like it.”
She doesn’t answer.
“So.” He steps around, lowering himself onto the seat beside her. “We’re doing solo missions now?”
She stares at the water.
“You treat everything like a joke,” she says finally.
“Just because I don’t freak out?”
“You don’t think about consequences.” She turns towards him, chin raised.
“And you make a big deal out of nothing.” He runs a hand through his hair, then drops it like he’s just caught himself doing it. “When you’re not jumping to conclusions.”
She swallows. “I didn’t want to be wrong again.”
“So you went alone.” He scoffs. “Because you decided I’m chaos.”
She says nothing.
He points at the crumpled page. “You had poor old Matteo pegged as a traitor. Now he’s just dead.”
Liam stands. “We said we’d do it our way.”
She opens her mouth, but no answer comes out.
He shrugs and heads up toward the bastions, taking the steps two at a time.
And for the first time, Lizzy wonders if she’s just done to Liam what history did to Matteo—judged him before knowing the whole story.
Episode 5
Ms Vella doesn’t wait until the end of class.
“Lizzy. Liam. Come here, please.”
The room goes quiet in that electric, hungry way.
They walk up together, but not close enough to be mistaken for anything.
Ms Vella folds her arms. “You’ve had several days. You don’t appear to be progressing.”
A few heads lift.
“We are,” Lizzy says, before she can stop herself.
“Then perhaps you’d care to explain,” Ms Vella replies smoothly, “why your written updates contain more theory than evidence.”
Lizzy shuffles her feet.
“We’ve been trying.” Liam doesn’t grin this time.
“I expected better from both of you,” says Ms Vella. “This will reflect in your grades.”
The class absorbs that.
For Lizzy, the words land like a dropped plate. For Liam, they land quieter. Heavier.
“You may sit down.”
They walk back through an aisle of whispers.
At lunch, they don’t sit in their usual spots.
They head toward the edge of the school grounds, where a low stone wall backs onto a narrow view of the harbour. Far enough from the main crowd to avoid commentary, close enough to look normal.
“Let’s stop guessing,” suggests Lizzy.
Liam doesn’t answer.
“You’re quiet.” Lizzy nudges his foot with her shoe. “I didn’t think you cared about school.”
He tosses a pebble against the stone. “If my grades drop any lower, Dad’s going to ban me from playing soccer.”
Lizzy pulls out her phone. “I’m going to look up the siege of 1565.”
“If only history wasn’t so boring,” Liam mutters.
She scrolls.
The Great Siege of 1565
Commanders. Casualties. Civilian roles. Messengers.
Liam looks over her shoulder and points at a line.
Accusations of treachery were common during periods of high stress. Some claims were later disputed.
“So, people got labelled,” says Lizzy.
“Doesn’t mean they were guilty.”
Lizzy clicks to an old amateur history thread. A comment catches her eye.
There’s a reference in local accounts of a messenger accused of selling information. No formal trial recorded.
“A seller of information,” Liam says slowly.
Lizzy opens a scanned image. The resolution is terrible. She can just make out the words.
Matteo Zammit: accused of treachery.
Died before charges formalised.
“That’s not a conviction,” says Lizzy. “Or even a trial.”
“But ‘traitor’ still stuck.”
The bell rings for afternoon class. They don’t move immediately.
“How and why did he die?” Liam adds.
After school, they leave separately. Better to play it safe. Tone down the rumours.
They meet at a small café tucked into a quiet alley. Sitting at an outside table, they scroll their phones, searching sources. The screens fill with half-truths and footnotes.
“He didn’t get to defend himself,” says Lizzy.
“Maybe,” Liam counters. “Or maybe you’re jumping ahead again.”
Lizzy lets it slide.
“Well, well,” a voice sings.
Two girls from school stop beside their table, smirking.
Lizzy sits straighter. “It’s an assignment.”
“With him?” one says.
Liam leans back. “Shocking, I know. I can actually read.”
The other girl laughs. “Careful, Lizzy. Bad grades are contagious.”
“And wagging school together?” the first adds. “So…romantic.”
They stroll off, giggling.
The air between Lizzy and Liam hardens.
“That’s what’s they think,” says Lizzy.
“That I’m contagious?”
“That I’ve dropped.”
He watches her carefully. “Have you?”
“No.”
“Okay, then.”
They go back to scrolling, but the energy shifts to something thinner, warmer, harder to ignore.
