I didn’t think they’d be here this soon. I thought I’d have a week or so, a few days at the very least. I pull on my school gear and hurry to the kitchen. I grab mosquito coils from under the sink, the purple lighter from the drawer next to the stove and step out the back. My thumb keeps slipping off the lighter. By the time I manage to get each ring smoldering my fingers are aching. I place one on the table next to the door, one on the pavers and one in a mosquito-coil tin near your shed. The coils smoke and the heavy scent pushing into my sinuses makes my eye sockets ache. I breathe in through my nose, long and deep. It’s still there, underneath, sweetly sour, a sharp sinking rotten that catches at the back of the throat and forces my feet back. I light another coil and place it near the fence line. Splinter sneezes and shakes his head. I loop my fingers through his collar and step us both inside. He might bark and I don’t want anyone popping their face over the fence. I cut the tape and open the windows from the kitchen so I can drop incense sticks in jars on the outer ledge, half a packet in each. I light them and pull the windows mostly shut, hoping to keep the smell on the outside. Overkill? Maybe. It’ll give me a few hours, at best. What else can I do?

I leave early. Lettie’s in her front yard scowling at four people in white jumpsuits piling out of a van. It has one of those cage trailers attached at the back. They wave at her. She stands next to the skip and glares at them. Another truck with a skip on the back appears around the corner. Good luck to whoever thinks they’ll be filling that thing. My shoulders relax a little. There’s no way they’ll get through the house today, they won’t make it to the backyard for ages.

“Who do you think you’re waving at? We’re not friends.” Lettie’s angry voice cuts through the morning chill.

I smile.

SCHOOL’S NOT THE relief it usually is. Ms. Pham asks if I’m okay and tells me I have some extra homework to catch up on, then we get a notice for school camp. A trip to the old gold mines in Ballarat. It costs eighty-nine dollars. The rest of the day jumps through moments: I’m performing coherent actions I don’t remember starting or finishing.