The bitches are at their best with all the swirling rumours about Laney, but none of them involve Troy. Course not, it’s always the woman’s fault in this town. It isn’t like talking to them would improve my day, but it isn’t great feeling like a social pariah. They’re going to extremes this time and I’m being ignored in class as well, with no one willing to sit next to me. When I find Laney I am getting out of this shithole and dragging her with me.

Day 3, Afternoon

Day 3, Afternoon

It’s the last class after lunch and I am counting the seconds on the clock. When the bell goes I leap out of my chair and leg it through the door, while the teacher yells about using the free period to actually study. I like Mrs McKenzie, she’s my favourite teacher. She actually cares about us, and she is the only person who spoke to me all day, but I’m not sitting still today, not even for her.

I walk like I’m doing what I should be, not wagging school at all. I head straight for the Eidsvold Historical Society. Just off the main highway that runs through town, it’s an old log-cabin-looking building filled with photos, paperwork and relics from the town’s goldmining days. It has a huge yard filled with ancient train carriages that they manage to keep in not too bad condition. I’ve never really paid that much attention to it. It’s covered in dust and cobwebs, and is wall-to-wall white history.

Everybody knows that some parts of the town are ‘white’ territory and others are ‘black’. Even the pub has a whitefulla side and a blackfulla side. They reckon it’s supposed to be all one now, and sure people cross between the two spaces, but it’s what everyone calls it. The pub is the centre of activity in the town and it’s the best place to see how things work here. The blackfulla side is all concrete, old plastic chairs and the toilets have never worked or been cleaned in anyone’s memory. People don’t even bother to complain. The whitefulla’s side is carpeted, has nice dining tables and chairs and a regularly cleaned toilet that works fine and doesn’t smell like open sewage. Mum remembers when there was no door connecting the two sides, but that door is weird territory. Crossing it makes you feel funny, like you don’t belong. And anytime someone, black, white or brindle, goes through it, people will turn around to stare. The historical society is like that, a white space where this town was ‘discovered’ by a pair of Norwegian brothers way back when and no one was here before them. Yeah, right.