He takes my hand but doesn’t shake. Just holds it and it flops onto his chest, where I can feel his heart pounding. I’m not sure how to break the moment or how long we’re going to stay here, but there’s something so awkwardly peaceful about it all, lying under the Prayer Tree.

“Coffee?” Santangelo calls down to us. We both look up. He, Ben, and Raffy are hanging over the side.

“Is it espresso?” Anson Choi asks behind us.

“Freshly percolated,” Ben answers. “You should see the gadgets they have up here.”

Anson Choi aims a begging look at Griggs.

“You want to sell out over a coffee?” Griggs asks him with disgust.

“They’ve got muffins as well,” I tell them. “Double chocolate chip. His mum made them.”

Griggs gets up and holds out a hand to me. “Truce.”

Chapter 16

By the second day of the holidays everyone has left the House. I ignore Jessa’s protests that she’d rather stay with me, first because I know she’ll drive me insane and second because I know she’s lying, which is confirmed when I see the look of excitement in her eyes when Santangelo’s mum and his sisters come to pick her up.

For the first two days I relish the peace and quiet and lack of questions and drama, and not having to share the television or the internet or even the snacks in the kitchen. By the time Raffy approaches the front verandah on the Wednesday, though, the company of Taylor Lily Markham is beginning to wear a bit thin.

“I’m bored to death,” she tells me. “Want to get out of town? Somewhere with a shopping centre?”

“It’ll take us ages to get there. By the time we walk down to town and take the coach…”

“Just say we’ve got a car?”

I look at her, puzzled.

“Santangelo has one,” she explains. “Keeps it in the old shed off the trail across the river.”

“How do you know that?”

She shrugs. “I went to youth group on Saturday night.”

“Santangelo belongs to youth group?”

“No, but his girlfriend does, and I swear to God, the stuff I can get out of this girl is incredible. You see, Santangelo has to keep the car a secret because his father caught him doing five Ks over the speed limit.”

“Poor guy,” I say, thinking what a bummer it would be to have the police sergeant as your dad. But the sympathy doesn’t last long. “Keys?”

She scoffs at the idea. “No one in this town locks their doors, plus we can hotwire.”

There must be another confused look on my face because she explains. “It’s one of those Townie stories. Too long and insignificant, but being taught to hotwire has been pretty valuable.”

I’m liking the idea. Having access to a car for the holidays might even take me as far as Sydney.

The old shed is at least a thirty-minute walk, so we take the trail bikes and trespass into Cadet territory, hoping we don’t get caught. The Cadets are on a partial holiday. No school work, but plenty of hikes outside the area; so there’s no time like the present to violate the treaty.

It’s fun to be on the bikes again and I remember the times when I was in year nine, before we lost the trail to the Cadets, when we’d go flying over the twists and turns of the dirt road, racing one another across the most ridiculously dangerous terrain around. I broke my arm once by flying straight into a tree and Hannah didn’t talk to me for a week. But Hannah’s not around and Raffy and I race each other, both of us skidding off the bikes at least once. The scrape on my leg stings but I get there first and our adrenalin is so pumped that I’m ready to commit any felony, including breaking into the illegal car of the local sergeant’s son.

There’s something about the shabbiness of the dilapidated shed that makes me think that nothing could be driven into it without it falling apart. We park the bikes at the back and with great difficulty pull open the two wooden doors. By the time we get them open we are saturated with perspiration and exhausted. But once we step inside, our fatigue changes to a sense of triumph. In front of us is an old but incredible shiny dark blue Commodore. As Raffy promised, the doors are unlocked and we circle it for a moment, celebrating the audacity of what we are about to do.

Raffy climbs in and disappears under the dashboard. I lean on the windowsill looking in as she pulls out wires and connects them like someone out of those movies that I have always been so dubious about because it’s always looked so easy.

“You are impressing me like crazy here,” I say to her.

“I can’t wait to tell him one day,” she says with a giggle. “‘Hey, Chaz, guess what? We knew where your precious car was all the time.’ I’d like to take a photo of his face. What do you think?”

The car begins to purr and I hear her “Yesss” of victory.

“I reckon I’d smile really nicely in the photo,” Santangelo says behind me, yanking me out of the way, “knowing that you’ll be keeping it under your pillow for the rest of your life.”

He opens the car door and pulls her out, bumping her head on the way. Jonah Griggs is standing behind him, equally unimpressed.

“Don’t you ever touch my car again,” Santangelo says with the same fury he had on his face when Jonah Griggs made comments about his mother.

Raffy touches the car with her finger in a very dramatic way.

“You’ve just made our hit list,” he says, getting a hanky out of his pocket and cleaning off some imaginary mark. I haven’t seen a hanky in ages and seeing Santangelo with one makes it really difficult to keep a straight face.

“Oh, scary, scary,” Raffy says. “Let’s go, Taylor.”

“What are you guys up to?” I ask suspiciously. “Why are you hanging out together?”

“We’re not,” Santangelo says.

“Well, it looks like you are,” I say.

“We’re not,” Jonah Griggs says. “Believe me. His father’s made us paint half this town and if we stick around any longer he’ll make us paint the rest of it.”

“As a punishment for Gala Day?” Raffy asks.

“No. I think it was the Seven-Eleven thing,” he mutters, looking away.

“It could be because of that thing outside Woolworths,” Santangelo says. We didn’t know about that one. “My nanna Faye saw it and told my mum and she told my dad.”

“You guys have to stop the fighting,” Raffy says. “It’s passé. No one has punch-ups anymore.”

“This whole bloody town is passé,” Griggs says. “Can we just get out of here?”

“Are you going to smash him for that or will I?” Raffy asks Santangelo, glaring at Griggs.

I pull her away. “We’re out of here.”

We don’t look back. The trail bikes are prohibited for town use, so we go back to a world with no wheels but at least I have company in my boredom. Our shopping gets downsized to the two or three dress shops in town. It takes us longer to get to the Jellicoe Road from the garage than it would from our House but when we get there, Santangelo’s car is parked by the side of the trail.

“We can give you a lift,” he says grudgingly. Griggs is looking straight ahead as if he doesn’t give a shit.

“But just say we get finger marks on the seats?” I ask. “Can we borrow your hanky?”

Raffy and I are both amused by my humour.

“Just don’t touch anything.”

Apart from the ride with Mr. Palmer on the night of my gaol visit, I haven’t been in a car for ages, especially during the day. There’s something so normal about it all, even if the guys in the front seat are your arch-enemies. Santangelo and Griggs have a massive argument about whose CD they put in first and Griggs wins, based on the logistics of Santangelo having his hands on the wheel. It’s a New Order song and from the moment the opening strands are over and the full passion of the music begins, I feel as if I am a thousand miles away from the turmoil of the past week. With the window down and my head out, I feel like everything inside of me is switched on. Santangelo is a good driver and knows every inch of the road, handling its turns and potholes effortlessly. I drift into a dreamy mode, to the beat of the music, and the dual voices of the singers make me close my eyes but still the colours around me penetrate my eyelids and I let them in. Flashes of greens and browns and greens and browns and…