“And I wanted to do something that Charlie hadn’t done. He’d never been a pageboy. And now he was too old, so he never would be. Charlie had always been the chosen one. He was captain of his soccer team again. When he was in grade six he was captain of Yarra house. And last week the girls in his class voted him as the boy they’d most like to kiss. It sucked.”

“And I wanted to do something that Charlie hadn’t done. He’d never been a pageboy. And now he was too old, so he never would be. Charlie had always been the chosen one. He was captain of his soccer team again. When he was in grade six he was captain of Yarra house. And last week the girls in his class voted him as the boy they’d most like to kiss. It sucked.”

— Sally Gould