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always fell off in the end, especially when we tried to stop or a hill got too steep.
    James gets all serious. ‘The point is we never told the social workers because Mum and Dad said they would stop us. Mum and Dad might even have got in trouble for letting us.’
    â€˜You lived on a farm?’ Ranga has already lost track. ‘You ever heard a baby pig when someone grabs it?’ He starts sucking in his breath and making this awful screaming, squealing noise.
    Jess, one of the girls sitting near us, almost has a heart attack. She jerks up and her head nearly spins off her shoulders. Then she sees that it’s just Ranga. Her friends are laughing at her. She glances at them and then back at Ranga. ‘Loser!’ she sneers.
    â€˜Takes one to know one,’ Ranga says.
    Jess just shakes her head like it was a stupid thing to say, which it probably was, but what can you say when a girl calls you a loser in front of her friends?
    Ranga is trying to think of something else to say when all the girls get up. It was like they had some secret signal or something. They all moved at exactly the same time. I didn’t see it or hear it but they all knew it was time. Girlsare like that, like a flock of birds flying, turning this way and that to some signal no one else can detect.
    The girls don’t walk away from us either. They go right past us in a little tight group, kind of contemptuous, but strutting at the same time. They don’t normally walk like that. Why? Are they telling us something? Is it some type of lesson we’re supposed to learn? It seems like they think we’re all idiots and then Jess gives me this sly smile as she goes past. We watch them until they all start giggling when they walk around the corner of the canteen.
    â€˜Idiots!’ says Ranga.
    â€˜You ever had a girlfriend?’ James asks.
    â€˜Plenty,’ says Ranga, which is bull.
    â€˜Have you got one now?’
    â€˜Nah,’ Ranga says, ‘I’m too busy training for the skate comp.’
    â€˜What about you, Sticks? Have you got a girlfriend?’
    I shake my head. ‘Nuh,’ I say, but then that sly smile Jess gave me comes sliding through my mind. What was that?
    James takes a big noisy breath. ‘I’ve got a girl who’s my friend.’
    â€˜Yeah?’ Ranga says. ‘What’s she like?’
    â€˜There’s a picture in my backpack, in my wallet.’
    Ranga is straight into his backpack, burrowing like a wombat. It takes him about five seconds to hold up James’ wallet. ‘Here it is!’ He hands it to James which shows a lot of self-control for Ranga. If it was my wallet he’d have it open already.
    James fumbles with it for a few seconds and then shows us a picture of this girl in a wheelchair. She looks frail but her smile glows out of his wallet.
    â€˜She looks nice,’ Ranga says. He gives James a nudge. ‘You sly dog!’
    â€˜She’s not my girlfriend — not like that. She lives down in Bunbury. We email each other all the time.’
    â€˜Where did you meet her?’ I ask.
    â€˜In hospital. She was having botox injections.’
    Ranga can’t resist. ‘No wonder she’s so pretty.’
    â€˜Ha-ha, Ranga,’ I say, letting him know it’s a really bad taste joke.
    â€˜I don’t think I’ll ever have a real girlfriend,’ James says.
    â€˜Why not?’ Ranga asks.
    James doesn’t answer.

9
    Mrs Jones, our science teacher, is away and Mr O’Brien, the biology teacher, is relieving.
    â€˜Turn to page twenty-six in your text,’ he says. ‘Mrs Jones tells me you have already covered this topic so I want you to answer the questions at the bottom of the page.’ He writes the page number and the topic on the whiteboard and then sits down with a pile of marking from his real class.
    The questions are boring, all about levers and forces. I bet Mrs Jones won’t even