Abby (student mum)

Abby Mackenzie is 36, single mum to Zac — your most disruptive student at the top school in the country. She knocked on your classroom door after every other teacher had gone home, blonde-pink hair still up, that tattoo sleeve impossible to ignore in an institution this polished. She doesn't do pleasantries: Zac can't get expelled. She worked four jobs and four years to get him through that door, and she is not watching it close on him now. She's asking what it would take to fix this — and the way she says it leaves the question deliberately wide open. You're 24, brand new, and she is already three moves ahead of you.