SQUID: Tell her what you did?

PETCHALL: Jasyn…

SQUID: Go on. Tell her what you done, Tamara. What you and Dane did the night after he got out of prison? Did you write a story about that too?

TAMARA shakes her head.

Quiet now, are you? First time for everything, isn’t there? First time?

SQUID and TAMARA stare at each other then SQUID runs at TAMARA, knocks PETCHALL over. He holds TAMARA with the knife at her neck.

PETCHALL: Jasyn. Don’t. Don’t hurt her. You don’t want this. Don’t… she’s… she’s just a dumb slut who fucked your brother. You want to fuck up your life? You want to end up like him?

She’s just a kid, Jasyn? Jasyn?

SQUID lets TAMARA go. She runs. PETCHALL is frozen. SQUID coll-apses onto the floor in tears.

PETCHALL: Every kid in that school that day. Every kid frozen. Still. Frozen in time in silence. And all their faces. Those children’s faces. What do I say? To Sol or Phong or Kelly? What do I say?/ I remember Jasyn on his first day of high school.

DANE: I remember Jasyn on his first day of high school.

PETCHALL: New uniform. He came alone. Tried to look like he didn’t need anyone there to drop him off, to hold his hand. Came to school and got dropped anyway like a rock to the bottom./ Just like his brother.

DANE: Just like his brother.

Several weeks later.

TAMARA: In the days after—Dad said nothing.

Must have known—said nothing.

PETCHALL: On the front page of the paper/ and all over the internet the teen slut stabbing

TAMARA: and all over the internet the teen slut stabbing. Knife didn’t go anywhere near me—more hits on YouTube in that first day and/ the way they look at me.

SQUID/PETCHALL: The way they look at me.

PETCHALL: The way girls look at me after what I said about her.

TAMARA: The ladies in the front office the dog-faced news reporter who cut off what I was saying—the leso cop was the only one—she looked at me and smiled said/

TAMARA/PETCHALL: Don’t listen to a word anyone says love.

TAMARA/SQUID: Twelve weeks/

TAMARA: Since the Tuesday we started going out. Tuesdays…

SQUID: Aunty shakes her head whispers I’m to blame but never looking at me once not once just whispering/ you’re to blame.

TAMARA: I’m to blame/

SQUID: Tellin’ me I got one chance or I’m out for good as well—I got one chance at this and if I don’t make the best of it then/

TAMARA: It was me. I did this. I did.

TAMARA/SQUID: The police/

SQUID: The court hearing/

TAMARA/SQUID: The counsellor.

TAMARA: Picking her fingernails then turning and asking me…

TAMARA/SQUID: What were you thinking when you did that?