Fred left without saying goodbye. Jess wasn’t awake anyway.
He’d had to get up early to catch the bus. Why did his mum make him go to this stupid school with its stupid hikes. He’d imagined it would be slack, a free school with no rules, but it wasn’t. His dad had said Bellarine Grammar, and boarding, would sort Fred out, but it hadn’t. Now it was his mum’s turn for a social experiment. That’s what he was. A social experiment.
He got on at Kennett River. The light was grey, it was just before dawn. Warm air inside formed condensation on the windows. The bus wound its way along the looping road that hugged the coast, following its shape. Fred couldn’t look at his phone because looking down made him car-sick. Bus-sick. He listened to music instead. Violent Soho. Closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the sun was rising over the
ocean.
The sea was silver and the sky was pink. Pink Madder Lake. Fred knew the colours because he’d had the Derwents. He forgot most of what he was taught at school, facts and history and science, but lately, the names of those coloured pencils had come back to him. He let himself watch the ocean, the pink horizon, for a moment. Fred supposed it looked beautiful, he supposed he could understand that this road, the Great Ocean Road, was world famous and tourists came here from everywhere, but it was also just the route to school.
His new school.
Ash got on at Skenes Creek. A chill washed in each time the bus door opened, hissing on its hinges. Kids in puffer jackets, beanies, eyes glistening in the cold of the morning.
‘Hey, Fred.’ Ash was smiling. He always was. Fred felt hungry. He hadn’t had breakfast.
‘I wonder where they’ll drop us.’ Ash settled his backpack under the seat in front.
Fred took out an earbud. ‘Have you done this before?’
Ash shook his head. ‘Been camping heaps of times, but not on my own, not a dropping.’
Fred thought it sounded like bird poo. A dropping.
‘So they really drive us somewhere and drop us off?’ he asked.
Ash nodded, putting in his buds…
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