It’s the first day back. The last term of the year. At lunch, Naya comes to the quad and slumps next to Jimmy.

‘I’ve escaped the well-manicured clutches of your life partner,’ she says. ‘I might hang with you guys, if that’s all right.’ She puts down her teal UNICEF Youth Coalition tote bag and stretches her arms out.

‘Soz,’ Jimmy says, waving her away. ‘There’s no room here.’

‘But is it okay with you guys if I sit here?’ Naya’s head pans around our square. Tyson nods vigorously, Leon says, ‘no worries at all’ and I agree out of sympathy. I’ve got a meeting with my science teacher Mrs Rafeek in five minutes anyway.

‘Gatdammit!’ Jimmy yelps. ‘Youse some major pussies, letting her come here and spit on what we got.’

‘What do you mean “pussy”?’ Naya narrows her eyes at him and makes this weird noise with her mouth. It’s like she’s sucking air through pursed lips. I can tell it means she’s pissed off.

‘What?’ Jimmy says, baffled. ‘Do I have to translate everything for you? It means they’re being soft, like vaginas.’

‘Vaginas aren’t soft at all. If you kick me there I’d be fine, but if I kick you in your soft pair of testicles you’ll be out for a while, don’t you think?’

Jimmy looks unconvinced.

‘Want to test my theory?’ She makes a wry smile and glances at me.

‘Well,’ Jimmy says, ‘calling them “soft pairs of testicles” doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it?’

‘Yeah, so maybe don’t call them anything, because they’re your friends.’

‘Okay, Mom. Man! I cannot be with you twenty-four-seven—not at school too. The holidays killed me.’ Jimmy looks at us pleadingly. ‘Fam, you see my point, yeah? She’s too PC. We don’t want this in our lives. Trust!’

‘It’s my birthday tomorrow, Naya,’ Tyson says, face folding into that happy Shar Pei expression.

‘Oh, happy birthday, Tyson!’

‘Do you want to come for tea at my place tomorrow night? All the boys are.’

‘That’s so sweet of you. Of course I’ll come.’

‘Ty!’ Jimmy squeals. ‘You playing me right now? You my day one! Bros before hoes, you know how it goes.’

I don’t know if Naya’s satisfied expression is because of the invitation or seeing Jimmy so pissed off. Her outfit is nice today: it’s a blue cotton dress with undulating white shapes swirling across it. It almost looks like she’s tried to fit in with the uniform guidelines we once had. Her lips glint a soft pink in the sun. She catches me looking. I look away and flick at my fringe, pulling it in the opposite direction of my hat. Fringe to the right, hat to the left—that’s a rule.

‘Hey Bones,’ she says. ‘Thanks for accepting me on Facebook. I’ve heard it’s quite an exclusive club.’

‘Err. Yeah. Well, not really, I had a spot free. I can’t guarantee I’ll keep the same list for long.’ I deleted a cousin to make a space for her, but I’m not telling her that.

‘Oh, well, I hope you keep me. How was the vacation with your dad?’

‘You mean a holiday?’ I say. Americans regularly butcher the English language. I’ve got to protect it.

‘Oh, sure.’

‘We, ahh…we went surfing. And fishing. Ate a lot. Good food, that sorta thing.’ Jimmy cough-laughs. I glare at him and his eyes go back to his phone. ‘But yeah, it was, like, good for us to spend time with just Dad for a change. Mum had some work stuff on.’

That’s easily the most I’ve ever said to Naya. And it was all bullshit.

‘Okay,’ she says and winks. ‘That’s comfy.’

I knew she’d see the need for comfy in her vocabulary.

‘What did you do?’ I ask. Shift the focus off me. Good technique.

‘Oh, I got to know Banarang a bit better. It’s such a pretty little town.’

Got to know Banarang better? What does that mean? She probably stayed at Shitty’s house every night. He must have taken her around town on his bike.

‘I suppose,’ I say. ‘It’s nice enough to look at.’

Nice to look at, but no substance to it. Like Shitty.

‘Yeah, it’s beautiful. I did some reading, too. Learned a lot about the meth epidemic here.’

Epidemic. Four syllables. That twinge in my pants again.

‘It reminds me of the drug problems in small-town America,’ she babbles on. ‘I’ve worked on that stuff a bit in the past, so I did some volunteer days at the drug counselling clinic in town. Just helped out with bookings and promo stuff. We ran an info night and it went great, actually.’

She really does live those high-and-mighty captions from her Instagram.

Leon seems to be buying her rubbish. He’s watching and nodding so earnestly. But Jimmy gets it. He looks like he’s about to vomit with every word she says.

