That evening, section two helped make dinner. There were only six of them, but they were noisier than section one—probably because they’d just conquered the zipline. Adrenaline was still flowing; they were so pumped that they didn’t even make a fuss about peeling potatoes.

‘Did you see Connor?’ Sam crowed as he scraped away. ‘That dude was so scared!’

Sam Kollios had the kind of ADHD that left you feeling exhausted after about ten minutes. He was a class clown, forever playing practical jokes and cracking one-liners. His parents had sent him to Finch Island because he’d started street-racing and train-surfing, and they were afraid he was going to get himself killed.

He’d already dropped a handful of potato peel down Flynn’s collar.

‘I didn’t notice you pushing to the front of the line, Sam.’ Warren was propped against a wall, supervising his section. ‘What’s important is that Connor faced his fears and gave it a go. Just like the rest of you.’

‘That’s right,’ Joe chimed in earnestly. ‘You can’t be brave unless you start out scared.’

‘I was scared! I was really scared!’ Matt Spiteri was making a mess of his potato, hacking ragged chunks out of it. ‘But I did it anyway and now I’m not scared anymore.’

Inwardly I cringed, wondering what the other boys would make of this. After a single day at camp, Matt was already covered in Band-aids and mosquito bites. It amazed me that someone hadn’t knocked out one of his prominent teeth.

But the other kids ignored Matt. He might as well have been invisible.

‘Flynn was scared. He was shitting his pants.’ Sam grinned at Flynn, who had returned from the zipline with a limp. Flynn was always hurting himself, and every injury seemed to trigger an explosion. His tantrums erupted whenever he was upset, according to Shaun. They had stopped traffic, injured family members and locked down schools as Flynn wailed and ranted and flung himself off absolutely anything: seats, kerbs, beds, boats, bikes.

Since he was tall and big-boned, with multiple piercings and a shock of dyed pink fuzz on his scalp, he frightened people during these outbursts. And he also attracted a lot of attention.

‘I wasn’t scared,’ he retorted. ‘I was hurting. I hurt my foot.’

‘You were screaming. All the way down,’ said Sam.

‘Because it hurt me!’ Before Sam could do more than snicker, Flynn added, ‘Anyway, you were screaming. I heard you.’

‘Everyone was screaming,’ Warren weighed in. ‘It’s what you always do on a zipline. Scream your lungs out because it’s such a buzz.’