“Look.” Liam taps the screen, zooming in on a footnote.
A decision was made to preserve morale.
“Silence preserved the walls,” Lizzy says slowly.
He looks at her a beat too long before turning away.
Her tummy flutters like it’s caught a stupid, tiny bug.
“If panic spreads,” she manages to continue, “the city fractures. If you accuse someone publicly, you control the story.”
“And if you kill him before a trial,” Liam adds, “you control it permanently.”
They both sit with that.
Matteo wasn’t proven guilty.
He was labelled.
Maybe sacrificed.
Not to betray the fort; but to keep it standing.
“This isn’t about proving he didn’t do it,” she says quietly.
“It’s about proving the accusation wasn’t the whole story,” he adds.
Lizzy glances toward where the girls walked. “And if we fail, so do our grades.”
“And Dad gets his proof I’m clueless.” Liam tosses his phone on the table. “And I’m off the team.”
She meets his eyes properly.
“We don’t let that happen.”
He studies her for a second, without laughing or joking.
“Which version do we run with?” he asks. “The official one…or the one that might be true, but we can’t prove it?”
Lizzy’s grip tightens on her phone. “We find something that can’t be waved away.”
Episode 6
Since yesterday, everything has changed for Lizzy and Liam. Their search history is all 1565 now. They’ve fallen down a rabbit hole of siege maps, signals, passwords, and the kind of paranoia that turns a whisper into a death sentence.
Lizzy keeps hearing Ms Vella’s voice: who and why. Liam keeps hearing something else: traitor.
They need hard evidence, and they need it fast.
The minute the bell rings, Liam says, “If sacrifice was strategy, we’ve been looking in the wrong place.”
Lizzy knows what he means before he says it.
“St Elmo.”
They walk to the waterfront in silence, the tension sitting between them like a third presence.
Tomorrow, they present to the class.
Tomorrow, they have to prove who ordered Matteo’s death, and why. If they can’t, the ‘traitor’ story wins. And they fail.
They sit side by side on the narrow wooden bench of the dghajsa, knees almost touching as the little boat bumps over the harbour swell and the wind pulls their words into the salt air.
“Messages and movement were life-or-death in the siege,” says Liam.
Lizzy nods. “If the wrong person was let through, everything collapsed.”
She brushes loose hair from her face. “Seller of silence.”
“Not someone selling secrets,” Liam says quietly. “Someone keeping them.”
From the landing, they climb toward Fort St Elmo.
Inside, they move past displays describing canon fire, starvation, relentless bombardment.
“The fort held out longer than anyone expected,” Lizzy reads. “It bought time.”
“It fell anyway.”
“But it kept Birgu and Senglea standing.”
“Strategic sacrifice.” Liam grimaces. “Just like our mate Matteo.”
They follow signs into a dim corridor. The stone walls narrow. Sound folds in on itself.
An exhibit panel explains watchwords:
Passwords changed daily
Betrayal paranoia was constant
Signals used to confirm identity
“Imagine,” mutters Liam. “You get the password wrong and that’s it.”
“No second chances.”
He nudges her. “Two taps means run. One means freeze.”
“You’re impossible.”
“Three taps means pretend we’re museum staff.”
This time she laughs. The sound bounces strangely off the stone. For a second, everything feels lighter.
Then Lizzy spots a faded transcription at the bottom of a display case, half-hidden by glare.
She kneels. “Liam.”
He crouches beside her.
The text is barely legible:
Watchword altered following suspicion of leak
Messenger M.Z. dispatched
Reported
“Dispatched,” says Liam. “Sounds official.”
“That means he was trusted,” Lizzy whispers. “They wouldn’t dispatch someone they thought was a traitor.”
“And if the password changed because of a leak…”
“…then whoever reported him might’ve been wrong.”
“Or lying,” adds Liam. “Or protecting something bigger.”
“Matteo wasn’t selling silence.” Lizzy shivers. “He was carrying it.”
A low, wet scrape drags along the stone. Something heavy.
A soft thud.
Liam taps twice.
Run.
Lizzy freezes.
Liam turns. She doesn’t. He collides with her.
They slam against the hard wall and tumble to the ground. Liam lands half on top of her, breath knocked out of both.
A shadow stretches toward them, long and wrong.
Lizzy grabs his hand.
The scrape comes again.
Closer.
Episode 7
Lizzy is late.
Not five-minutes-late. Running-out-of-time late.
