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guess this was the feeling people call homesickness. I wrote a note to Melanie and asked one of the year twelve girls to deliver it, then took the risk and sleazed off outside for a while. It was a hell of a risk — it was after nine o’clock already — but I wanted a little peace, and the dorm was no place for that. At Linley they thought you were sick if you spent any time on your own. But I sat under a tree in the darkness, pondering the meaning of life and wondering what Gilligan would do if he busted me out of the House. That was the trouble with this school — after a while they started to control you even when they weren’t there. The dorm was like Lord of the Flies but the teachers were like 1984.
    One of the prefects actually caught me as I was slipping back inside, but he was a cool dude named Joe Ciccione. I told him I’d been feeling bad and had just gone for a little walk, and he took that well. Sometimes that stuff works and sometimes it doesn’t.
    Anyway, I was getting over it all, and after Lights Out I slipped over to James Kramer’s bed and talked to him for a few hours, and that put me back in an even better frame of mind. ‘Why do these people get down on me so much?’ I asked him.
    â€˜â€™Cos you’re different,’ he said, ‘and because you hang it on them so blatantly. I mean, wearing your Walkman to swimming training? What did you expect? Taking photos of the food in the Dining Room, right in front of the cook? Mate, you’re like a tank full of petrol looking for a match.’
    â€˜How come you get on with everyone?’ I asked.
    â€˜God, I don’t,’ he said in surprise. ‘Walker hates me, Mrs Murray chucked me out of English yesterday, Clune tried to put a dart through my hand last week. But I try to get on with people. I hate it when I do something that hurts someone. I always feel bad that I don’t do more to help Ringworm, ’cos he takes so much. But it’s pretty hard to help him. I mean, you get mad at him because he brings so much of it on himself, but then you realise that he can’t help it — that’s just the way he is; he doesn’t know any better. You know, this is my fourth year in this place, my fourth year with Ringworm, and I don’t think he’s made the slightest progress in all that time; matter of fact, I think he’s probably got worse.’
    â€˜You’ve been here four years? Man, how can you stand it?’
    â€˜Uh, it’s not so bad. Why, what do you think of it?’
    â€˜Man, I think it sucks. Well, most of the time. Like, it’s not as bad as I thought it would be. I thought all you guys would be the biggest snobs out, all walking around with your noses in the air, sticking your arses out to be kissed, but it hasn’t been like that. But the teaching’s not as good as I thought it would be — it’s not that much better than Gleeson High — although they are much stricter here and they make you do more work.’
    â€˜Yeah, I’d like to go to a high school, just to check it out,’ James said. ‘You feel like you’re cut off from the real world here most of the time. Last year we wanted to get football matches with the local high school but they wouldn’t let us — must have thought they’d be too rough. When I go home now, half the kids won’t speak to me because I go to a snob school.’
    â€˜Where do you live?’ I asked him.
    â€˜Walforth.’
    â€˜Where’s that?’
    â€˜Near South Walforth.’
    â€˜Oh yeah, great. Where’s that, to the south of West Walforth, huh?’
    â€˜Yeah, wow, how’d you guess? No, it’s near Bromley, about four hours from here, on the Evelyn River.’
    â€˜What do you do there, you got a farm or something?’
    â€˜Yeah, we run cattle, and my father works in town too — he’s got a business making irrigation