***
At school the next day, I’m staring up at the ceiling, not really listening to anything, thinking about gambling. I mean, how hard could it be to stop? I had to stop eating gluten for a whole month when I couldn’t quite get over a case of tonsillitis and Mum made me go on a special diet that was meant to boost my immune system. I’d done it. I’d managed. And I knew Dad could too if he just tried. Pokies couldn’t be harder to give up than doughnuts.
Clem flicks me in the head. ‘What’s up with you today, Price?’
Clements, Lara, Zinnia and I are sitting in the technical section of the library on account of the air-conditioning vent right above it. Clem and I have been best friends since kindergarten. Back then, he’d lived on our street, but in the years since, his parents had saved and his mum had been promoted at work and they’d bought a nicer place near the cinemas. We stayed friends, though. Clem came over all the time, even though it was a long walk and our house was messy and cramped compared to his. But when stuff started getting awkward with my parents – both of them randomly bursting into tears and Mum rage-cooking dinner at seven o’clock in the morning on a Saturday – I’d stopped him coming over, and he hadn’t said anything about it, just gone along with things.
Clem’s like that.
‘Just Year Twelve,’ I say. I hadn’t really thought through how to tell them about the move – I just assumed that I would. And then the morning had passed and I hadn’t.
‘Um . . . Year Twelve hasn’t started yet. You know that, right?’ Clem says.
‘It has! It has. This is our Year Twelve orientation,’ Zin says. ‘Year Eleven’s gone. It’s over.’
Lara rolls her eyes. ‘You’re so dramatic.’
The letter’s in the pocket of my school dress. I haven’t opened it yet and I also haven’t let it get further than a metre away from me.
I imagine telling Clem about Fairyland. He wouldn’t really get it. For a moment, I try to imagine him having to move to Fairyland Caravan Park. He’d just shrug and get on with things and it wouldn’t be a big deal to him. That was Clem. When the apocalypse comes, he’ll probably steal ten bags of chocolate snowballs, shrug and settle in somewhere comfy with his soccer ball and some Lego.
Lara says that Clem’s only good at soccer because his feet are so huge that it’s impossible for him to miss the ball. He’s always moving, always causing trouble, but never meaning to. And it’s the adorable sort of trouble that the teachers just roll their eyes at. He loves building things and wants to get into construction when he finishes school.
‘It’s just surreal,’ I say. ‘It’s freaking me out.’
Zin sits up. ‘Oh, Stell. Me too. It’s stressful, right? Like, where’s all the time gone? I used to think the Year Twelves were all grown-ups and now we’re there and I don’t feel grown up. At all.’ She looks a little teary, but Zin’s always been a crier. Sometimes she cries in the middle of the Sutherbend High school anthem because it makes her feel nostalgic for the school we haven’t left yet.
‘What do you lot know about Fairyland Caravan Park?’ I ask, not looking at any of them.
‘I’m not allowed to walk past there,’ Lara says. ‘One of the caravans exploded last year because the tenant was cooking drugs.’
‘Yeah, but they ended up in jail,’ Clem says soothingly.
‘So?’
‘So, they’re not at the caravan park anymore.’ He pats her head.
Zin puts her hand to her mouth. ‘I’d die if my neighbours cooked drugs,’ she says, her voice catching. She blinks, like she’s about to get teary. ‘I’d just die.’
Zin comes from a huge family and she’s the youngest, so I guess crying is a valid strategy for her. She has this lovely bronzy hair that you just want to run your fingers through, and somehow always looks amazing and glamorous, even when she’s just in her school uniform.
Lara plays just about every sport on offer at Sutherbend and got on the news last year after being rejected from the boys’ soccer team. Lara and Clem argue ferociously, even though they agree on everything. It’s the only time either of them gets really worked up over anything – when the other one’s aggressively agreeing with them.
‘The Year Nines like to go and egg the caravans,’ Clem says. ‘Can’t be that bad if it’s the kind of place you can get away with egging. None of them have even been bashed.’
‘They’re all going to wake up dead one morning,’ Zin says. ‘Every single one that did the egging.’
Lara snorts. ‘You can’t wake up dead.’
‘Just think,’ says Clem, his voice light, ‘We’ll be finished school soon. A year from now – fancy-free.’
‘Clem, stop talking.’ Zin waves a finger at him. ‘Just stop.’
Clem looks at me. ‘You really don’t look good.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Seriously. What’s up? It’s not just Year Twelve.’
Lara groans. ‘We’re not in Year Twelve, yet!’
‘It’s just so depressing at home at the moment,’ I say. ‘Mum’s been fighting with Dad. It’s been rough since . . . since he lost his job. He’s sleeping on the couch. Depressing, that’s all.’
‘That sucks,’ Lara says. ‘Although, if I ever move in with anyone, I’m keeping my own room.’
Clem starts picking at a loose thread in his tie. ‘You do know that that defeats the purpose of living with someone, right?’
‘Oh, whoever it is will be able to visit, but sharing a room permanently?’ Lara shudders. ‘Why do adults want that?’
‘I think it’s romantic,’ says Zin. ‘Talking until the middle of the night, listening to the rain falling on a tin roof, other stuff . . . And honestly, I can’t wait to get married and organise all the decorations. And the bouquets! They’re going to be amazing.’
‘Your future wife’s not going to get a look-in, is she?’
‘We’ll have the same taste in flowers,’ Zin says. ‘She won’t care. We can’t get married if she doesn’t have the same taste in flowers as I do.’
‘You’re such a traditionalist,’ Lara says, shaking her head. Despite the fact she’d much rather kick a ball around the oval than study, Lara’s pretty amazing at all her classes. Everyone knows she’ll be one of the Sutherbend kids who end up going to university. Lara’s parents both work at the local Lexborough University campus. Her mother lectures in human rights law and her father’s a receptionist, and every afternoon they walk to their car holding hands.
Clem nudges me. ‘And . . .’
I smack at his hand. ‘Stop picking your tie! You’ll ruin it!’
He glances down at his tie. ‘It’s alright.’
‘Then you’ll have to buy a new one,’ I say.
He drops his tie and looks at me blankly. ‘What’s up with you?’
I think about Fairyland, but it still feels like something that’s not quite real. ‘My biological mother wrote me a letter,’ I say.