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have an ant-sized amount of importance in the lives of the Albury-dwellers in general, but what they like about Albury is its distance from the city, which makes it a country town and not a major urban centre of much cultural activity and smog and stressed people honking. So in the end you have to just say, ‘Oh well, horses for courses,’ or whatever that saying is. My mum, for instance, would probably love Albury because she likes to think she’s the earth mother of Brunswick, though she really isn’t. Look at our backyard compared to Caramella’s. Ours is neglected and flapping. Caramella’s is all abundantly organised with beds of vegies and lines of fruit trees. But then again, Mum’s a single mother and she has a lot of other stuff to do before she can even think about gardening. Mum and I simply couldn’t live in Albury (and let’s not even consider Barnaby, because he’d just laugh in a scoffing way at the idea). The reason we couldn’t live in Albury is that Mum wouldn’t have her friends there and, more importantly, I wouldn’t have mine. I mean, who knows, Albury could even be a great place, and you could probably find a paddock for your horse, but what it doesn’t have is Caramella, Oscar, Ricci, Pablo and Robert, and all the rest.
    So that rules out Albury.

    What about learning the drums and getting in on the Badlands tour? I couldn’t possibly learn something that required me to sit down and keep counting over and over, and even if I could learn drums it would take me years and years to be good enough. Plus Ada doesn’t like me.
    â€˜Hey.’ That voice just cut right through my thoughts and plunged in somewhere else.
    Kite, I said to myself as I stopped dead and then swivelled around.
    He was leaning up against the school gate, hands in pockets, head slightly tilted. He looked sad and careless, as if in secret communication with the sky. But when he moved away from the gate and came towards me, he seemed to be moving with a slow purpose and his eyes looked darker than usual. I dropped my school bag to the ground and shoved it between my feet. I stood still and tried to act steady.
    â€˜What are you doing here?’ I said.
    â€˜Waiting for you.’
    â€˜For me?’
    â€˜Yeah.’ He seemed to yield.
    Right then, I admit it, a very superficial thought came to my mind. I wished Marnie would walk through the gates and see me standing there with Kite. Kite who was tall and leaning, with hair uncombed by wind, and arms that didn’t try, and who stood there, shining and true and waiting for me.
    Shining and true in my eyes, anyway.
    I didn’t say anything. He was leaving, after all. Suddenly he didn’t look so shining and true. He looked like a deserter. I just looked at him as if I was Jesus Christ and he was Judas, the traitor.
    â€˜You’re mad at me, aren’t you?’
    â€˜Nope,’ I lied. I looked up into the sky. Yellow leaves swirled through the grey air. The trees shook and waved their branches in the air, as if appalled, somehow.‘Well, maybe.’ I corrected myself and frowned. Jesus Christ wouldn’t have blamed anyone. ‘See, I’m mad at the situation. Not at you, because you can’t help it, but I’m mad that the circus will have to stop when we’ve just got it going.’
    He glided closer. ‘Cedar, it doesn’t have to stop. You can keep it going.’
    As if, I thought, but I maintained my fierce frown. He laughed at me because he could see right through my ferocity, and he knew he could have bent it out of shape with one smile.
    â€˜And think of the new tricks I’ll bring back with me.’ He made a little cheerful shoulder move, as though we were boxing and he’d just dodged a blow.
    I nodded with obvious reluctance. As if, I thought again. As if he’d be coming back. Anyway, it wasn’t just the circus finishing. It was more than that.