Madison made her way back to the back seat. Her face was flushed, a wide smirk for the girls.

‘You’re such a bitch, Madison,’ said Georgia.

‘Yani is literally a whore. We hate her, Georgia,’ said Madison. She snuggled in beside Jasmine and her. ‘For all our new viewers, tell us again what your people call the Great Western Tiers?’

Georgia sat up straighter, brushing her ringlets back as she slipped into her activist voice. ‘The traditional name for the Tiers is Kooparoona Niara,’ she began. ‘Meaning “Mountain of Spirits”. It was a significant meeting place for three separate mobs. They’d come for ceremonies, to exchange news, and to trade for the sacred ochre – hang on, why are you giving me that look? No! You’re just gonna make this about those bloody portals you think are up there!’

‘C’mon, Georgia —’ said Madison.

‘No way. They are not part of Aboriginal story. I won’t help you appropriate my culture to —’

‘Appropriate your culture?’ said Madison. ‘What about Avengers? You love Thor, who is literally a god for some people.’

‘That’s completely different and you know it!’ Georgia’s voice was growing heated. ‘There are no magical spirit portals in the mountains! There is no mystical Aboriginal-afterlife vortex sucking people in!’

‘That sounds suspiciously like something someone would say if they were trying to hide the fact there are portals in the mountains —’

Jasmine, who had heard all this before, turned away, looking past Cierra – who was scrolling on her phone – and out the window.

She pretended she didn’t see Yani’s shoulders shaking with quiet sobs as her friends tried to comfort her. The whole thing felt particularly wrong because anti-bullying was one of MMMMadisonMason’s biggest themes. But then, a lot of things Madison did in real life went against what MMMMadisonMason said online.

Don’t worry about it . . . for the greater good . . .

The houses of Limestone Creek rolled past. Most were run down: fibro joints and dirty brick houses, a community that had risen and fallen with the local mining industry, and then again with the timber industry. These days, Limestone Creek was a mongrel town, part tourism, part ageing population. Rusting cars in overgrown yards, goats on nature strips, houses that doubled as antique-dealers, with colourful flags flying out the front to attract the tourists on their way along the Meander Valley Scenic Route, which led into the pristine, misty wilderness of Tasmania’s highlands.

Jasmine knew what Limestone Creek was really like. You heard a lot of things about your town when your dad sold weed. Especially in a town that had a population of less than 6000.