There’d been a huge storm in the night. Clouds boiling over and hailstones so huge she couldn’t wrap her hand around them: Larry brought one in because Harper didn’t believe they could get that big.

But this morning the air was clean. She got on her bike and pedalled away from home under a grey-stuffing sky. Shimmer on the powerlines. Thin rain falling, nearly invisible.

At the river path, the bikes came thick and fast. She had to speed up and make sure she didn’t swerve and crash. Even though the rain had dappled Harper’s glasses and her schoolbag was digging into her back, slowing down was unthinkable. It was her first time riding to Riverlark alone. All summer long she’d campaigned for it.

The thing in her bag that was digging in was a box of tissues. Everyone had to bring two for the classroom stock, even if you hardly ever caught a cold. Misha used lots for nosebleeds, poor thing. Then there were twelve exercise books, a netball, pencils and gluesticks, a full drink bottle and leftover pasta packed tight in a tub. It was like giving someone a piggyback, but she’d stuffed her own bag full while Liz had said things like That’s ridiculous, love, followed by, I’m sure you know what’s best, so there was no room for regrets.

The path inclined steeply. Harper had to cycle standing up on the pedals to get up the last bit, but then it was flat and easy. Someone overtook her on her right and they weren’t even holding the handlebars. That was how Harper wanted to be one day: a fast, no-hands cyclist. It felt a long way off; she wobbled a bit just sticking out one arm and looking behind her before she turned into Riverlark’s back entrance.

By now the clouds were lit up from behind and the path had dried in patches. Her back was sweaty, her shoulders were sore and her uniform was damp, but she’d proved something by getting here in one piece. Shame there was no one here to see it.

This was as far as she’d ever cycled on her own, to the river’s wide turn where the path turned dark. Like riding to the edge of her world.

Wheeling her bike to the gate, she heard a twang near her foot and crouched down to see if her tyre had gone over a piece of glass. It wasn’t glass; it was an old metal badge with a pin on the back. Maybe the storm had unearthed it and rinsed it clean. A picture was engraved on it. Some kind of fish. And two time-damaged words: Cadet Corps. The underside was covered in scratches. She slipped the badge into her pocket and, as she did, the pin went sharply into her fingertip. A dot of blood appeared and she sucked it.

She turned, feeling that there was someone near her, but the path was clear in both directions. Nearby on the grass there was a small black bird with a white belly. It twitched its stuck-up tail and took off.

Harper heard her name shouted from a distance. It could only be Cleo.

She forced the bike clumsily through the school gate to the bike racks. Cleo tore across the netball court, straight through a game. Harper braced for it as her friend stopped just in time and flung her arms around her, and they laughed as if one of them had told a good joke.

‘You got taller!’ said Harper into Cleo’s wild curls. The Cleo smell. The Cleo hug. Harper’s family were not huggers but with Cleo you didn’t have a choice.

They came apart and Harper shifted the straps of her bag on her shoulders. Cleo gasped. ‘You got boobs!’

‘Ssshhhh! Everyone’ll hear you!’

Cleo put on a dead-straight face. ‘Sorry. Were they from Santa?’

‘Yeah, Santa got me boobs and a new bike.’

Cleo yelled at the sky, ‘Thanks, Santa!’

‘Ssshhhh! I mean it, stop!’

Cleo clapped her hand over her mouth. ‘Sorry. Promise.’

Cleo had been wearing a bra for a year and she wasn’t shy about anything.

With looped arms Harper and Cleo walked towards their usual spot with that fizzy, first-day feeling. The top year was what they’d always talked about. They’d be getting a dark-green hoodie with all their names on the back, and leadership roles, yet to be announced. At Riverlark the teachers decided on those. Harper kept saying she didn’t mind if she didn’t get one, but Cleo said she’d die.

They walked around the edge of the netball court, past the friendship bench and the big wooden fortress, where they’d spent every spare moment when they were juniors, past the library on their left—it was dark inside, like always—and alongside the old redbrick seniors building with its tall narrow windows, slate roof and bell tower, which had been there since 1877.

‘Don’t say the Santa joke in front of anyone,’ said Harper.

‘The boob one?’

‘Ssshhhh!’

‘Harper,’ whispered Cleo. ‘People are going to notice them.’

‘They might not,’ Harper whispered back. ‘They’re small. Don’t make a big deal.’

‘I swear,’ Cleo said, in her normal voice. ‘Anyway, we can’t joke about Santa in front of Misha.’

‘True.’

Misha Volkov was sweet and old-fashioned. She spoke so quietly that you had to stand close to hear her.

‘You have got to see Jake,’ said Cleo.

‘Why, what’s happened to him?’

‘Puberty. It’s gone well.’

‘Cleo! It’s been six weeks. He’s eleven and he’s… Jake.’

‘You got boobs in that time.’

‘Okay, just stop saying boobs forever.’

‘Sorry. I’m wired. I’ve been up since five. Mum said she’d call ahead to warn the school I’d be extra annoying.’

‘Aww, you’re not annoying, you’re the best.’

