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following day I catch her doing crunches in our room. It’s Sunday, it’s meant to be a day of rest. Clearly it’s time for a fun intervention.
    ‘Cease to crunch, little one. We are going out,’ I tell her.
    ‘Only three sets to go,’ she pants, but I have better things for her to get out of breath over.
    ‘The Kiefers are playing a warm-up gig.’
    Tara stops crunching. I have her attention. The Kiefers are the best band ever.
    ‘The Kiefers!’ she says.
    ‘At a private warehouse, all ages. Our names are on the door.’ I fill in the essential details.
    Tara sags. ‘It’s the first day of term tomorrow, we’ve got Miss Raine classical at 9 am.’
    She’s being way too responsible. I’m not taking it.
    ‘It starts at six. We’ll be back before curfew.’
    ‘We’ll be wrecked,’ she moans. ‘Besides, you’re going with Diplobrat. Why do you need me?’
    ‘You don’t like him,’ I say, wondering if my boyfriend has ruffled her tutu.
    ‘I barely know him,’ she answers carefully.
    ‘Then make an effort.’
    Finally she gives in and I reassure her, ‘When we’re old, we will look back on this as the defining moment of our friendship.’
    When we reach the club, the bouncer is a complete control freak with the door list.
    ‘It says Lucas plus one,’ he says and refuses to let Tara in. I suggest that Tara and I wait while Lucas speaks to his mate Kassim, the manager, but the bouncer says it’s now or never for the plus one.
    ‘We’ll take five minutes. You’re okay with that, aren’t you?’ Lucas says to Tara.
    ‘By myself?’ she asks.
    ‘We’ll sort it,’ I tell her. ‘Five minutes?’
    ‘Okay. I’ll be fine. Alone,’ she says. It’s only five minutes so I don’t know what she’s moaning about.
    Inside the club is heaving and it seems like everyone there knows Lucas. For someone who spends half his time overseas, he’s got a major group of friends in Sydney. We look for Kassim to get Tara in the door but every other step we take we get stopped with a, ‘Hi Lucas, you’re back!’
    The five minutes stretches out to ten then twenty and even longer. Lucas is so busy with all his friends that I think he’s forgotten about Tara.
    ‘We have to go back for Tara!’ I remind Lucas.
    He pulls a face.
    ‘Not leaving the friend alone outside!’ I say and drag him back to the door.
    When we get there Tara’s already gone. The bouncer says that her boyfriend collected her, which is bizarre because Ethan’s away on tour. Someone else must have come to pick her up. I feel bad that we left her there, but I did try.
    Lucas drags me back into the club and his hordes of friends.
    We stay out way too late and it’s all for nothing. The Kiefers don’t even show up. I miss curfew and have to climb in our bedroom window. Tara’s bed is right by the window so I carefully try to avoid landing on her and waking her up. Just when I think I’ve got through without disturbing her, my foot catches on the window sill, I squeal and roll right onto her bed. I brace for the scream but nothing comes. Her bed’s empty and hasn’t been slept in.
    Now I panic. Who collected her? What if she was dragged away by a guy the bouncer thought was Tara’s boyfriend but was really some weirdo? I should never have left her.
    Before I call the police and report her missing I realise I should check the rest of the boarding house. Tara must be pretty annoyed with me and might betaking it out on me by sleeping somewhere else. Where would be the one place she could sleep that would get back at me? The one place where she knows there’s an empty bed? It’s not that hard to guess.
    I creep up the stairs to Abigail’s room and find my guess was right. Tara’s asleep in her old bed. She’s sleeping with the enemy, but I can’t really blame her. I did drag her out to a club and then dumped her outside.
    When I see her on the way to class in the morning it’s grovel time. Tara doesn’t say who the mystery boyfriend