“I’m dead serious. We all grew up with your movies and TV shows and books, but most of the things in real life were nothing like them. It was so much fun moving here. Like, ‘Holy shit, all the car seats are swapped around, and there are cafeterias, and Twinkies!’”

I twirled my straw around and poked at the ice in the glass. “You don’t have cafeterias?”

“Nope. Most people bring lunch from home, or there are a couple of things you can buy from the canteen, but they’re not full meals, and there are no trays or anything. And you usually eat outside.”

“Like, outdoor dining?”

“No, like, on your lap on the grass, or sitting on a brick wall or something.”

If my grin was nearly as big as I thought it was, I should probably restrain myself, but I didn’t quite care enough to. “Oh, I wanna go.”

“You should. Go to the Gold Coast or Adelaide.”

“Are you from one of those places?”

The very corner of his mouth curved up. “Adelaide. That’s why I have the accent.”

“Yes, I’ve been meaning to ask you about that!”

“Well, long story short, when Australia was invaded and colonized they decided it’d be a good idea to chuck all the convicts in Britain over there, so most of the eastern side of the country developed an accent that was influenced by a lot of British accents, especially the ones more common in the working class.”

“You know how you just sounded, right?”

“The British class system’s problematic; don’t shoot the messenger. Then when Europeans started coming over to South Australia a little later, they were free settlers, so there was a lot more received pronunciation.” Here he put on an exaggerated, snobbish accent to illustrate. “Like the Queen’s English, you know? Then that accent mixed with the other accents and had a bastard baby that sounds like me. So, most of the country says ‘dance’ and ‘chance’ kind of like you guys, but we’re ‘dahnce’ and ‘chahnce.’ That kind of shit.”

My iced coffee was forgotten on the table, getting more watery by the second, but I wasn’t even bothered. It was the first time I’d heard any of this. It struck me I didn’t really know that much about Brougham’s country at all. I mean, I’d thought I did, but … “Are there other differences?”

“Well, you know, regional ones, but nothing that’d mean much to you, I guess. Like, some states say ‘bathers,’ some say ‘togs,’ some say ‘swimmers.’”

“‘Bathers.’” I snorted.

“Is the correct term,” Brougham said calmly. “Oh, and, we do a weird thing with our L’s most of the country doesn’t do. Like, we don’t pronounce them if they come before a consonant or at the end of a word. Like ‘milk’ or ‘yell’ or ‘talkative.’”