PROTECTED.
Woohoo, IWYR has talent. That’s just sooo good. I bet whatever idiot painted that ended up going to art school.
They used to call this place the Inner West Youth Shelter, but then someone decided that ‘Shelter’ sounded ‘pejorative’, like someplace people dump stray dogs and cats, so they changed it to ‘Refuge’. Now some of the dickheads that Lyyssa talks to are starting to say that ‘Refuge’ sounds pejorative and want to change it to ‘Home’, but some other dickheads say that’s pejorative because it implies that the kids here don’t have homes, and that it should be called the Inner West Youth Sanctuary, but the first group of dickheads says that ‘Sanctuary’ is pejorative because it sounds like a place for endangered animals, and it’s also discriminatory because ‘Sanctuary’ has religious connotations.
Pe-jor-a-tive. I couldn’t find that word in the dictionary because I thought it was per -jorative, so I asked Miss Dunn.
I look at that dumb painting again. A SHELTER is someplace where you are BORED OUT OF YOUR BRAIN is what I’d paint.
I don’t want to read. I don’t want to study. I look out the window. It’s a fine day, but I can’t think of where I’d go except to the zoo.
The zoo. The zoo. The zoo.
Two hours and about twenty dollars later, I’m inside the zoo. If I’d gone with Mrs Rowles she would have paid, but then I would have had to put up with Shane and Karen. At least I remembered to bring bottled water and put on sunblock before I left. The sun must be more bitey here than anywhere else in Sydney.
I take the cable car to the top. At first I’m annoyed because I have to share with three other people, but it turns out they’re tourists and they start talking in German. On the way to the top, we see an orangutan or baboon sitting in a tree house with his shaggy back to us.
After an hour of walking around, I realise why that ape won’t come down from his tree.
Children with sticky ice-cream faces run around screaming at nothing. Mums push enormous prams loaded with bags of oranges and boxes of disposable nappies and boxes of muesli bars and cans of drink and enough Tele-Tubbies to stock a toy store. Asians take photos. Some clown takes off his Akubra and puts it on the head of a wombat that’s acting more like a pet dog than a wombat. Some kid pats a wallaby that’s lying in the sun like a lazy old cat. The wallaby has a chunk missing from its ear, like it had a tag there but it got ripped out. People pay to have their picture taken next to a mangy koala that’s sitting too low in a fake tree. There’s a miniature farm-zoo and some granny is squawking at her grandkids to come look at a stock saddle and an old tin of saddle soap locked up in a glass case.
A tiny burning twinge hits the back of my neck. I forgot to put sunblock there. You can get skin cancer forty years from now if you get sunburnt as a kid. I read that in a pamphlet at the Community Centre. I find a gift shop, but I don’t want to pay for sunblock when we get it for free at the Refuge. I need a hat. The only one that fits me and that I have enough money for is lime green, with the zoo logo and glow-in-the-dark tiger eyes on the front, and flaps hanging from the back brim to protect your neck. Okay, it’s dorky, but since everyone else here is a dork, I don’t reckon that’s a problem. I pay for it and ask the cashier to cut the tags off.
I’m too hot and tired to pay attention to the signs marking out the trails. I’m just trudging along hoping to see something that will make this trip worthwhile. Then I come to a place where you can see the harbour, and the city across the water. Ferries make their way steadily toward the Quay, or away from it. Sailboats skate in lazy, aimless arcs. The office buildings probably aren’t as tall as the ones in LA, but I bet people like Clarissa Hobbs work in them. I can’t see far enough to where the Refuge is, but I can see Woolloomooloo,
Woohoo, IWYR has talent. That’s just sooo good. I bet whatever idiot painted that ended up going to art school.
They used to call this place the Inner West Youth Shelter, but then someone decided that ‘Shelter’ sounded ‘pejorative’, like someplace people dump stray dogs and cats, so they changed it to ‘Refuge’. Now some of the dickheads that Lyyssa talks to are starting to say that ‘Refuge’ sounds pejorative and want to change it to ‘Home’, but some other dickheads say that’s pejorative because it implies that the kids here don’t have homes, and that it should be called the Inner West Youth Sanctuary, but the first group of dickheads says that ‘Sanctuary’ is pejorative because it sounds like a place for endangered animals, and it’s also discriminatory because ‘Sanctuary’ has religious connotations.
Pe-jor-a-tive. I couldn’t find that word in the dictionary because I thought it was per -jorative, so I asked Miss Dunn.
I look at that dumb painting again. A SHELTER is someplace where you are BORED OUT OF YOUR BRAIN is what I’d paint.
I don’t want to read. I don’t want to study. I look out the window. It’s a fine day, but I can’t think of where I’d go except to the zoo.
The zoo. The zoo. The zoo.
Two hours and about twenty dollars later, I’m inside the zoo. If I’d gone with Mrs Rowles she would have paid, but then I would have had to put up with Shane and Karen. At least I remembered to bring bottled water and put on sunblock before I left. The sun must be more bitey here than anywhere else in Sydney.
I take the cable car to the top. At first I’m annoyed because I have to share with three other people, but it turns out they’re tourists and they start talking in German. On the way to the top, we see an orangutan or baboon sitting in a tree house with his shaggy back to us.
After an hour of walking around, I realise why that ape won’t come down from his tree.
Children with sticky ice-cream faces run around screaming at nothing. Mums push enormous prams loaded with bags of oranges and boxes of disposable nappies and boxes of muesli bars and cans of drink and enough Tele-Tubbies to stock a toy store. Asians take photos. Some clown takes off his Akubra and puts it on the head of a wombat that’s acting more like a pet dog than a wombat. Some kid pats a wallaby that’s lying in the sun like a lazy old cat. The wallaby has a chunk missing from its ear, like it had a tag there but it got ripped out. People pay to have their picture taken next to a mangy koala that’s sitting too low in a fake tree. There’s a miniature farm-zoo and some granny is squawking at her grandkids to come look at a stock saddle and an old tin of saddle soap locked up in a glass case.
A tiny burning twinge hits the back of my neck. I forgot to put sunblock there. You can get skin cancer forty years from now if you get sunburnt as a kid. I read that in a pamphlet at the Community Centre. I find a gift shop, but I don’t want to pay for sunblock when we get it for free at the Refuge. I need a hat. The only one that fits me and that I have enough money for is lime green, with the zoo logo and glow-in-the-dark tiger eyes on the front, and flaps hanging from the back brim to protect your neck. Okay, it’s dorky, but since everyone else here is a dork, I don’t reckon that’s a problem. I pay for it and ask the cashier to cut the tags off.
I’m too hot and tired to pay attention to the signs marking out the trails. I’m just trudging along hoping to see something that will make this trip worthwhile. Then I come to a place where you can see the harbour, and the city across the water. Ferries make their way steadily toward the Quay, or away from it. Sailboats skate in lazy, aimless arcs. The office buildings probably aren’t as tall as the ones in LA, but I bet people like Clarissa Hobbs work in them. I can’t see far enough to where the Refuge is, but I can see Woolloomooloo,
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