This is how it happened. Arnold’s neighbour, Colin, had been given a chicken. He’d bought feed, and looked after it. It had put on weight. Then, one day, he noticed a strange thing. The chicken had the ability to walk backwards. He didn’t know if this was normal behaviour, so he borrowed a book from the library, but it didn’t say anything about chicken locomotion. So, he guessed he was on to something. He showed him mum, but she didn’t care, his father, but he was busy welding, his brother, Chopper, but he was busy counting his smokes, so he called Channel Seven.

Curtis came down the steps, crossed the yard and stopped. He was listening for voices inside.

‘Dickbrain!’ I called.

He saw me, then ran through his own personal gorse, lifted the fence iron and came into our yard. Across it, up the ladder, and sat beside me. ‘Good gear.’ He showed me the smoke, and let me smell it. ‘Anyone around?’

‘Inside.’

He lit it, smoked it, offered me a go, sat back and said, ‘You used to jump off here.’

‘You used to jump from the cubby. That’s higher.’

He noticed my new chapter. ‘What’s that?’

‘My novel.’

‘Masharin’d love to get her hands on that.’ He smoked, offered it to me, but changed his mind. ‘And you could get your hands on her.’

‘I was writing about your chicken. That day when Current Affair came.’

He laid back, laughing. ‘Star for a day.’

‘That chicken never walked backwards.’

‘It chose its moments.’

‘Not when the camera was rolling.’

Having spoken to the producer, Colin promised his bird was unique. A film crew was dispatched, set up in his yard, and waited. The beast was presented, a bell rung (for this, Colin promised, was its cue), but the chicken walked forwards. Colin said, Wait, and they waited. Bell. Forwards. Colin held the chicken and walked it backwards, but when he released it, it walked forwards. The reporter said, Does it really walk backwards? Yes. Plenty of times. It’s like it knows you’re here.

‘See, full of shit,’ I said.

He sat up, but swayed in the breeze. ‘I know I make shit up, but I swear, it walked backwards.’

So the crew packed up and left. But it wasn’t the disaster it promised. That night, we all sat around Colin’s telly, and the story ran, and when they showed the chicken it walked backwards. Perhaps people couldn’t see the trees swaying backwards, or the smoke blowing the wrong way, or the washing on the line acting strangely. Next day, at school, Colin was dragged up at assembly, and everyone applauded and some believed he did have a backwards-walking chicken. But only some.

‘Whatever happened to it?’ I asked.

‘Dad chopped off its head.’

We watched as John came out, climbed the cubby steps and went inside, then emerged, calling, ‘Curtis, you little cunt.’