Olivia and I have the front half of the school for environmental duty. Tiffany is doing the back along with Billy, who got in trouble for drawing a picture of our Italian teacher on his desk with white-out. They have more litter to pick up because that’s where the smokers and big kids with smirks on their faces hang out. But I bet we have more gawkers because people out here are bigger sticky-beaks.

‘This sucks,’ Olivia says, plucking up a gum wrapper with her tongs and dropping it into the plastic bag she’s carrying. ‘Little baby dibber dobber Charlotte! Let’s put that sticker on her locker that says she’s a foul, filthy cabbage-head.’

‘I don’t really think we should,’ I say weakly.

‘Just kidding!’ Olivia pokes my shoulder with her tongs. ‘We’ll think of something more inventive next time.’

Yesterday I was kind of mad at Olivia for taking that sticker without asking, but at least she gave me back my book before she ripped out any more.

‘Hey!’ An older boy standing with his mates waves an empty pie wrapper at Olivia. ‘You can pick up my papers anytime.’ He’s muscly and tanned, as if he spent the summer on the beach playing volleyball.

‘Forget about the papers,’ his friend says. ‘Pick me up!’ The third one just grins.

Olivia ignores them. She walks up to a group of chubby year nine or ten girls sitting next to a flowerbed and holds out her plastic bag. They drop in their wadded-up cling wrap and chip packets, their eyes narrowing as they take in Olivia’s perfect figure, her long legs and silky hair.

It’s fun walking around with her, but it makes me feel kind of invisible. While everyone notices Olivia, they ignore me. Not many people out here would know she’s a model, but somehow they still sense she’s special. It’s like she’s surrounded by a silvery light.

‘There’s your ex-boyfriend.’ Olivia points her tongs towards the basketball court. Matthew catches the ball from Billy, dribbles a few paces and shoots. It sails through the basket, barely touching the ring. Seeing him unexpectedly, I realise how much taller and slimmer Matthew’s grown. He looks our way. At last someone is going to call out to me.

But he doesn’t. I’m sure he saw me, but he turns back to his game without even a wave.

‘Kaitlin!’ a boy’s voice calls out.

Olivia grabs my arm, ‘It’s him! It’s James!’

Olivia drags me over to where James is leaning against a tree. He’s with another boy, and a girl wearing a diamond stud in her nose.

‘What name did you think of to call the teacher this time?’ James asks me.

Olivia and I laugh. ‘We called another girl a name,’ I say.

‘Yeah,’ Olivia adds, ‘we called her a farting insect, a slimy bottom-feeder and a filthy cabbage head.’

‘Whew,’ James whistles. ‘I hope you never get mad at me.’

‘We’d only call you good names,’ I say over my shoulder as we walk away. James is like a bazillion times cooler than Matthew, anyway.

‘Hey, Kaitlin,’ Olivia says, ‘how do you know when a Vietnamese kid’s been to your house?’

‘How?’

‘The dog’s gone and your homework’s done.’

‘That’s racist,’ I giggle.

‘Only half of it,’ Olivia argues. ‘The homework part is true.’

I look around and see who prompted her joke. Vi and La are sitting on the front steps of the school. ‘I bet they’re working on their debate right now, scheming how to beat us.’ Olivia picks up a Mars Bar wrapper. ‘They never waste a minute having fun.’

‘Have you done anything on your speech yet?’ I ask her.

‘Nah, maybe I will tonight.’

‘I talked to my dad about it when I was in Canberra. And my stepmother. She teaches psychology at ANU so I reckon we can quote her as an expert.’

‘I’ve got an idea!’ Olivia takes my hand and leads me towards the steps. ‘Vi and Va!’ She plonks down beside them. ‘How ya goin’?’

‘Vi and La,’ I correct her.

‘Oh, sorry.’ Olivia claps her hand over her mouth. Vi and La look at her like she’s a TV character that’s just dropped into their lives. I feel awkward just standing here with my plastic bag of garbage dangling from my hand. I look around and don’t see any yard-duty teachers to order us back to work, so I sit down. Olivia says, ‘You guys have done heaps of research on parent licences, huh?’

Vi and La nod warily.

‘So could we borrow it?’ Olivia asks brightly.

Vi and La look confused. The way I feel.