Cleo beamed and bumped Harper with her hip. In juniors the teachers had called Cleo a busy bee, now they called her a livewire. She was already twelve, unlike the rest. Cleo started school late because she didn’t speak very much when she was little, but everyone liked to say she’d made up for it.

‘Anyway I’m not saying I like him, I’m just saying good job, Jake Cohen. He’s grown his hair long and he’s on TikTok, apparently.’

‘I don’t even have a phone yet.’

‘Me neither. I thought Mum had finally got me one because there was a phone-shaped present under the Christmas tree. But it was a box of socks!’

They laughed then and Cleo stretched the joke, miming a whole scene of unwrapping the socks and trying to use them as a phone, until Harper’s eyes were leaking. She’d missed this. Liz and Larry could be fun in their own way but it was different, and she’d been alone so much too. The first ten minutes of school had been excellent.

Harper pulled her friend to a stop when she noticed something different.

‘Cleo, where’s the tree?’

‘I know, I got a shock when I saw it too. Or didn’t see it.’ She laughed and tried to make them keep walking. ‘But look, they’ve made a cool garden. Benches, and raised beds and really pretty plants.’

Harper murmured as if she agreed, but she was stuck on the space where a giant red gum should be.

‘They had to, Harps. It was old and dangerous. Anyway, who cares? We’ll be gone next year. High school!’ Cleo was always ready for the next big thing.

In the shelter shed, bent over his phone, was their other best friend. Harper and Cleo sat either side of him and swapped a look over his head when he didn’t react. Cleo curled her hand into a mouthpiece and made her voice sound like Barb the school secretary on the intercom: ‘Rohit Sharma, phone to the office.’

He cracked a smile. ‘Knew you were there, just telling Mum I got here.’

Cleo shoved him. ‘You live on the same street as the school!’

Ro shrugged, eyes downcast. ‘True.’ And he tucked his phone into his bag. Harper widened her eyes at Cleo, meaning: Don’t forget what happened to Ro last year.

They were supposed to hand in their phones in the morning but Ro made himself exempt. He said it was because his computer skills were better than anyone else’s at Riverlark, including Greg the IT technician, so he needed what he called the tools of his trade. But Harper and Cleo knew that wasn’t the whole reason.

The bell rang, Ro’s mood lifted and everything was good again. They started towards the main hall, Harper still struggling with her overloaded bag. Kids in the younger years overtook them, making a race out of getting to assembly.

‘Were we that keen?’ Cleo said.

‘Were we that small?’ Harper replied.

‘Dunno. I’ve always been this much shorter than you two,’ said Ro.

Harper pointed at one with fluffy red hair. ‘Look at his tiny shoes. They don’t look real.’

‘Freaks,’ said a familiar voice. Corey barged through on his scooter and knocked Harper sideways.

‘Corey!’ Cleo said. ‘You’re not supposed to ride that here; you could hurt someone.’

‘Get out of my way then.’

‘What’s the hurry? Corey need pee-pee?’ said Ro with a bright, sarcastic smile.

‘Shut up, fat boy!’ Corey said over his shoulder as he kept riding. He said it so casually, as if it was just another boring part of his day, like brushing his teeth.

‘Hey! I’m cuddly!’ Ro called out without missing a beat.

Harper struggled to think of something to shout in her friend’s defence.

‘Don’t call people fat!’

But Corey was long gone.

‘Sorry, I was too slow,’ she said.

‘He’s not worth it,’ replied Ro, still smiling.

Harper wondered how deep the smile went. Corey hated their trio and the feeling was mutual. Last year, Ro gave a class speech about sexuality. At the end he told everyone he was gay. Some kids looked awkward and said nothing; most nodded and said cool. Harper and Cleo were on the look-out for anyone with enemy vibes but it seemed they had nothing to worry about.

The week after, Ro was jumped on his way home by a group of high-school kids. They ripped his clothes and used a bunch of slurs. Ro’s little brother, Adil, had nightmares about it for ages.

The thing that only Harper and Cleo knew was that one of the high-school kids had been Corey’s big brother, Damon. That must have been how they knew about Ro.

But Ro told the principal, his parents and the police that he didn’t know who’d attacked him, and he made Harper and Cleo promise not to tell.

Harper and Cleo both knew that the real reason Ro liked to keep his phone with him was that it made him feel safer.

Corey had carried on giving Ro a hard time but Ro’s comebacks had levelled up. It was as if he was telling Corey: I could get you and your brother into trouble for what you did, and you know it.

Every time Corey was a bully, Harper felt twice as sick because in year three she’d had a crush on him. It was her darkest secret. That she could ever like someone like Corey weighed much more on her than this lump of a schoolbag.

But. Year-three crushes were nothing compared to year-six crushes, and shouldn’t count. According to Harper’s older cousin Patrick, year-six crushes had nothing on year-eight crushes, but Patrick was always showing off.

Still, Harper thought back to what Cleo had said about puberty going well for Jake Cohen, and she hoped that she wouldn’t feel differently about him.

Crushes couldn’t be trusted.