Arnie’s face was dirty, food, gravy, something. He showed me his arm and said, Look.

Nice. A deep graze starting at his wrist and finishing at his elbow. I said, How d’you do that?

I was riding along and saw Cicely and that Rattle girl. I thought I’d be smart and rode up to them at a million miles an hour and jammed on the brakes (thinking, you know, a Dukes of Hazzard skid). But it was blue metal and the bike went from under me and I kept going, on my arm, and …

Pretty dumb thing to do.

You can talk.

Pop, again. ‘Pop.’

He glanced back, but didn’t stop.

‘Pop?’

Past the skipping woman, who seemed to be bouncing even higher.

Written any more? Arnold asked.

A bit.

All that sorta stuff, it’s personal … you shoulda asked me.

D’you mind?

Na. Just nothin’ about the brown bags.

I’ll change yer name.

Promise?

I promised, but I lied. The same brown bags they put your groceries in at Woolies. ’Cept it was your pissy pants and you had to carry them home every afternoon and other kids would ride past and say, Pissy pants! and you’d scrunch the bag and try to hide it but they knew cos they’d been in the room, or their sister had, or someone. Then you’d get home and Mum’d give you that look, but take the bag and put the pants in the wash and say, Take those off, too, we’ll have to send them back tomorrow.

I gotta put it in, I said to Arnold. I want this to be honest.

Don’t.

It was years ago. It’s funny now.

It’s not.

The skipping woman hadn’t returned. Maybe she’d gone home? And stranger still—no Pop.

Anyway, Arnold said. I gotta go.

Where?

Colin’s place. His dad’s building a cubby. It’s gonna have a pole. So you can slide down, like a fireman.

And he was gone. I was left looking at my arms. One white, the other scab-rashy brown. It’d healed nicely, but they didn’t look the same. Never would, the doctor reckoned. Pop approached and I called, ‘You coming in?’

He said, ‘Which way’s the shop?’ and continued shuffling.

‘Mum?’

She was in the doorway.

‘Pop’s looking for the shop again.’

She was out the front door, down the road, after him.

No Les. I let my head fall about, looked up, and Curtis was crossing the yard. ‘What yer doin’?’

He came in, sat beside me and switched off Kraftwerk. Some thing was wrong. ‘Why you always spying on people?’ he said.

‘I’m watchin’ for Les.’

‘She still in there?’

‘Yeah.’

Mum appeared with Pop, led him down the drive, inside, into the kitchen.

Then, as some sort of good omen, the skipping woman (although she wasn’t much more than a girl). Curtis said, ‘She’s so fuckin’ hot.’

‘Something wrong with her,’ I said.

‘Why?’

‘Who skips around the block all day?’