‘That was last year; this year Mum got me them extra books memba?’ I heave it off the floor with a noise like a wheezing old dog and pretend to test it out. ‘It’s gotta be another few kilos at least. You might be the track queen but I’m the weightlifter, sista girl. Now move!’ Grunting some more, mostly for show, I heft my port over my head. ‘Five. Four. Three. Two … two and a half.’

Nothing but a snort from under the covers. Oh she asked for it.

I drop the port to the ground and walk over to the largest poster in the room. The one of Tupac stuck front and centre on her wardrobe door. This one hadn’t been folded in a magazine. Mum had given it to her for her birthday, ordered it pristine and new. Not a single crease on it.

‘I’ve always loved this poster,’ I say, fondling the corner.

‘You wouldn’t …’

‘Be a shame ta have ta mark it up, ay? What would happen if I—’

Laney bolts from under the covers and pushes past me to the bathroom. She’s cursing me but she’s up. I stick the corner back carefully and go into the kitchen to start the kettle before getting her towel from her room. I’m standing on the other side of the bathroom door when it cracks open and a soapy head pokes out.

‘Tace! Get my—’

Spotting the towel she snatches it and slams the door. I didn’t really expect a ‘thank you’. Putting together some toast for her and tea for both of us, her breakfast goes on the left like always. Two sides of the mirror Mum says; it’s supposed to be a play on being mirror twins, we just call it gammon. Speak of the devil, Satan herself was heading towards the door on a wave, her purse over one thin shoulder. I poke my tongue out at her and she grins. What a way to start the year. The Thomson twins, late again, but no one would expect anything else.

Sitting in detention on the first day of school, I sigh and turn another page. Detention’s always in the library, right next to the staff room. A large single room, it has shelves on all the walls up to waist height and two taller stacks that divide it into spaces. At one end is an open area with all the little kids’ books, while the stacks are all young adult fiction, and the other open area is non-fiction. The far wall in the non-fiction area has two-metre high shelving filled with reference materials. Triangular brown laminate desks, each with five or six brown chairs, dot the space in front of the stacks.