At times, life seems brutal to Wayne. His mum and dad have been best enemies since they broke up, he thinks he loves Mandy but she loves Phillip, and his best mate Den is a serious health hazard. Even if Wayne survives the booby-traps and accidents that face him, Den could still get them both kil...
As a child/teenager growing up in the hills of Adelaide with chickens, veggies, strangling, delicious blackberry plants and paddocks full of cows (with the occasional kangaroo hopping through) I dreamt of the concrete jungle depicted in books like Looking for Alibrandi. When I moved to Melbourne ...
I mean, I don’t think I’ll ever forget it — like an ambulance driver or a nurse or those poor bastards in the war, the things they had to see — but a day had passed, I’d found an excuse to wash my shovel and I wasn’t working with Homer. Kevin was back. He had a limp and he wore the scowl he alway...
It shakes, as if bitten by rage. I have stared at it for a lifetime but in the dream it is scarcely a second before it suddenly blinks and floats to the height of a man. The eye is the glowing tip of a cigarette. The smoker inhales and the glow sketches the figure. I know him. It is the man she c...
I wore my sunnies down to Pepe’s and I didn’t want to take them off. I dragged myself through the evening at work and slept until midday on Wednesday. Things got weird on Wednesday evening. Paolo was sitting in front of Fun-Da-Mental with an orange Bacardi Breezer in his hand. The bottle hung at ...
‘Are you nervous?’ she asked. ‘Me? What about?’ ‘Tomorrow. The Show.’ ‘I can make myself sick just by thinking about it.’ ‘You’ll be fine. I can hold your hand.’ ‘Gee, thanks. Then they’ll totally ignore me.’ ‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that,’ Katie scoffed. ‘Guys like a bit of girl-on-girl.’ ‘O...
They typically wobbled for a week, and Larry would worry their rough edges with his tongue, and eventually pop them free. Larry found a solution to the Sunday conundrum. He rose early with his father, watched the men fish until ten, went home to wash his hands and face, then changed his clothes a...
Am I too ordinary or plain? I’ll die of embarrassment or brain strain If I have to write a poem that rhymes just to let you know that you’re really neat. Hot. Groovy. Well, I think so anyway. Not so anonymous Bloody stupid game. Gone past funny now, getting a bit painful like more than one knoc...
‘Yes, I know. That’s why I’m staying at Ravi’s. We have to work on our performance for the final night.’ ‘And Mrs Carter is okay with you spending the weekend at their place?’ ‘Of course.’ She shrugged. I packed a toothbrush and stuffed a heap of clothes into a bag I could hide at Ravi’s. Mum wou...
The first time I played with the under-nineteens was like that. Then, when they shifted me up to the seniors as an uncoordinated sixteen-year-old and I did an interview with the sports reporter from the Highland Times, I knew I’d hit the big time. But the paper came out and they’d spelled my name...