Merjeme reached a hand up to the little canister in the middle of the first table. It was filled with thin blue packets of sugar. She grabbed hold of it, then hid under the table as she emptied the canister into her hand. She did this to every table, until by the end she had a fistful of sugar packets and each café table had empty canisters placed back.

Then we watched Merjeme and the boy crab-walk back to their friends, who seemed to be fizzing with excitement as they waved at them to hurry back on their bikes.

Merjeme dumped her sugar into the basket on the front of her bike, and it was only as she took hold of the handlebars that she thought to look around—and then she saw us, the only people on Main Street to have seen them.

When she threw her arm in the air and waved at us, Sam and I could only give a little wave back, probably with both our mouths hanging open. And then she was on her bike and all five of them were turning around and racing up Ocean Beach Road, their long hair whipping and tangling behind them in the wind.

“Let’s follow them,” I said.

“Jeff said to come straight home from the shops. . . .”

I kicked my kickstand back and got on my bike, and then looked at Sam over my shoulder. “What’s waiting for us at home?”

Sam’s face told me he knew exactly what there was—Anika in her room crying, and Pop getting tired from limping around the house trying to do all the grown-up chores by himself while Luca was off at work and not back until late again.

With the click of Sam’s helmet, we headed off.

They rode away from the main beach that faced Port Phillip Bay and down Ocean Beach Road to the other side of the peninsula strip and the beaches on the Bass Strait side.

I don’t know if they knew we were following behind or just didn’t care—but they had little Arta with them and another younger girl, so they weren’t pedaling fast enough to outpace us.

After ten minutes or so, we reached Sorrento Back Beach. In summer it’s so popular with locals and tourists that you can hardly fit your towel on the sand.

Merjeme and her friends stopped. As we watched, Merjeme dipped into her bike basket and passed a sugar packet to each of them. They tore them open, tipped their heads back, and trickled the sugar into their mouths.

The group let out a burst of giggles, and Sam and I smiled too. Once the sugar rush hit, Merjeme turned around to look straight at us, and her friends followed her gaze.

“This way!” she yelled, and then she scooped the air with her arm—inviting us along as they all kicked off and pedaled again.