The empty square in the yearbook

Text: an original contemporary school-memoir-style practice extract.

On photograph day, Mara was away. The yearbook draft showed an empty square where her portrait should have been. Beneath it, the software had placed the words image unavailable. The page looked tidy. That was what upset me. Twenty-nine faces could apparently form a complete class around one neat explanation.

I asked whether we could use a photograph Mara chose herself. The editor said it might not match the others. She was right: the portrait Mara sent was taken outside, and sunlight fell across one side of her face. In the studio pictures, we all stood against the same grey background. We tried her photograph in the square. The page became less uniform and more accurate about who belonged in it.

When the books arrived, Mara laughed at the contrast and said she looked as though she had escaped the room. I was relieved she could make the joke herself. An empty square would not have explained why she was away, and no photograph could stand in for everything a person meant to the class. But a difference in lighting was a small price for not printing her absence as though it were her place.

In this extract, the writer tries to create a sense of the importance of including someone who is absent.

Evaluate how successfully this is achieved. Support your views with detailed reference to the extract.