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well.
    â€˜It’s like the time apple scab wiped out all the Jonathans at the last place,’ he said. ‘I thought the potholes in my heart’d never be repaired, but they were.’
    He started to sing ‘Highway Of My Heart’ by Carla Tamworth.
    I squeezed his hand and pretended to listen, but I was thinking of Erin.
    Then we went into town and had a pizza and six games of pool, which made me feel better. Dad said he’d never seen me hit the balls so hard. I didn’t tell him that was because I was pretending each one was Amanda Cosgrove.
    The strange thing was I couldn’t sink any.
    Then we came home and we’ve been sitting here since, listening to Dad’s records.
    I like doing this, because most of the songs are about unhappy people wishing their relationships had turned out better, and that’s exactly how I feel about me and Amanda Cosgrove.

I wish I’d never run in that dumb race.
    Because then Dad wouldn’t have noticed the photo in the local paper.
    â€˜Tonto, take a squiz at this!’ he yelled, bursting into the kitchen this morning.
    When he gets excited he forgets and uses his voice.
    I nearly dropped six eggs because the sudden noise startled me. I’d been miles away trying to work out how much batter I’d need to make enough apple fritters for a class of thirty-two kids.
    OK, I know you can’t buy friendship, but when the other kids think you’re a psychopathic frog torturer, a plate of apple fritters might just help them see your good side.
    And just because one of them’s looking for a project rather than a friend, it doesn’t mean they all are.
    â€˜Look,’ said Dad, sticking the paper in front of my face.
    There was half a page of photos of the sports carnival, and the one Dad was pointing to was of me and Amanda crossing the finish line.
    â€˜See,’ shouted Dad, ‘I said the judges were bent. Look, this clearly shows you yards in front.’
    I put the eggs down.
    â€˜It’s the angle of the camera, Dad,’ I said.
    â€˜Weevil poop,’ he said. ‘You’re two or three centimetres in front here, easy.’
    It made me feel pretty good, Dad being so indignant, but I still wish he hadn’t seen the photo.
    Because then he wouldn’t have seen the public notice on the bottom half of the page.
    â€˜Look at this,’ he said, ‘your school’s having a Parents and Teachers Association fund-raising barbecue on Sunday.’
    My stomach sank.
    I had a vision of Dad at the P and T barbie in his most jaw-dropping shirt, the purple and yellow one, digging people in the ribs and singing at them and sword-fighting Mr Cosgrove with a T-bone steak and undoing all the good that a plate of apple fritters could ever do, even ones that had been fried in olive oil and rolled in sugar.
    I raised my hands to tell him I didn’t want him to go, but they wouldn’t say the words. It just felt too mean, hurting him after what he’d done for me earlier this morning.
    He’d come out and found me in the orchard looking for ripe apples and, when I’d told him what I wanted them for, he’d insisted on going round every tree to find the ripest.
    I put my hands down and he looked up from the paper.
    â€˜Do you think Ms Dunning’ll be there?’ he asked, flicking his fingers so I’d think it was just a casual enquiry.
    â€˜I doubt it,’ I replied. ‘I think she said something about going mountain climbing in Venezuela on Sunday.’
    I should have thought of something a bit more believable.
    Then Dad wouldn’t have given me one of his winks and said, ‘Should be a good day, I think I’ll wash my purple and yellow shirt’.
    While he rummaged through the laundry basket, I thought frantically.
    If I blew up the school, they’d have to cancel the barbie.
    I told myself to stop being dumb. When you’ve injured people with falling masonry