The girl turned to Paula. ‘My brother’s being a pain-in-the-arse little worm. Sorry.’

There was something defiant about the way this girl said ‘sorry’. Not that she wasn’t sorry, but she certainly didn’t want anyone to mistake that limited ‘sorry’ for her being generally sorry about who she was and her right to exist in the world.

‘You can pick one, Jye. A small one,’ the girl instructed.

‘Are you Ruby?’ the checkout woman asked.

‘What? Yeah. Why?’ the girl shot back. There was that defiance again, a prideful and combative edge, always expecting a fight, always ready to fight.

‘My little sister’s in year eight with you.’

‘Oh right.’

So Ruby must be about fourteen. Paula often found it hard to tell with teenage girls—some still looked like kids, while others seemed to have jumped straight to their mid-twenties. This girl was hard to pick because, even though she appeared small and young, she had the self-reliant edge of a much older person. With a wiry body, a pointy face and huge brown eyes, she looked like a pretty whippet.

By now, the boy was bouncing from foot to foot in front of the chocolate bars, moaning about the difficulty of choosing. Paula half expected his big sister to be irritated by this, but she just laughed indulgently at her brother and rested her hand on his shoulder, unobtrusively easing him from his bouncing into stillness. She made a little performance of joining him in the decision-making process, frowning, gasping and groaning along with him.

‘Yeah, I know. Hard to pick one. If it was up to me, I’d—nuh, shouldn’t say. It’s your choice, mate.’

‘Say! Say!’

‘I’d go a Curly Wurly.’

Jye plucked a Curly Wurly bar from the display as if he’d won some glorious prize. Paula snuck her head around to exchange a smile with the boy, but then she realised that Ruby was glaring at her, suspicious, verging on hostile. Why are you gawking at my brother, lady?

Paula turned away, kept her head down. She didn’t want any trouble. She didn’t want to pry into anyone’s life or have them scrutinise hers. Anyway, this was about as much human contact as she could handle in one go in her current state. She paid quickly and headed outside to her car.

Sliding into the driver’s seat, Paula looked through the windscreen—the interior of the supermarket was bright against the dark street. Paula saw Jye come dancing out the door, with half the Curly Wurly already in his mouth and the rest of it making a chocolatey mess of his hand. Ruby hustled him forward while she put the bread and milk into a backpack.