She was up most of the night, staring at screenshots, trying to force a name out of stone that refused to give one.
They have the dead and the why.
They don’t have the who.
And Ms Vella asked for all three.
She sprints across the road without looking.
An engine roars.
Tyres scream.
Lizzy freezes in the middle of the street.
For one split second she thinks, This is how stories end.
The motorbike skids sideways, back wheel fishtailing. The rider fights it, boot scraping hard against the asphalt. He wrestles the bike to a stop, inches from a parked car.
The rider flips up his visor. Dark eyes meet hers.
“You okay?” His voice is calm.
Lizzy nods shakily. “I’m so sorry.”
He raises a hand, like remorse is less important than awareness. Then the visor drops and he rides up the road, engine fading into the traffic.
Lizzy stands there a few seconds longer, heart hammering.
Then she runs.
Liam is at the school gates, slouching against the pillar.
Actually waiting.
When he sees her sprinting toward him, he straightens.
“You’re late.”
“So are you.”
“I was worried.”
That lands harder than she expects.
They walk fast through the deserted corridors.
“Next time,” Liam chuckles, “we agree on the taps.”
“You ran.”
“You froze.”
“You fell on me.”
“You didn’t complain.”
She bites back a giggle. “We looked insane racing down that hill.”
“We were just two completely normal historians fleeing a tunnel.”
They stop outside the classroom. Lizzy takes a deep breath as Liam pushes the door open.
Ms Vella doesn’t waste time.
“Lizzy. Liam. You’re late. The class has been waiting.”
Lizzy apologises quickly and walks to the front. Liam follows.
“The Great Siege of 1565 wasn’t just about cannons and walls,” she begins. “It was about information and control. Fear and rumours.”
Liam nods gravely. “Basically, group chat settings flipped to ‘paranoid’.”
A ripple of laughter.
“They didn’t just fight the enemy,” Lizzy continues. “They fought panic. Movement was restricted. Messages were life-or-death, and heavily controlled.”
“If someone looked suspicious,” says Liam. “You didn’t just ‘talk it out’.”
“Watchwords—passwords—changed daily.” Lizzy checks her notes. “Sometimes more than once. If there was even a hint of a leak.”
“And if you got it wrong, you didn’t get a second try.” Liam runs a hand along his throat.
Lizzy glances at Ms Vella. “We were given a ‘murder mystery’ to solve.”
“We found a body, well it was more dust than anything else, given the timeframe…” Liam pauses for the laughter.
“The ‘victim’ was Matteo Zammit. A messenger.” Lizzy passes out printed screenshots. “When the watchword for the day was changed after a suspected leak, he was trusted to carry the updated password.”
“Shortly after, he was reported. Labelled a traitor,” says Liam. “Next record claims he’s deceased.”
“Which is convenient,” he adds. “Because once he’s dead, there’s no more questions.”
Lizzy gestures to an image of Fort St Elmo on the wall. “During the siege, sacrifice was strategy. Fort St Elmo was held to buy time for Birgu and Senglea. Until it fell.”
“They took one for the team.” Then because the atmosphere has gone heavy and quiet, Liam adds, “I’ve been doing that in history class for years.”
The class erupts.
Lizzy lowers her notes. “Matteo’s death wasn’t about justice. It was about keeping the defenders unified. To control the narrative before fear split them apart.”
“If people think there’s a spy, they turn on each other,” says Liam softly. “He was a sacrifice. The easiest person to blame.”
“We can’t prove who reported Matteo, or who gave the order. Those names are missing. But we can prove why.”
“A simple story keeps people together,” says Liam. “A messy one splits them apart.”
“That’s the motive.” Lizzy finishes. “In a siege, survival comes first.”
No one laughs now.
Ms Vella lets the silence sit.
“You were asked for all three,” she says evenly.
Liam and Lizzy swap glances. Lizzy feels ill.
“You found the victim.”
A long pause.
“And you built a credible motive. Which means you understood the underlying strategy.”
“History has a habit of burying people.” Ms Vella allows herself a smile. “Well done.”
The class exhales alongside Lizzy and Liam.
After school, they meet at the harbour.
“Not failures.” He grins.
“Not traitors either.”
“Speak for yourself.”
“You waited this morning.”
“Yeah,” he shrugs. “Wasn’t going to face Ms Vella alone.”
She bumps his shoulder. “Yeah, right.”
“Next time, we get the taps right,” he says.
“Next time.”