‘We only need the research,’ she explains. ‘We’ll make up our own points. Won’t we, Kaitlin?’

I see. She wants to use their work to find arguments for our side. Not a bad idea, except …

‘No,’ La says.

‘Oh, come on,’ Olivia wheedles, ‘you guys are so smart, you can afford to lend us a little information.’

‘You do your own work,’ Vi frowns.

‘But we haven’t had time to read all those books and go on the Internet like you have.’

‘Because you talk too much,’ La states.

Olivia’s beautiful eyes cloud with anger. ‘Don’t get snappy with us,’ she orders, ‘just because we’re not super nerds like you!’

Olivia’s icy voice makes my heart pound. La looks startled, but not scared. Neither does Vi. She stares at Olivia and says evenly, ‘You know nothing. My mother stuffs crackers.’

‘Huh?’ Olivia smirks. ‘Your mother stuffs what?’

‘My mother stuffs Christmas crackers with riddles and little toys and paper hats!’

‘She should get a real job,’ Olivia suggests casually.

‘She doesn’t speak English. She’s afraid to leave our house!’ I see with alarm that there are tears in Vi’s eyes. And her even voice is cracking. ‘My mother sits at the table till three in the morning, stuffing and stuffing and stuffing. They pay her three cents for one cracker. Her fingers hurt. But she keeps working, so my sister and I can have a future!’

‘Gee, she sure stuffs around a lot.’ Olivia’s making Vi sound ridiculous, but I think of the poem she wrote for English. The image has stayed with me all this time: a ball of death ripping apart the summer sky. You want to stitch the perfect blue back together.

‘Olivia,’ I say, ‘let’s just leave them alone.’

‘That’s exactly what I was intending to do.’ Olivia gets up. ‘Leave them alone in Nerd World where they belong!’ She marches off, swinging her plastic bag in one hand and her tongs in the other.

I stand up, but something keeps me from walking away. I reach into my dress pocket, take out a tissue and hand it to Vi. She takes it. As she wipes her eyes, hiding her face, I say to the top of her head, ‘Sorry. Olivia’s kind of used to getting her own way.’ Then I head off to catch up with her.

‘This is just as good as your black forest cake,’ Mum says as she takes another bite of zucchini slice.

‘You can’t really compare them,’ Will says rather gruffly. But I can tell by the look on his face that he’s pleased.

‘I mean they’re in the same league,’ Mum clarifies.

‘The League of Will’s Fine Foods,’ I say.

Will gives me a big wink of appreciation. We’re at his place for dinner, sampling the veggies he’s grown in our back garden.

‘Hey, I’ve got an idea,’ I say. ‘If you convince Eve to come back here, you two could open up a restaurant together.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ he huffs. ‘I don’t fancy washing dishes at midnight.’

‘You can make it a daytime café, like Eve has in England.’

‘That reminds me,’ Mum says to Will. ‘How’s your computer going?’

‘Pretty darn good. Uses up a lot of time, but I guess I’ve got plenty of that.’ He taps the top of his slice. ‘I found this recipe on the internet.’

Will finally bought a computer, partly so he could send e-mails to Eve. Mum helped him decide on the components.

‘Which ISP did you end up signing on with?’ Mum asks.

I wish they would keep talking about food, which keeps my interest better than computers. Ever since lunchtime, if my brain’s not occupied enough, it keeps showing me the picture of Matthew on the basketball court. Looking at me but not saying anything. Not even waving. Snobbing me off like I was the worst person in the world!

Mum and Will are going on about hard drives and patches and the cost of extra memory. They aren’t even making a tiny little effort to include me. Suddenly I recall what Eve told me about how conversations work. You don’t have to wait to be asked a question, you can just plunge in. ‘Listen, you guys,’ I interrupt, ‘do you think people should have to get a licence before they have a baby?’

Mum looks at me like she just remembered she had a daughter. ‘Sorry?’ she says.

Will chuckles. ‘Can you imagine the kind of test you’d have to take?’

‘It is pretty weird when you think about it.’ Mum takes up my conversation topic and runs with it. ‘You have to get a licence to drive a car, or operate a forklift, or go scuba diving, but anybody’s allowed to pop out a new life.’

‘Slow down!’ I don’t want to forget this stuff. ‘Wait till I go home and get some index cards.’