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strand of fishing line. The line is heavy and bucking with resistance. He draws it up and up, and themother looks on, until there is a flash of slippery life kicking in the air and he’s holding the fish at head level, getting a good look, getting her approval.
    But the fish jerks free and flips and falls, ending with a splashless re-entry into the sea beneath them. He swears — Dustin sees the words mouthed — and the woman laughs, her body shaking with the action. She slides him the packet of Kingston biscuits and he leans against the pylons, nibbling one. She says something else to him, but Dustin can’t read her lips. He takes photos instead. The number rolls to 6. Will this keep Blackler happy?
    He finishes his pie, then lies back and looks at the thin clouds smeared above him. The sky is the kind of blue that is about ten layers thick. He grins with the realisation that he’s missing maths right now, and knows he owes Mrs Blackler big time. Perhaps this photography assignment might not be as painful as he first thought. Besides, if Terri Pavish can do it …
    He closes his eyes as his thoughts return to her. The weight of the camera is squarely on his chest as his breaths rise and fall. He can imagine her sliding onto the red Ducati. Blood rushes through him like a heat. There are so many things about her that feel dangerous.
    He sits up, embarrassed but unobserved by tourists.Boats continue to slide through the channel of water, and he notices the mother and son have vanished, as lightly as ghosts. The jetty is swept clean of memory, but he knows they’re still here — locked away inside the camera. They’re permanent, regardless of whether they want to be or not.
    Freo looks a bit different as he walks back through it. He notices the movement of people, like a slow human traffic, around the immobile stone buildings. He sits on the cool step of the old town hall, and it occurs to Dustin that everything in front of him can be put into one of two groups. There are the permanent things, like the clock tower reaching above him, built over a hundred years ago, and the courtyard spreading out beneath him. And then there’s what’s left, the impermanent things — the people moving through the mall as if they’re already half-gone, fading with each step. They come, they shop, they go. But the buildings remain.
    He takes a photo, wishing he’d paid attention when Mrs Blackler told the class about how to make moving things blur; something to do with shutter speed. He’d like to do that — to show people as the ghosts they almost are.
    Terri Pavish would be good to photograph, he thinks. He can imagine taking one of those shots as she speeds past himon a motorbike, her face in sharp focus and a cherry-red smear right across the page. Now that’d be a photo worth taking.
22
    He arrives back at school at the end of lunch, just as Nugget and the other senior boys are winding up their footy game on the field. Even so, he walks to the peppermint tree out of habit, where Jasmine sits with her legs hooked up underneath her skirt, her right hand resting on her flat stomach. The lunchbox beside her is unopened.
    â€˜You missed art.’
    He gives her the assignment sheet from Mrs Blackler, which she folds and puts into her backpack. Her eyes are puffy and she’s quiet. Shit, he thinks, wondering if she somehow found out about him lying to her yesterday. He doesn’t know whether to stay or leave. But he chooses to sit beside her, his knobbly knees at all angles.
    â€˜I killed a turtle.’
    â€˜A turtle?’
    â€˜Yes, a turtle!’ she says, her voice breaking. ‘I squished it under the van this morning before school.’ She wipes hersnotty nose with the back of a hand. ‘Dad asked me to drive one of the deliveries to Bibra Lake because he was busy. I know there are Turtle Crossing signs but I didn’t slow down because I’ve never