Ailish walked up to her area after the lunchtime bell had gone. Her friends, already seated, were singing a jingle from an ad that had been on TV the night before. She shook her head.

"Guys, I have some worthy advice for you. There is life beyond television!"

They glanced up, saw who was dictating the advice, and went back to singing. Ailish was starting to get frustrated with their immaturity. She was seventeen, and she had a job, a car, even the beginnings of a nest egg for when she moved out. The most her friends had was each other. A couple of them had cars they’d scored from their parents, and about four of them had weekend jobs, but they just squandered their cash on music, movies and clothes. Sure, Ailish bought the odd cd if she saw one she liked, but not to the extent of her wasting all her hard-earned cash on a piece of plastic.

Ailish worried about her friends. She didn’t worry about much else. She didn’t have much else to worry about. She didn’t care much about school – the QCS was coming up in a couple of weeks but she was doing okay and she understood all she had to. She wasn’t that worried about life after high school anyway. Ailish was going to move to Melbourne and live in a sharehouse with a couple of friends she’d met through her job – they had the same interests as her and they’d invited her down to stay with them plenty of times. She was quite willing to go once she had her senior school certificate. Ailish figured that was all she’d need to score a traineeship or something like that, and she’d always wanted to have a go at stage design. Surely there’d be something around she’d find.

Parents weren’t much of a problem either. Her mother had gone crazy and gotten hauled off to a mental institution when Ailish was five and her older brother was seven, and so her dad had brought them up. He worked in an office somewhere in the middle of Brisbane city. Ailish didn’t know exactly what his occupation was, but he put food on the table and seemed contented with that. Jackson Fiennes knew what he doing with raising children, he had all the books on fatherhood and raising boys and raising girls and parenting. He had a whole shelf devoted to it in his library. Ailish and Merrick were brought up in a loving household, taught to respect their elders, use their manners, and always call home if they changed their plans whilst out.

So basically, all she had to worry about were her friends. And they were fairly easy to worry about – it seemed they all wanted to be Peter Pan, live in a fairytale world where nothing changed and they never grew up, and they’d get the odd challenge with Captain Hook but since they were the good guys, they’d always win. Ailish knew better. Her words never seemed to have any effect on them lately, though. Felix didn’t speak to her any more, and they’d been such close friends the year before. Savannah had been sleeping around a lot lately and getting a real name for herself. Lily lived in her own little dreamworld, and Ailish was worried Lily’s new boyfriend had her experimenting with hard drugs. Dakota was obviously going through some stuff at home, but whenever someone tried to talk to him about it he denied all claims of anything being wrong – "everything’s fine, I swear".

Morgan did her best to keep everyone convinced she was still the innocent thirteen-year-old they’d all met in grade eight, but Ailish knew Morgan was beating herself up from the inside, stressing over grades and career choices. Morgan was a talented musician, but her parents were both lawyers and the expectation was for Morgan to follow in their footsteps like her older sister was. And Ewan, gorgeous Ewan. He’d been left completely heartbroken when his girlfriend had moved across the other side of the world with her high-flying parents only two months ago. They’d swore to keep in contact, but after only one month a letter came addressed to him from her, saying she just couldn’t handle it in amongst settling in and life overseas, blah blah. Ailish knew this in the deepest of confidence after Ewan had poured his heart out to her one depressing evening.

There were probably at least ten other people who sat with Ailish and her friends, all acquaintances or friends of friends, but Ailish didn’t really know them or, for that matter, want to. She tolerated them for the fact that everyone else seemed to, and so they were accepted. She was jolted back into reality by a piece of flying beetroot.

"Sorry Ai, I was aiming for Kota. Dakota, ya tossa! Beetroot is healthy for you! So’s carrot!" More flying vegetables followed.

Ailish sighed and looked around. Felix had his Walkman in and was now singing to Ben Folds Five’s song ‘Underground’. Savannah was singing along in between checking out the butt of every guy who walked past her seat – students of all ages – but when Mr Waugh walked past and she kept looking, Ailish had to roll her eyes and look away. Lily was entangled in the arms of her boyfriend, whose name (from memory) was Tom. Or Jack, maybe it was Jack. Oh well. Morgan was singing the theme from ‘Loveboat’ and Ewan was giving an ‘interpretive dance’ to accompany the song.

