Classroom E19, the motley blue plastic chairs, leaky gas heater, graffiti on desktops and underneath chewing gum relief maps of teen angst and restlessness. Tired poster of Jane Austen on the back wall—all teeth blacked out and a Hitler moustache—the only pair of eyes that bother looking.

iPods off.

Pens out books open eyes to the front—to the…

I watch them. We all watch them. See—something untucked, some arm cut, some name in marker on some hand. And in their eyes…

Willing with integrity. On the crest of the uniform. The school motto. ‘Willing with integrity’. Nobody knows what that means.

Tamara’s house.

TAMARA: Squid at my place—standing in the kitchen doorway staring out at the broken shit in the backyard.

Dad looking at him—saying/

LAURENCE: Squid. What’s his real name?

TAMARA: Ask him yourself.

LAURENCE: Squid your real name?

SQUID: No.

TAMARA: What’s your real name then?

SQUID/LAWRENCE: Jasyn.

SQUID: Yeah. What’s your real name?

LAURENCE/TAMARA: Laurence.

SQUID: Laurence.

LAURENCE: Of Arabia/

TAMARA: Not/

SQUID: What?

TAMARA: Don’t worry, he’ll go to his room soon.

LAURENCE: Nice.

TAMARA: Dinner’s in five.

SQUID/LAURENCE: What is it?

TAMARA: Macaroni. We’re not havin’ salad—so don’t ask—nothing to make it with—you want it—you find something to make it with—can Squid stay?

LAURENCE: For dinner?

TAMARA: Yeah.

LAURENCE: Stay over?

TAMARA: /Yeah.

LAURENCE: No.

TAMARA: Why not? Fuckin’ hell. What do ya reckon we’ll do?

What do you reckon we’ll…

What’ll you know anyway?

Don’t worry he won’t know—won’t hear us from the front room.

LAURENCE: You reckon?

TAMARA: God! We’re just gonna watch a DVD.

Then he starts acting like a dad. First time in fifteen years saying/

LAURENCE: So what do you do with yourself, Jasyn?/ And where do you live?

TAMARA: And where do you live? See his uniform—he goes to school with me—and where you reckon he lives?

LAURENCE: You won’t be convincing her to stay on at school then.

TAMARA: What does that mean?

’Cause of the colour of his skin?

Right.

Thank fuck I missed the racist sexist moron genes.

LAURENCE: I didn’t/ [mean that]

TAMARA: I’m staying on. Don’t need no convincing from a bloke. Not going to leave school and work in some shithouse two-dollar shop for the rest of my life—get varicose veins standing up all day selling fucked-up stuffed shit to cheapskates.

You reckon I’m going to have people sneer down at me like I got no brain?

I’m going to be a writer.

LAURENCE: A writer?

TAMARA: Yeah a writer. Kids’ books. Some parents read to their kids.

LAURENCE: Lots of money in that.

TAMARA: There is.

LAURENCE: You can get your mate here to do the pictures. Dot paintings.

TAMARA: Tea’s ready. Need sauce? If you do we’re out.