AustLit

'I'd been at the boarding school for five years. My family never visited. My dad was always busy, something to do with politics. After school, me and my mates would sit at the communal table, joking, finishing our homework, and when the sun went down and the heat became bearable we'd play footy, all of us running around pretending to be Jonathan Brown, Cameron Bruce, Nick Dal Santo... our favourite footy players. It was only later, in the bunks after lights out, after the showers had stopped running and the boys had stopped giggling, speaking about Jackie and Lisa, the bras they'd started wearing, who they'd rather kiss, that I felt like something was missing. On my birthdays my family would send a card. Usually there was no message, just twenty dollars folded inside...'

 (Publication abstract)