Around nine a.m., TAMARA waits in an inner-city laneway. She listens to music on her earphones, seems transported to another place. She is meant to be in Petchall’s classroom.

SQUID arrives.

TAMARA: You took your time. Ya bring ya paint?

SQUID: Yeah.

TAMARA: Red?

SQUID: Yeah.

TAMARA: Good. Clash with her house. Teach her a lesson.

SQUID: What did she do?

TAMARA: Told ya. She rang the school ’n’ dobbed on us for jigging.

This’ll shut her up.

Do it. Like I said. Come on.

SQUID: Keep watch.

SQUID begins spraying ‘DOG POUND’ on the fence.

TAMARA: I am. Hurry up.

See her face when she comes out and finds this on her precious pink cement.

Don’t spell it wrong.

Concentrate! Finish it. Go on.

Fuck!

SQUID: What?

TAMARA: She’s in there.

SQUID: She’s not.

TAMARA: Blinds moved in the front window.

SQUID ducks down, hides.

A bell rings in the distance.

Got ya.

PETCHALL: Move in quietly. You all know the rules, so show some manners.

Get them out of your ears. Now. Out. Earphones out.

How many times have I said this to you all?

I can still hear one. I’m waiting.

One.

Two.

Three/

TAMARA: Hurry up, you sped.

SQUID: Done. We going?

TAMARA: Get a pic first. Hold up your can/

SQUID: No.

TAMARA takes a photograph of SQUID with her phone.

PETCHALL: Silence. Just enjoy that for a moment.

TAMARA: Took it anyway.

SQUID: Delete it.

PETCHALL: Enjoy that quiet.

SQUID: We going or what?

PETCHALL: Honestly your ears’ll turn to/

SQUID: What are you looking at me like that for? Going to class. Delete that pic or I’m dead.

SQUID leaves.

PETCHALL: If I see an earphone I will snip it. If any iPods make their way out, I will confiscate them.

I don’t care about your rights or what your parents say.

A plane passes above.

TAMARA: Didn’t think much of him at first looks a bit mean not like other guys I like bit mean tough but hot but something wrong something going on inside his head seeping out something strange not sick but weird then one day I see him and he looks different something nicer—dunno maybe he’s just looking up ’stead of looking down. He smiles. That’s what it is. He smiles at me.

SQUID returns.

SQUID: Rowney’s at the end of the lane.

TAMARA: Late notes?

SQUID: Giving shit about uniforms.

TAMARA: Did he see you?

SQUID: Na.

TAMARA: Then/

SQUID: Might come down here.

TAMARA: Rowney?

SQUID: I’ll go the other way.

TAMARA: Past the shop? Get me a Coke?

Your shout?

SQUID: Na.

TAMARA: Go on. You’re my boyfriend.

SQUID: No.

TAMARA: Three weeks, six days, seven hours.

SQUID: Not this again.

TAMARA: It matters.

SQUID: Matters to you.

SQUID smokes.

TAMARA: Matters to you too, just don’t know how to say nothing.