I don’t know how I feel anymore. But I know I need to go to my appointment with Mrs Rafeek. I say goodbye and head to the Christou Wing.

I walk down the gloomy blue-carpeted corridors past the stark white walls to Mrs Rafeek’s office.

‘Come in, Mr Bone.’ She smiles and waves me in when I get to her door. It’s just me she addresses that way. I think she’s taking the piss out of my name, but in a nice way. Her demon spawn, Raj, takes the piss too, but it’s never nice.

She flicks through some test papers. This meeting is not going to be fun. Dad once told me a philosopher said there’s no need to ever be bored because you can make anything interesting by focusing closely on a specific detail. So today I’m going to focus on Mrs Rafeek’s dangling black hair coils. They remind me of trampoline springs stretching out when you bounce near them.

She slots on her glasses and smiles. ‘How is your day going today?’

‘Not bad.’

‘Good, good. Now I will jump to it. Mr Bone, you are a very, very good student. I am thinking you have many talents. And though science is not strongest, I think you can still do very well.’

I say nothing. I watch her springs shake around as her head wobbles. Simple pleasures.

‘But this year I am noticing you are not doing so well. Do you agree you are not doing well as you can?’

I shrug. ‘Maybe.’

‘Okay. So, I am thinking we should set some goals for you to get back on track.’

‘Sure.’ I’ll say anything she wants to hear. Arguing is only going to drag this out.

‘Good, good. Last term you were on a C in my class. But last year you were getting B+s and As. Very, very good results. You can definitely get these results again, you are smart enough, but you need to try harder.’

No, I don’t. I need to leave this room. Mrs Rafeek just doesn’t get that I don’t care about science. Or school. Or anything. I just am. Until one day, you’ll say I was.

‘Yes, Mrs Rafeek. I’ll try much harder.’

She smiles and tilts her head. ‘I don’t know if I believe you. Is there anything else you want to talk about? Any reason you do not seem yourself this year? I do not just talk, I can listen too, you know.’

My eyes find the floor and I shake my head.

Mrs Rafeek sighs and rustles her papers.

‘Okay, okay.’ I glance up and she’s holding my test.

‘Please remember about conservation of matter. It will be important for the next test, too.’

She points to the seventh question, where I (correctly) answered, ‘No one knows anything’.

‘The right answer is, the energy of an atom can never be destroyed,’ she says. ‘It will become something else.’

‘Well, I guess that’s one theory,’ I mutter.

‘That is the theory we are studying and believe, so it is important you know it. Okay?’

‘Okay.’ The bell rings and I’m able to escape. ‘Thank you, Mrs Rafeek.’

She gets up and pulls the door open. ‘And it’s a neutron, not a neuron. That’s important, too.’

‘Okay.’

‘Many people care about you here, Mr Bone. Remember that.’

Who is she talking about? I haven’t seen any evidence of that.

‘Thank you, Mrs Rafeek.’ I grimace and get out of there.

Even though it doesn’t mean shit, I’m disappointed that I wrote neuron—I knew it was a neutron. I can’t even spell anymore. But if nothing really matters to me, then why do I care? It was just a test. A test that means nothing.

When I open my locker, a piece of lined paper with black ink scribbled across it slips out and floats down, landing on my shoe. I squint at it.

It looks like every letter has been stabbed into the sheet with a ballpoint pen that nearly ripped through to the other side. It’s like the writing you see in a ziplock bag on detective shows where there has been a homicide and the accused is pleading insanity.

It says:

Snitches get stitches

‘What’s that, Bones?’

My neck snaps around. It’s Naya.

‘Ah. Nothing. Just, ah, just ah, just some notes for class. Maths stuff.’

She hands me a glossy photograph and smiles warmly. ‘I think someone got our lockers mixed up. Is this you and Leon?’

The photo is of a chubby, creamy-skinned toddler standing bow-legged with his shirt off. A perfect curtain of strawberry blonde hair covers his forehead, framing a dumbstruck face smeared in strawberry jam. A boy about the same height is standing next to him, one hand raised in the air, the other clutching his mother’s pink croc-leather purse. There’s a blurry TV screen in the background.

‘I love that photo.’ Leon reaches over my shoulder and grabs the picture. ‘Why did you bring it in, Bonesy?’

‘It’s so cute,’ Naya says. ‘You guys have been friends that long?’

Leon nods. ‘Born in the same hospital in the same week.’

‘How old are you here?’

‘About three, maybe four, I reckon.’

I know what’s coming. I pull open the locker door a little more and try to burrow my head inside. I wish I could walk right in and lock the door behind me.

