It did annoy me how Jane thought checking out boys was the most important thing in life. I mean, what was I going to do with a boyfriend? I didn’t even want to take my friends back to my place what with Caitlin being there, let alone introduce a boy to my parents. And the last two weeks I’d had were doing my head in enough without thinking about what I was supposed to do with a boy.

Jane didn’t really set that good an example of how to date boys. She’d kissed a few, and then they’d message each other for a while before she’d get sick of them not taking her out anywhere and then she’d drop them.

After swimming for a while, I said, ‘Do you want to shoot some hoops?’

Katie looked at her blue wrinkly hands. ‘Yeah, I’m starting to turn into a granny.’

We climbed out of the pool, grabbed our towels and threw them on the concrete, at the top of the lawn area next to the pool, beneath the basketball backboard. You had to shoot from where you caught the ball and then run back onto the towel before you burned your feet.

As I was taking my first shot, Katie asked, ‘Did your mum get her car fixed?’

‘Yeah, she did,’ I said after watching the ball swish.

‘I was really worried,’ she added and I took that as an extra apology for her dad calling mine, although I hadn’t shared details of what had happened after he called.

‘Thanks, but it’s all cool. Mum’s okay, we hung out last night.’ And then to change the subject, I said, ‘So what’s new at school?’

‘Cody Brown got so hot,’ Jane responded, almost jumping out of her skin.

‘No way!’

‘Yep, he’s grown a foot and gained.’

‘Gained?’

‘Got ripped,’ Katie explained.

Jane said, ‘Wait, I’ll show you.’ She scampered to get her phone from the outdoor table and then came back to show me a photo of Cody.

‘Go Cody,’ I laughed, finding his transformation almost unbelievable. Puberty was wild.

We continued shooting hoops and I hit about five shots in a row before Katie’s mum came out of the house carrying a plate of sandwiches.

‘Oh, hi Phoebe,’ she said. ‘How is it going at the new place?’

‘It’s fine,’ I answered with a smile. We walked over to the outdoor setting at the end of the pool.

‘I’d soooooo love to live down south,’ she said. ‘I love all of the amazing wineries down there.’

‘And the beaches,’ Katie added. ‘Can we move down there, Mum?’