SQUID: Boss at Subway sacks me.

Boss looks at me like I am shit he swept up and kicked in the gutter.

Doesn’t want the uniform back.

PETCHALL: Parent-teacher night—they sit across the table in the hot hall.

TAMARA/PETCHALL: The look in their eyes/

TAMARA: The counsellor, the girls.

PETCHALL: Parents across a desk whisper thanks but that they’re sending their kids somewhere else.

Ask me how on earth can I face it all again after…

Then him: Tamara Brewster’s father Laurence at parent-teacher night for the first time ever. Standing in line to speak to me in that hot hall. Sitting down and looking at me like… like/

TAMARA: Mum comes down from Queensland she’s turned into a Twistie—orange skin—makes me go to Brisbane—look in her eyes says don’t argue and I don’t just for once I don’t/ fourteen weeks.

SQUID: Fourteen weeks.

TAMARA leaves.

Start at the adolescent centre—sign a contract.

Sit in class—reading the same book—The Outsiders.

Start boxing.

Speak to this bloke everyday about shit. Tattoos. Dane. ‘Feelings’.

SQUID/PETCHALL: Hear shit/ Hear things.

SQUID: Hear they couldn’t get the paint off/

PETCHALL: Hear he had taken ice. Ice.

SQUID: Hear she went up north.

PETCHALL: Hear the same song I heard on the earphones that morning—the morning it happened—that song everywhere, in shops, on the radio in the car, in the wind as it whistles through the leaves in the trees.

SQUID: Hear the phone ring. Silent on the other end and I think it’s her—Tamara? I think it’s her calling—but it’s not.

It’s Mum.

She tells me she heard. Says she’s gonna try and make it back soon and when I ask when she goes quiet…

Then.

She’s.

Gone.

SQUID puts in his iPod and leaves.

PETCHALL: Girls and boys dressed up for the formal. Eye shadow and pimples and sweat and milky white tuxedos—taffeta and roses—heels clattering on concrete. Another year.

TAMARA enters in her formal dress and tasselled boots.

TAMARA: Hello Miss.

PETCHALL: You’re back, Tamara.

You look lovely.

TAMARA: Thanks. Can you believe I got this dress in Brisbane?

PETCHALL: And the boots?

TAMARA: And the boots.

TAMARA/PETCHALL: How are you doing?

Pause.

PETCHALL: We should go in.

TAMARA: Yeah.

PETCHALL: Wouldn’t want to miss those mocktails.

TAMARA: No.

Miss?

PETCHALL: Yes Tamara?

Pause.

TAMARA: I don’t know what to say.

PETCHALL: Then don’t say anything, Tamara. Just…

See you in there.

PETCHALL goes. TAMARA lights a smoke.

TAMARA: There are formals going on all over Darling Harbour. Limos stopping—bouncers looking tough—hot guys in tuxes, girls giggling—cameras flashing.

The lights from all the places dance on the water—music spills out.

What if they play our song Squid?

You were gonna lift up your shirt on the dance floor—show off your tattoo of the squid god.