‘Wow, four years old,’ she says. ‘Are you sure? Bones is still wearing diapers.’

I edge my head deeper into the locker. The spine of the book Smart Study Science 10 is now so close to my eyeballs that the words are a blur. I can’t let her see my hot-plate cheeks.

‘Yeah, well,’ I hear Leon start with a shrug in his voice. ‘I don’t think he wore them all the time. And we all develop at different rates, I guess.’

I yank out three random books, hoping that one of them is the maths book I need. I extract my head from my locker, jam the lock shut and turn around.

Avoiding all eye contact, I say, ‘I wasn’t slow, I liked the comfort. And they’re called nappies, not diapers.’

I grab the photo out of Leon’s hands and walk off.

I’m pissed off. It’s an unfamiliar feeling. There’s real anger in there—a ball of it boiling up inside. Shitty’s the one who deserves stitches. Right now. And Trav too. He must have given the photo to him.

I march down the hall. There are kids everywhere and they’re loud. It’s a symphony of locker-door slams, deodorant-can sprays, yelps and whistles and shouts and chatter. I find the locker I’m looking for, the one with the Banarang Bushrangers sticker on it.

Usually when I’m near this locker I keep my head down and walk straight past. Today I look at it front-on. On the sticker, there’s the tin-helmet logo of the bushranger, but below that is something that’s always disturbed me—the team name is spelled ‘Banarang Bushranger’s’. There’s a possessive apostrophe where there shouldn’t be one. It’s disgusting.

I pull out the pen in my pocket and cross through the apostrophe. I feel better immediately. I have successfully vandalised Shitty’s locker.

When I turn around, Shitty, Raj and Trav are coming down the corridor.

‘Looks like we’ve got a rat problem,’ Shitty says, sneering.

I didn’t think this through. I never had a plan beyond the vandalism.

‘Can I get through to my locker there, mate?’ Shitty says. I step aside.

‘Awww. The little fella’s gone and ruined my club sticker.’

‘Bones!’ Trav scolds. ‘Why did you do that?’

‘Don’t worry about it, Travvy,’ Shitty says. ‘I can get another one real easy.’ He opens his locker and I take a step away.

Raj tugs the photo out of my hands.

‘What the hell’s this?’ he says. His eyes boggle at me. ‘Holy shit, Boner, are you a fucking pedo? You sick fuck!’

‘Gimme that,’ Trav says and takes it. ‘Nah, Raj, it’s not what you think.’ Trav gives me that look. The one that means he fundamentally does not understand me. That I’m a problem in his life and he’s ashamed we’re related. ‘Why would you bring this to school, Bones, for fuck’s sake. You bring it on yourself, I swear.’ He pockets the photo and walks off with Raj. But Shitty isn’t finished.

‘Fair play, Snitchy, fair play,’ Shitty says. ‘I’ve got to take the credit for that one. When I was over at yours the other day, I just wanted to see a photo of me and Trav from when we won Under-12s footy, and that thing popped up in the album. Of course, I had to share it with Naya. Cos she’s had a lot of questions about you, you know? And I guess it makes sense.’

My ears prick up. It feels like the mood has changed. Naya is interested in me and he knows it. It upsets him but he’s conceding defeat.

‘It makes sense cos she loves a charity case,’ he says, ‘and they don’t come more pitiful and povvo than you!’

I turn to leave but Shitty rips my cap off.

‘I want to help you out too,’ he says, pulling a big refill bottle of hand sanitiser from his locker.

‘Apparently you got upset when she said your hat was dirty. Well, I hate to think of you getting upset again, mate, so let’s give it a clean.’

He holds the bottle directly over the cap and squeezes it, making a stream of sanitiser chug out in fat glugs. He fills it to the brim, then slaps it onto my head. The sanitiser gushes over my face and streams down my shirt. I close my eyes tight and bend over to get it flowing away from my face.

I hear cackles and the final bell before class.

‘Your uncle was a loser anyway, don’t know why you’d keep his hat. He couldn’t even get his missus out of there.’

‘You’re a dog,’ I mutter. The anger is a fireball inside me now.

‘And you’re a rat. So, who wins that fight?’

He pulls an orange plastic lighter out of his pocket. I look up and he grins when he sees my fear. He rubs his thumb over the top of it and a flame forms.

I stumble backwards.

He flicks it off and slides it back in his pocket.

‘That’s what I thought,’ he says. ‘Woof woof, cunt.’

I stagger outside and wring my fringe out. I sit down and look out across the deserted footy oval, sanitiser still dribbling off me.

At least it dries fast, I think. At least I’m clean.