Penguin Books Australia

Chapter 1

I tend to worry, I know I do, but only because I think there is lots of things to worry about. For a start, I think I should've said there are lots of things to worry about, which would worry my English teacher, Ms Inglis, more than me - and I worry, for instance, that I lose crap all over the place, and that I have to find some kind of Work Experience for next week, and that my mother's new second-hand car's number plates are CISSSY, which she refuses to change.

I mean, imagine if some girls saw me, totally innocently, get out of a red Ford Fiesta outside school, registration CISSSY, with my mother screaming out that I'd forgotten my lunch, how that would look?

That's right. It would look rubbish.

'Well, Jarvy,' says Travis, as we walk down Barclay Road after football training, 'I could not give a stuff'

This interrupts my thinking. For a moment, I even stop worrying.

'About what?' Not that it really matters, because Trav doesn't give a stuff about much. Or that is what he pretends.

'Work Experience.' We turn into Glenferrie Road. 'I could not care less.'

'Oh, yeah,' I say. 'Me, neither.' But I do, and I've been so worried about trying to find something to do for Work Experi­ence that I haven't actually done anything about it.

'Did you find your footy boot?' Trav asks me. 'How about your mouthguard?'

About half my life is spent trying to track down things I've lost, and the other half is spent trying not to lose any more. I lost a drink bottle today. I even lost a girl once; no, I didn't leave her anywhere - well, I did, at a hospital and a church, but for once, it wasn't my fault. Trav knew her, too. Her name was Amelia-Anne Sorenson. It still is, of course. She was a great girl; no, she was a great, great, great girl. I thought that when I didn't even really like girls. And I think it now, when I like just about every girl I see.

'Nup. I've found nothing,' I say. 'I'll go to Lost Property tomorrow and see what turns up.'

Trav shakes his shaggy head. He either has the most complicated haircut in the world, or no haircut at all. I can't work it out.

'Still, Jarvy, you trained all right. Even I was impressed.'

I did run hard; mostly because there was some chick with long shiny brown hair watching, which is unusual at an all-­boys school. Well, she wasn't watching; she was sitting reading a book, which hacked me off a little - as if I was at an all-girls school, I would not be reading. In fact, I would not be reading wherever I was.

'So you're a boot short?' Trav raises a blond eyebrow. 'This could present the perfect buying opportunity. Sack white. Go red.'

'I'd kill myself first.'

Trav wears red boots. He's just lucky he's tall, wide, and bad-tempered. And he's lucky he lives in a house where lost things are generally just replaced without too many questions - whereas my house is more like the Lost Prop­erty Department, Gestapo Headquarters, run by my mother, storm trooper Pam.

'You find that boot, Marc.' Blinding light right in the eyes. 'Or you vill pay! '

Of course, I can't possibly pay, not with the amount of shit I lose, and the amount of money I don't have. So she's wasting her breath there, which is what parents do, I suppose, to make themselves at least feel like they're doing something to fix the situation.

We stop at Trav's street. It's filled with extremely large, extremely renovated houses, the type of houses that people drive past and say, 'Sheee-it, look at that.' Some have palm trees. Most have tennis courts. One has a bowling alley. All have pools.

Trav's house doesn't have a tennis court. Well, this one doesn't. But his Blairgowrie house does.

'You've picked up some pace over summer, Jarv.' Trav and I are hanging at his corner. 'I saw Tindale write it on his sheet. Number twenty-four. Good speed.'

I'm a semi-quick player, I guess. Plus I have a good leap, and kick pretty well off both feet, especially my left; although it freaks me out that I even think this stuff about myself

'And he wrote 'good height',' Trav adds. 'Although that's stretching it a bit.'

At a hundred and eighty-seven centimetres, I guess I'm tall. But at a hundred and ninety-two, Trav's way taller; and I reckon if any of us has a future as a footballer, he'll be the one. On a good day he's a gun. On a great day he's a freak. On a bad day he's just angry, big, and dangerous - but funny to watch, if you're on our side, go to our school, or aren't related to any of the guys on the other team.

'Yeah, whatever,' I say, feeling not so bad. 'I'll see you tomorrow.' And we split, Trav wandering off up the Grand Canyon, me wandering off down Glenferrie Road, worrying about that lost freakin' boot and mouthguard, and as always, in some part of my mind, thinking of Amelia A. Sorenson, girl superstar gone from the world.

I also worry, when I have time, that I don't know as many girls as I should; although what would be an acceptable number of girls to know would be hard to say. I also worry, now and again - perhaps because I often find myself comparing myself to other guys, their clothes and physiques - that I might be a bit gay.

Might I be?

I do have white football boots. Well, I have one. Then again, I always go straight to the ladies underwear pages of any letterbox catalogue to check the chicks, no matter how much sporting equipment I have to pass by.

Not that I have anything against gay people, of course. I mean, hey, I don't even know any. Perhaps I should worry about that?

Anyway, I only have to look at girls to like them. Mostly, that is. For example, I really like that girl walking out of the used car yard across the road.

She's tall.

She has long black hair.

She's wearing black trackies and a white and yellow St Helen's school top.

She's a beautiful unknown girl. And I like her.

Yes, it's that simple.

And, as I watch her walk off into the dark, it occurs to me that I could do Work Experience at that used car yard.

Why not?

I haven't got any other better ideas.