White Ute Dreaming by Scot Gardner

I’m not good enough for you?’
    â€˜No. I’ve got to catch the bus. See you at school,’ she said, and hung up. Just like that. I think the knob joke might have taken it a bit far. Damn.
    I waited for Kez in the breezeway near my locker. She marched in and dropped her bag so she could hug me.Almost bowled me over. She smelt like incense.
    â€˜Sorry,’ she said into my neck.
    â€˜What for?’
    â€˜Being such a paranoid bitch.’
    I pushed her off me and pretended to slap her across the face. ‘Don’t talk about my girlfriend like that or I’ll have to deck you.’
    She laughed and hugged me again.
    â€˜I’m the one who should be saying sorry,’ I said into her hair.
    â€˜Yeah, that’s right. So say it.’
    â€˜Sorry,’ I said, and she squeezed.
    Den was standing behind her twiddling his thumbs and pretending to whistle.
    â€˜Don’t look now,’ I said, ‘but I think we have visitors.’
    She saw it was Den and hugged me harder. ‘Just ignore him. He’ll go away.’
    â€˜Thanks, slagheap,’ Den said, and kicked a locker door closed. The bell rang for form assembly. Kez kissed me on the cheek and ran off. She darted back to pick up her bag and I opened my locker. She kissed me again and nicked off again. I was glad she did. A note dropped out when I opened the door and my heart rattled. Same sort of envelope as before. Same sort of writing as before. I stashed it in my pencil case while Den ferreted through the mess in his locker looking for his SOSE books.
    â€˜Your uncle died?’ he asked on the way to form assembly.
    â€˜Yeah. He had cancer. He died at home in the same room I was in. Got to see my first dead person.’
    â€˜Cool,’ he said. I thought that would appeal to him.
    â€˜Pity it was my best uncle in the whole world.’
    â€˜Yeah, sorry to hear that, mate.’
    He couldn’t sit still in SOSE. Neither could I.
    â€˜It’s my last day in this hole and I’m itching to do something,’ he said.
    â€˜Got any smokes?’ I asked.
    â€˜Yeah. Why?’
    â€˜Why don’t you just light up?’
    A smile danced on his lips and he rummaged in his bag. He showed me the pack but didn’t pull it out.
    â€˜You have one and I’ll have one,’ he said.
    â€˜Get stuffed. It’s your last day here, not mine.’
    â€˜Would be if you lit up with me. Ha ha.’
    I stuck my hand up.
    â€˜What?’ Den whispered.
    Mrs Jenkins asked me what I wanted.
    â€˜May I go to the toilet please, Miss?’
    She sighed. ‘You’ve been here six minutes, Wayne. You got a homebrand bladder or a thick skull? Go on. Hurry up. Remember that I can see you all the way to the toilets.’
    I grabbed my pencil case and headed for the door.
    â€˜Can I go too, Miss?’ Den asked.
    â€˜Yes. When Wayne comes back,’ she said. ‘Wayne, you don’t need to take your pencil case to the toilet do you?’
    â€˜Umm. Yeah. I do. Dennis is going a bit spaz and I don’t trust him with my stuff.’
    â€˜Put it up here. I’ll look after it. Get going.’
    I unzipped my case and stuck the note up my sleeve. I thought I’d been really secretive but Mrs Jenkins had tilted her head back and looked down her nose at me.

    Dear Wayne,
    Would you kiss me now you know who I am?
Yes                No
    If yes, how would you kiss?
Peck on the cheek
On the lips
Full on with tongue
    Angie
    Far out. The toilets at school are not the best place to get half a hard-on but it was happening. I remember David Longmore, or whatever his name was, in year eight. We went swimming at the leisure centre in Fairleigh and someone caught him playing with himself in the toilets. Mate, he never lived that down. We called him David Long Dick, which I thought was a bit of a compliment but I don’t think he saw the funny side of it. He shifted