Snow and the cold wind from Snowstorm Ridge. That’s what I can see now I’ve closed my eyes. Black crags overhanging the bitter blue of Lake Abyss. A terrible place, and I’m afraid, but I’m going to see it all for real - if I keep my courage.

I s’imagine this scene for a little while, then I pull back the focus and I see two figures toiling across the pristine white. Snowberries under the ledges, but the snow begins in a flurry and suddenly, the blizzard howls about us. I feel the slippery crunch of snow under my boots - the boots I haven’t even bought yet.

That thought spoils my s’imagining. The snowscape fades, and the howling wind gives way to the beat and babble and roar of iN tHE zONE. The Spring Social is where I am. No blizzard here, no pristine air, just the smell of sweat of two hundred kids and teachers, the smell of flowers in the hall of St Bareface College.

I open my eyes. The wall-flowers look like velvet. The weeping willow is fresh and the hawthorn blossom gleams like floral snow. I’m thinking of flowers to take my mind off Sari Roberts and Asher Phillips and (out of the corner of my eye) Rafe Winter who is draining the light from the place where he’s standing. They’re an unholy trinity. Asher is my private daydream, Sari is - Sari. Bad, I suppose, but somehow she gets away with it. Rafe is the dark on the other side.

Sari looks like an island princess (that’s what she says her great-grandmother was). Asher looks like Di Caprio’s younger brother. Rafe is the negative side of Asher. Dark hair, light eyes, dark thoughts. Clever as hell, but nobody knows him at all, except for Asher. They’re cousins and foster brothers. Prefects, of course, the trusted ones of St Bareface College. They’re in charge of this, responsible for that, for running Mixed-Year Camps and Spring Socials and wagon rides at the fete to fetch three dollars a time for the building fund. Everyone wants to be Asher’s mate, (I’m not alone in that) but Rafe is always there like a kind of silent twin.

I shiver. I have an awesome velvet skirt at home. It’s black and ankle length. I got it to wear to this social but I’m wearing baggy jeans instead. Clopping clogs and a fawn crop top with a key-hole neck. I have a horse-brass necklace filling in the gap, and it bumps against my breast bone when I move.

No-one else is wearing clunky jewellery. Everyone else is dangling silver chains and ankhs and crosses and Ying/yang beads. Nobody else is wearing baggy jeans. I have tied my daggy hair back, but it’s flopping free again.

The music is pounding techno and I try not to move in time. Sari is dancing, and she’s wearing a yellow mini dress that moves along with her as if it’s painted on. People stare at her, and she doesn’t care a bit. Nobody else is wearing a yellow mini. No-one else is wearing baggy jeans. So how come Sari is unique and I’m nothing but a dag?

The popular people blend, but most of the also-rans are still standing along the sides of the hall, sucking cola and eating peanuts and sizing up our chances of dancing or - in the case of some of us - our chances of not dancing without being hassled by Old Chook in her role of MC.

Funny thing about Old Chook (Ms Peck if you want to be literal). She teaches PD and she talks about Creative Imaging. Focussing on what you really, really want.

Sounds like magic to me. Sounds like self-hypnosis. But maybe she means that thing I do whenever I start to s’imagine.

Seeing/imagining. S(ee)imagine. See? It’s a thing I do with my mind when the flies outweigh the ointment in my life.

Kylie Shepherd is dancing with Lucien Lake and Alex Noble with Jamie Fairfax. Popular people, practically joined at the hip. Suzanne Wise is alone like me, and I stare at her a while. She’s staring at Sari - well, most people are - and now she drops her gaze to the cards she’s holding. Tarot cards in here? Chookie better not catch her. Tarot cards are banned, like virtual pets and dope and alcohol. I almost I believe I can hear the slithering whisper as Suzanne shuffles the pack. She’s looking at Sari. Maybe she’ll tell her fortune in Chookie’s teeth?

Suzanne has done nothing to her hair, but she’s wearing gypsy earrings. Also a long purple skirt with a top embroidered with coloured thread. This top is wicked, and I wish, I wish I had one like it. I have seen her doing embroidery on the bus, and I start across to have a closer look at this beautiful work of art. She looks up at me and through me and begins to lay out her cards, and I pretend I only wanted peanuts after all. I could go up, but what if she tells my fortune? I might be pathetic, but my future belongs to me.