And the year after next, when we were all ready to go to high school, he was going to a place called Princes, which he said was a school in the city his dad had gone to. Apparently four of his older brothers and sisters all went to Princes right from kindy, but his dad said they couldn’t afford the fees for him until high school, so we got his brother Rufus and him. I was very glad about Maynard, but I was not at all happy about Rufus. It didn’t seem right that two brothers could be as different as salt and pepper, but as Mum would say, God moves in mysterious ways. And some would say Mum also got a pair that didn’t match in Ruthy and me.

Maynard read a lot of books, which I didn’t, and he told me that Ruthy was very talented, which I already knew. He would often talk to her about things, which was unusual, because most kids knew that anyone in the year lower than you was beneath you. He liked the plays I made up, and said I was just as creative as Ruthy but in a different way. I said I knew that wasn’t true because I didn’t like to write them down and all it meant was that I was good at making things up, which Mum said was most of my trouble. I quite liked him saying this anyway, but I knew it was just because he was a mate.

He would often help me organise a group to be part of one my plays in the lunch breaks. When we weren’t doing that, we just ate our sandwiches and hung around and talked about stuff. We had a bench we considered our own under a big gum tree in the corner of the school grounds, and met there most lunch times. The tree was grey-and-cream-coloured, with a smooth strong trunk that forked into two main branches above our heads.

My archenemy, his brother Rufus, said it looked like an upside-down lady with naked private parts. He pointed up to the fork where a bird had left a nest and said that’s exactly what grown-up girls looked like with no underpants on. I punched him and said I’d tell on him, and he laughed and called me Miss Prissy Sausage Head but left us alone. I don’t think he wanted any of the teachers to know he knew what girls looked like with no clothes on.

It spoilt the tree for me a bit, because if I accidentally looked up, I felt I was doing something filthy. Although I didn’t understand exactly what yet, I knew anything rude was somehow against God. I’d asked Mum one day if I could watch tellie when I got home from school because the girls in my class were talking about something called Days of Our Lives. Mum said it wasn’t appropriate. I said I wouldn’t watch the sex bits, and Mum slapped me.