By Callum Hay · 14 September 2026 · 1 min read

Whoever got to the court first could claim it. They’d start Queen, second to Tom and his fresh Spalding, round in his pocket all the way through writing and recess. When Ms wasn’t looking it was bounced beneath the tables to Jack, who had swapped seats with Emily L for a fifty-cent Zooper Dooper. He was the fastest grade six, the first picked, had conquered Little Athletics, cross-countried past district, regionals, and it was common knowledge he was state material and had big things coming.

He knew it too with absolute seriousness. Emily L’s three best friends had secreted her bucket hat to him just as Ms turned away, reminding them that under no-circumstances were they to leave the no-hat-no-play section gilded by sun-bright granitic sand. No Zooper Dooper were in play. As twos and threes they’d race after to see him huffing in the quarter-to-two December sun, first, with evergreen exaltation.

Jack looked at the big clock above the smart board. There was tinsel on the topmost edge that had appeared last week before the roll, and he and the rest hadn’t decided who had put it up. Ms thought there was just enough time to ask which of the six thinking hats Jack thought best for the problem. Red was his favourite colour, and since everyone turned to him, he said red and was asked what feeling came when thinking of palm trees in southern Sumatra.

He hadn’t the faintest clue. Then Tom’s hand shot up, then others.

The courts were two quartered concrete slabs split by a one foot thick mural with the twirly art-class house crest and colours by his older brothers long-gone year. To them, all the beige, army-green portables would spill out at the bell and return to summer-silence by music’s end.