Everyone’s stories were taking so long. I realised why Michael had only set four tasks to get through for the whole day.

Before the first break, Michael said, ‘Ashley, can you please take Phoebe to reception to change her T-shirt?’

‘What do you mean, change my T-shirt?’ I asked,

‘It has a logo on it,’ he said, as if that explained everything.

I looked down at my top and back at my new teacher. ‘That’s discrimination! You can’t discriminate against me just because I’m a 36ers fan. What about the kid with the footie shirt?’ I asked, scanning the class for the blonde guy I’d noticed earlier.

Michael laughed.

‘What’s so funny?’ I demanded.

‘Phoebe, I’m not discriminating against you because you’re a 36ers fan. The school policy is that you can’t wear logos bigger than your fist.’

‘Oh,’ I said, feeling ignorant. ‘That’s a ridiculous rule.’

He laughed again and said, ‘I’m pleased to find you have such a strong sense of justice. I think we’ll get on fine.’ I was thinking, No we won’t when he said, ‘By the way, I’m a 36ers fan too. Great game the other night, right?’

I nodded.

‘Go on, Phoebe,’ he said, ‘it’ll only take a minute to change your shirt and then you can tell me all about your favourite 36ers players in the next class. I’m interested to hear which women basketball players you like too.’

I dawdled to reception to change my damn top. The receptionist handed me a very ugly peach-coloured T-shirt that smelled like incense. And then in the second class I told my new classmates all about how I love the 36ers, Patty Mills, the San Antonio Spurs and the Brooklyn Nets, and how I want to study law, play college basketball in America and how I love Donald Glover’s movies.

I didn’t hear half of the things the other kids said, although I knew none of them talked about their cultural background so I didn’t say anything about being Aboriginal. A couple of them talked about the 36ers being their favourite team too but apart from that they were mostly boring. Anyway, I couldn’t stop thinking about Mum. All I wanted was to be sitting down having dinner with her.

As we walked out of class on our lunch break, Ashley said, ‘You want to play basketball?’

Surprised and curious, I followed her. We ended up at a terrible outdoor bitumen court. I remembered feeling sick the first day that I’d seen it on the tour. It looked like something from the Dark Ages and I knew falling over on a surface like that tears off skin.

‘Is there another court?’ I asked as we headed over to some boys who were shooting hoops.

‘No, just one.’

‘Well where do the girls play?’ I pressed.

‘With the boys,’ Ashley answered.

I stopped walking.

‘Do you want me to see if some other girls want to play?’ Ashley asked.