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the blue slip of paper for the front office.
    â€˜Thank you,’ I told her, and then I ran across the oval, the white-hot sun blinding now, to give the note to Mrs Lachlan, barely waiting for her response, before I ran again to the bike racks, handlebars gleaming too hot to touch, the smell of burning grease as the chain slipped around into gear, and I pedalled home as fast as I could.

three
    The house was empty when I got there. I knew it as soon as I leant my bike against the fence and saw that Dee’s car wasn’t parked in the driveway, and Joe’s bike wasn’t tossed on the gravel where he always left it; it was nowhere in sight. Under the shade of the verandah, I searched for the spare key in the weeds that grew in the ceramic pots lined up near the door. (Dee quit gardening when she quit cooking.) When I eventually found it, my fingers were caked in dirt.
    I let myself into the cool of the hall, calling out Joe’s name and then Dee’s, but there was no answer, and the quiet made me anxious in a way I hadn’t felt before. I had come home to a deserted house more than once, but the news of Amanda’s death made everything feel strange.
    The kitchen was as we left it, our plates stacked haphazardly next to the sink, a trail of ants inking a broken black line from the benchtop to the open window. The margarine had melted into an oily yellow puddle and the milk in the bottle had already thickened in the heat. The radio on top of the fridge was on faintly, playing one of my favourite David Bowie songs. Normally I would have turned it up, but I wanted to be able to hear any sound, to make sure that there really was no one here.
    Upstairs, Joe’s room was empty, his bed unmade and his clothes strewn across the floor. From his window you could see down to the river curling its way along the peninsula, and on the opposite side, the olive green scrub growing thick between the outcrops of sandstone. Perched high on the top was the private boys’ school, like a castle; it was positioned to look down on everything. Tom wanted to send Joe there, but Joe refused to go and Dee backed him. ‘He wants to be with his friends,’ she said, and Tom gave way without a fight. Neither he nor Dee went to a private school, and Dee said Tom would never have considered it if he hadn’t made a lot of money from his business. It was like the sunken lounge, she complained, no more than a desire to spend; the end result completely unnecessary.
    Sammy, our dog, was asleep on Dee and Tom’s bed. She knew she wasn’t allowed there but she slunk up the stairs as soon as the last person left the house and leapt up, scratching a small hollow for herself in the pillows. She never woke when Dee came home, not until it was too late. Opening the door to the bedroom, Dee would shout at her (once she even threw her shoes and bag at her), and Sammy would jump down, tail between her legs, and scurry down the stairs. But seeing it was only me, she rolled lazily onto her back, paws in the air, waiting for me to scratch her.
    â€˜You should just keep your door shut,’ I told Dee whenever she said she’d had enough, Sammy was going back to the pound.
    â€˜Why should I have to do anything?’ she asked me. ‘She’s the one who should be changing her behaviour.’
    There was never any point arguing with Dee.
    On the floor next to her bed was the book she was reading, spine bent back to mark her page. Her glasses lay on top of it, smudged, the lens sticky-taped into the frame. There was some semblance of order on Tom’s side of the bed (his books were stacked neatly on his bedside table, his glasses were in their case), but the effort seemed futile in the face of the rest of the chaos.
    I headed downstairs, wishing I’d stayed at school. I didn’t want to be on my own. I flicked on the television and then flicked it off again. I swung in the hanging cane chair Tom bought when