Ailish couldn’t stand it. The noise was infuriating, but apart from that they were all just carrying on with senseless rot anyway. She got to her feet and picked up her half-eaten salad roll and her bag.

"GROW UP!"

She screamed, then turned and strode away, leaving the whole group silent. Until Felix began to giggle. Quietly at first, then uncontrollably as each person joined in. Ailish turned to look once, to witness Felix standing in the middle of the table of howling teens, his arms raised to the sky. He was screaming something, but Ailish was beyond caring. She turned her head away and kept walking.

Ailish stomped up to the school hall. There was a spot, just around the back, where if you moved a few bricks you could crawl in under the stage in the hall. Ailish had stumbled across it years ago, before she’d even started high school, when she’d been ‘exploring’ with some of her friends on the way home from school one day. As far as she could tell, of all the people who knew it existed, she was the only one who used it frequently for refuge.

She looked around, then pushed the bricks inwards, crawled in, and replaced the bricks. She flicked on the torch she’d left next to the opening last time she’d been inside, and settled down on a cushion she’d smuggled in a few months ago from the drama department.

Ailish closed her eyes and turned on the music in her head. Time passed, she wasn’t concerned, but she was jolted awake when she heard the bricks at the opening scattered aside.

"Holy shit, Ewan, are you trying to give me a heart attack?"

"Sorry, you just sorta cracked at lunchtime and we didn’t know what to do, we couldn’t find you. Then you weren’t in English – "

"What time is it?"

"Uh, about 3:45. I was looking for you after home bell. I thought you’d gone but your car was still in the carpark. I’d almost forgotten about this place, but I thought I’d give it a chance."

"Congratulations."

"Look, Felix feels really bad. He didn’t think you were serious – "

"Hey, if you’ve come here purely to apologise for Felix, the door’s there. You can leave any time you want, ‘cause I’m not listening."

"I’m only trying to make it better."

"He can do it himself." She sighed. "He’s pathetic. When’s he going to realise that life isn’t that easy? He’s going to get knocked back one day and it’ll tear him apart."

Ewan reached over and flicked Ailish’s shoulder.

"Hey, if you’re going to whinge about Felix all afternoon, the door’s just there…"

Ailish pulled a face at him and crawled towards the opening.

"Ai, I was joking."

"Nah, I’ve gotta go anyway. You need a lift home?"

"If you’re offering."

"I’m offering."

"Then I’m taking."

Ewan crawled out after her, then watched as Ailish put all the bricks back and stood up. He nudged her arm, grinned childishly and whispered, "Race ya to the car!"

He took off, screaming down the hill and laughing hysterically as Ailish flew after him, abusing him for being so much faster. Ewan disappeared behind a corner and Ailish cut through one of the school blocks to try and gain on him. As she swerved under block 7, the English department, Ailish ran right into one of the school’s teachers and fell flat on her backside.

"Fuck!" She screamed. "Ah, whoops, I mean, sorry!" She jumped to her feet and dusted off her uniform before nodding at the teacher and attempting to run off. A hand latched onto her arm.

"Ailish Fiennes, why are you still hanging around here?" Ailish looked up into the eyes of Mr Chambers, who looked tired and slightly frustrated.

"Uh, staying back for extra study time?" She tried. The teacher frowned.

"What is it you’re studying? Bowling for teachers?"

"Believe it or not, no! How’s HPE sound?" She managed, as she darted out of his grasp and took off again.

By the time she reached her car, an old Holden Kingswood she’d had painted purple chrome, Ewan was lying across the bonnet, pretending to be asleep. She threw her bag at him as she got her keys out of her pocket, and he leapt off the bonnet before she opened the driver’s side door. Ailish reached over and unlocked the passenger door, shaking her head and smiling. Ewan jumped in and threw their bags into the back seat, already littered with magazines and tapes. He grabbed a tape and put it in the car’s stereo system, cranking the volume up.

"What is it?" Ailish asked.

"You’ll see, OR HEAR!" He screamed as music burst out of the speakers. Ailish smiled as the beat flowed through her, but then frowned as the lyrics caught her.