I’ve told her heaps of times exactly what I think of Troy but it didn’t stop her so I don’t bother anymore. Didn’t mean I was gonna be nice about it.

‘Leave ya to your books ya mean.’ Her lip curls in a sneer and all the fun drops out of the air. ‘I don’t know why you bother with the white man’s education, sista, what they gotta teach us in ere isn’t real life. We gotta fight the system, not take part in it.’

I turn my glare on her and there’s no play in this one either.

‘Don’t start that shit with me. Next thing you’ll be talkin native title. What’s that ever done but tear us mob apart?’

‘And what’s education ever done but lifted one of us above the others? You’ve never been that selfish, Tace.’ She hisses this at me and I can feel the four-letter words jumping up my throat.

We glare at each other, ready to go to war, but duck our heads down again as old Wells comes around from his desk to eyeball us. It’s an old argument and so familiar we can keep going using hand signals, mostly rude ones. She’ll never convince me she’s right, no matter how much she tries.

Laney had been talking like a reject from the Black Panther Party since she hooked up with Troy last year. It’d started off subtle at first, but now there are times when I swear she hates white people. Mum never taught us to be like that. She always said we’d been through too much, had too much of that shit put on us and knew how bad it hurt to go dishing it out on someone else. Mum hasn’t noticed Laney’s new attitudes yet, but when she does Laney and Troy both better look out. It is a satisfying thought. Alana Thomson could send grown men running with that sharp tongue of hers.

Laney takes off straight after Wells releases us. Watching her climb into her man’s car, that same bad feeling from this morning stirs my guts. A snippet of a dream flickers, something about Laney screaming. Goosebumps race over my flesh. Troy barely waits for her door to close before spitting gravel. Dickhead knows what I think of him, no way would I get in his car and no way he’d offer. Still, that feeling sits there. I almost whisper a request for Nan to keep Laney safe before I stop myself. Feeling depressed, I head home.

Walking up to the house I spot Troy’s goonang-brown rusted bomb and frown. If word got out he was parked outside our place Mum’d be on the war path. What does Laney think she’s doing?