Bet you do. When I was your age…

Cry.

SQUID: What?

DANE: Cry. They love it. Not all the time, just now and then. Bawl in a movie or hold her hand and look up at the moon and cry.

Bitches go mad for that shit.

What’s her name?

SQUID: Tamara.

DANE: She pretty?

SQUID: No, she’s a dog. Of course she is.

DANE: She smart?

SQUID: Yeah.

DANE: You really like her, don’t you?

SQUID: She’s alright.

DANE: You love her?

SQUID: Why you asking me all this shit?

DANE: You’re my bro.

SQUID: You heard from Mum, Dane?

DANE laughs.

DANE: Have you?

SQUID: You remember the story she used to tell us about the squid?

DANE: The only thing I remember her telling is lies.

Pause.

Tamara, hey?

Can’t wait to meet her.

SQUID: Not bringing her here.

DANE: Not going to be here forever.

SQUID: You coming out?

DANE: How’s Aunty? She still play cricket with you in the street in the ad breaks?

SQUID: You coming out?

DANE: ’Course I’m coming out. Things’ll be just like they used to be.

SQUID: Like they used to be?

DANE: Yeah.

SQUID doesn’t look at DANE.

SQUID: Aunty hasn’t done anything like that since we were kids. You’ve forgotten what it’s like.

I gotta go.

SQUID leaves but doesn’t know where to go. He stands alone, listens to his iPod.

TAMARA reads.

TAMARA: Dark ink and if I lie in it, if I let myself fall back into it—it’ll stain me—I’ll look different when I get to the top. I want to get to the top where the light is. I’m a long way down, don’t want to get stained but something holds me stops me pushes me down? Struggle to get free but I can’t. Am I drowning? What holds me there is him—his massive pulsating pink tentacles push me down into the ink.

PETCHALL/TAMARA: Until I know, until I accept I’m…

PETCHALL: … staying below forever in the dark.

It’s very good, Tamara.

TAMARA: Why’d you keep me after class to read it?

PETCHALL: What inspired you to write it?

TAMARA: That’s why. Nothing.

PETCHALL: If there’s anything/ you like to talk about.

TAMARA: Oh Miss, it’s just a dumb story about an octopus.

PETCHALL: Is it?

TAMARA rolls her eyes.

It’s not dumb, Tamara, it’s… moving.

Would you like to type it up for the Gazette?

TAMARA sighs.

Wouldn’t take you long.

TAMARA: Dunno.

PETCHALL: Do you have time?

TAMARA: I dunno.

PETCHALL: It’s just really… imaginative.

Would you mind if I did?

TAMARA: No.

PETCHALL: You wouldn’t mind or you don’t want me to, which? Do you want people to read it?

TAMARA: Nobody reads the Gazette, Miss.