Moreton Bay colony, it turns out, was an early name for Brisbane. And the Swan River colony was in Perth. Where were those little nuggets among all the information sent to us by the Australian government before we came here? At least I’m a useful peer editor. Max has got a lot of content, but it turns out there’s a bit I can do to help him with structure. And since I don’t know anything I’m making sure he’s covered all the basics.

When the siren goes for lunch, Max tells me he’s getting his from the tuckshop. I’ve got ten dollars to buy lunch so I join him in the queue. But as I get closer to the front, I realise that everyone seems to be picking up pre-ordered brown paper bags.

Max notices the money in my hand. ‘Don’t worry,’ he says. ‘Someone will’ve got sick after ordering. You’ll be able to get something. There’s a system for ordering it online. In advance.’

‘Oh, good, yeah.’ It’s embarrassing not knowing the score. I roll up the ten-dollar note so that no one else can see it. ‘I just didn’t know what there was. Well, I wanted to see it first. See what was good.’

‘None of it’s good,’ he says. ‘Don’t get your hopes up.’

We get to the front and a mother who recognises Max hands him his bag.

‘This is my friend Herschelle,’ he tells her. ‘He’s just arrived from South Africa. He hasn’t had the chance to put an order in, so have you got anything spare?’

‘No worries,’ she says, and suddenly it’s not a problem at all. ‘We’ve got a serve of pizza, if that’d work for you?’ There’s a cabinet keeping the food warm and she opens the door to check. ‘It’s Hawaiian.’

‘Sounds great.’ I’ve got my ten dollars ready when she lifts the pizza slice out and slides it into a bag. Grease spots appear right away. The pizza smells good.

I thank Max as we step away from the counter and he says, ‘No problem. I knew they’d have something. So, for tomorrow, orders have to be in by 8am. You just go to the school website.’

‘My mom’s signing up for tuckshop,’ I tell him. ‘She was the boss of her tuckshop shift back home. She’s a great organiser. It’s what she does. She’ll be on all the committees here by the end of the week. Just watch.’

When we left, Bergvliet Primary gave her four glasses with the school crest to thank her for all her work. I’d never admit it to her, but it’ll be good to have Mom behind the counter sometimes. I wonder how she went with Hansie.

I stick with Max, since if I don’t, I’m sticking with no one. And I don’t want to look like that kind of new boy – the kind who doesn’t know how to buy lunch and doesn’t have anyone to eat it with. It could have been embarrassing at the tuckshop.

We sit down at a table with Max’s two friends from class. Nerd colony. I knew it.

‘Herschelle, wasn’t it?’ one of them says. ‘I’m Harry Schulz.’

Okay, yes, he has a Transformers pencil case, but he’s making me welcome, and he’s not laughing at my name. Harry has two big homemade sandwiches and a banana in an Iron Man lunch box. He looks like he’d be my height, which makes him quite a bit taller than Max. The other guy, Ben Delvecchio, is somewhere in between and has black spiky hair. His knee keeps jogging while we’re eating, and I can feel some of the vibration through the table. Unless cool works very differently in Australia, the nerd status of this group is rapidly getting closer to confirmed.

While we’re eating, I take a look around at everyone else. One girl near us is plaiting another’s hair, and that’s just the kind of thing I’d see at Bergvliet. Lachlan, the guy who flicked the girl with the ruler in class, is standing with two friends, throwing his hat in the air and trying to catch it on his head. He shouts something out to a girl who walks past, but I don’t hear it clearly. His friends laugh. No one else seems to stand out from the crowd.

I ask the others about Lachlan. Harry glances in his direction and says, ‘Lachlan Parkes? Don’t stare.’

Max looks down at the table and his knee starts jogging too. Ben kicks him and they both stop.

‘Why not? Not that I was staring.’ I can’t see what Harry’s problem is. ‘I just thought those guys might be, you know, the cool crowd.’

‘Yeah, well,’ Harry says, ‘they aren’t.’

Max swallows the last mouthful of his bread roll and pulls his old tennis ball from his pocket.

‘Yeah,’ Ben says. ‘Let’s go. Doubles?’ He looks at me. ‘You play handball?’

‘Yes. Definitely.’ I might be hanging out with nerds, but finally I get to do something I was good at at home. Maybe today won’t be too bad after all.

I line up with Max and start on the forehand side. Max is left-handed so it works pretty well unless they hit the ball hard right down the middle. As I’d thought, the rules aren’t quite the same as at home, but they’re close enough. Ben is quick on his feet but tends to just tap the ball back. Harry doesn’t move much and swings hard.

The ball has lost most of its bounce. It keeps low, and that works well for me. They’re ahead early after a few drives from Harry down the middle, but Max and I soon work out a system for blocking those shots back and keeping the ball in play without taking each other out. Max hits hard – his version of hard – straight at Ben, which cramps him and makes him pop the ball up. That sets me up to take a swing at it. I fake a big one, then let the ball drop and slice across it low to the ground. It skids under Harry’s hand.

Max reaches up and high-fives me, and says, ‘Do that again.’

‘Has to be a fluke,’ Harry says, grinning, daring me to repeat it. ‘Has to be.’

Three points later, I repeat it almost exactly. Same result.

Max shouts, ‘Yes!’ and punches the air.

After a few times, Harry knows the shot’s coming but he still can’t stop most of them. I mis-hit a couple and Harry and Ben score points then, but, when I make it stick, the shot’s a killer. It was always my best at Bergvliet too.

‘Awesome,’ Max says when we win. ‘I don’t know how you do that. Are you like that with every sport?’

‘Wait till I try out for hockey.’ I was a centre forward in Cape Town, and a pretty good one.

‘Hockey?’ Max turns the ball over in his hand. ‘Where would you do that?’

‘Here. On the oval.’ I’ve said something weird again. ‘At school. For the school hockey team.’

‘Oh.’ He frowns. ‘We don’t do hockey.’

‘Ah, sies!’ Suddenly, my genius skidding handball shot is a lot less satisfying.

‘Sis? Cease? You want me to stop –’

‘I just wanted there to be hockey.’

How could my parents bring me to a school that doesn’t have it? How could they not have checked that and found somewhere better?