You shouldn’t smoke, not if you play footy, how you gonna run? Give us one.

SQUID: Can we get out of here?

TAMARA: What were you smiling at before?

SQUID: Smiling?

TAMARA: Yeah, coming back up the lane.

SQUID: Wasn’t smiling.

TAMARA: You were. Whatever.

Did ya win yesterday, Jasyn?

SQUID: No. Ref was shit.

TAMARA: Good excuse. School team sucks—bunch of weeds.

SQUID: Used to be good.

TAMARA: Yeah? When?

SQUID: Couple of years back. Before everyone left. My brother/

TAMARA: You don’t talk about him much.

I knew him.

SQUID: He’s not dead.

TAMARA: Know him then. Dane.

He looks like Sonny Bill Williams.

SQUID: Sonny Bill’s a fag.

TAMARA: He still looks like your brother.

SQUID: He’s a fucking Islander.

TAMARA: So?

SQUID: How you know Dane?

TAMARA: Seen him round. Out after footy. Not school footy. Proper footy on the weekend.

He’s hot. Better than you.

SQUID: You reckon?

TAMARA: Yeah.

SQUID: Thanks.

PETCHALL: Shaniqua… Dmitri… Jessica C…

TAMARA: No worries.

PETCHALL: Jessica F…

TAMARA: You visit Dane in jail?

PETCHALL: Jessica L…

SQUID: Yeah. No. Not allowed to without adult supervision.

TAMARA: Like a nightclub or something.

PETCHALL: Jessica P… oh sorry Jess.

SQUID: He didn’t deal drugs.

TAMARA: No? He took them. Everyone said. That story about him and that footy slag after the grand final. That true?

SQUID: Wasn’t there.

TAMARA: Yeah? Gotta be dumb to touch that shit. See what it does to people.

PETCHALL: Who’s still missing then? Tamara Brewster? Tamara here?

SQUID: Delete the pic.

TAMARA: Make me.

In a playful way, he does.

Between the bins in jiggers’ lane things go still between us. We lean on bricks look at each other and something happens like in a movie.

Like what happened when we were alone together for the first time.

The traffic on the city bypass hushes.

We look at each other—into each other’s…

[To SQUID] You’ve got something on your mouth. Not there, there.

SQUID: Is it gone?

Can I kiss you?

TAMARA: Na.

They kiss.

PETCHALL: The AWOLs, the missing, the late ones, let’s hope they turn up.

SQUID: You talk too much.

TAMARA: Three weeks, six days.

PETCHALL: Jasyn?/

SQUID: Of nonstop talk.

PETCHALL: Jasyn Donovan? Here?

SQUID: Can’t believe you count.

TAMARA: It’s ’cause I can.

Know how many days until the formal?

SQUID: Na.

TAMARA: Seventy-nine.

SQUID: Yeah right.

TAMARA: Hey Squid—thanks.

SQUID: For what?

TAMARA: Messing up the doghouse. Looks sick.

Go get me a Coke.

Zero. See you in class.

A bell rings.

TAMARA: English Six don’t matter/ I’m late.

PETCHALL: You’re late, Tamara.

TAMARA: No Miss, yes Miss.

She stands there in front of them all.

All of them in the same thing—blue shit ’cept/

PETCHALL: Where’s your uniform today, Tamara?

TAMARA: Wearing it, Miss.

PETCHALL: That’s what you call that, is it?