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face, gathered the spare blanket around his waist and rose to his feet.
    â€˜Shouldn’t you be getting ready for school?’
    â€˜My name’s Tom.’
    â€˜I know. Your mum told me.’
    â€˜What’s your name?’
    â€˜You can call me Steve.’
    I thought about this name for a moment and considered it decidedly celluloid. We remained staring at each other awkwardly, not sure who should say something next.
    â€˜You look like your mother,’ and ‘Will you be here for dinner?’ we said simultaneously.
    â€˜Or will we never see you again?’ I continued. ‘Will you be another one of those ?’
    â€˜I suppose that’s up to your mother, isn’t it? You’re not a shy thing, are you?’
    â€˜She won’t be up for a few hours yet,’ I said, ignoring his taunt.
    â€˜I might just go into her room for a bit.’
    â€˜Mum doesn’t like to be woken. She needs her sleep.’
    â€˜Well, buddy, something tells me this morning will be different! Enjoy your day at school.’ He disappeared down the hall.
    To the empty room, I said: ‘Steve . . . Steve . . . Wonder if my mother will be teaching him how to whistle? Just put his lips together and . . . blow.’
    I got a cloth from the kitchen and wiped up the cake that had fallen onto the carpet. I finished the glass of milk and poured the still-hot water from the kettle onto a fresh teabag. With my cup of tea, I walked out into the backyard towards the chook pen and took out a handful of stale bread from the bag my grandfather hung on the outside.
    I threw the bread over the fence and went to the lemon tree. It was smattered with bright yellow fruit and smaller green ones. I picked a rock-sized, under-ripe lemon and squeezed it in my fist. As the chooks raced about their pen pecking at their pieces of morning bread, I waited patiently for the angry bird to have her go at the placid ones. I didn’t have to stand there for long. The bird pecked violently at two other chickens, shooing them away from the bread. I squeezed the lemon tightly again, waited until she’d bent her neck and then pelted the fruit at her with all my might. I connected not with her ribs as I’d intended, but with her right foot. The surprise of the blow affected her more than its sting and she gave one loud squawk. The bird raced back towards the safety of her covered box.
    â€˜I love the smell of lemon in the morning. It smells like victory,’ I said to the other chickens. ‘Enjoy your breakfast.’
    On my way back to the house, I stopped at the lounge where the activity had so entranced me last night. I bent down to study it closely, to see whether I could identify anything, as a detective might. I was disappointed to find that it just smelt like outside – grass and soil and air.
    It was a non-school type of day. Sometimes, if I was unable to sleep during the night, or if my mum was especially loud when she got home from work, it was okay for me to take some sanity leave, as Mum called it. She didn’t usually mind me taking a day to get my head back together. It wasn’t like I wouldn’t be able to catch up on my schoolwork; I was far enough in front in most subjects anyway, consistently getting bored, waiting for the other kids in my class. I spent the morning in my pyjamas, sitting at my desk, reading every word of my new magazines and stopping only when a new piece of information needed to be added to one of my index cards. I knew if I was quiet enough, and kept my door closed, no one would even bother to wonder whether I was still in the house. On average, a good magazine added over forty new facts to my makeshift encyclopaedia. Birth names, places, dates. Marriages, divorces. Family tragedy, education. Films, cameos, television appearances. Awards and nominations. Photographs. Every piece of information was colour-coded so that at a glance I was