Chapter One

Jared’s giving me the look. I’m pretty good at recognising the signs now.

A light breeze tickles my cheeks, and I lift my chin, letting it cool my sweaty neck. Distracted, I wonder if it might be cooler inside the classrooms than outside today – probably even cooler than here in the undercover area, actually. It’s a hot day for November, though I can’t remember the weather on all the days in all the Novembers that I’ve been alive.

I glance away from Jared’s freckly face and his flushed, pink cheeks, and concentrate harder on my mouth and my voice, on finding the right words to tell him about how far I got on Tunnels of Disaster and Doom Map 5 and the forty million new Orbsicles I won last night, but I can’t stop my eyes moving back up to him.

He’s looking over my shoulder at the kids playing on the field, and his feet and hands are shifting and fidgeting. This all tells me he doesn’t want to be standing with me any more, and that his ears aren’t listening to what I’m saying.

It’s the same look most people get when I’m telling them about OrbsWorld.

But I absolutely have to finish telling Jared about Tunnels of Disaster and Doom Map 5. OrbsWorld is my favourite computer game ever, and last night I was messaging Jared – username rugballlove4578 – and he’s already completed Map 5 and he’s the most popular boy and the best sprinter in the whole school!
I decide to talk faster.

“. . . and it was that ladder that I got stuck on every time, for like two weeks, but then I figured it out and–”

“Mm hm.”

I recognise these types of oral responses because of Mystery Game number 3, and I know to watch out for visual clues like body language and facial expressions because of Mystery Game number 4. I learned all of this at the Be Aware classes I went to last year with Mum, Dad and Ned. But the problem is, I don’t know how to change it or to make Jared interested in what I’m saying, so I just keep talking.

“I had to climb the ladder halfway . . . ”

“Yep.” Jared takes three small steps backwards, wiping his hands on his shorts.

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