conversations.from: human
conversations.value: the first four paragraphs for a book with the title 'Floundering'
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Floundering
  I have that itchy skin feeling that someone is watching us. I turn around and it's Loretta. She is in a car following us slowly, like a pervert would. I'm counting letterboxes and Jordy is walking ahead 'cos he likes to pretend I'm not his brother.
  Jordy and I stand like statues. Her hair is a different colour. She looks wonky. But after a bit all her features come together and she is Loretta again. I get in the car. I don't like how Gran makes the beds. She pulls the sheet so tight that every night you got to kick and kick and kick to get it free. Jordy doesn't get in the car. I already have my seatbelt on.
  Matey, she says, come on. She is driving really slow along side him. He shrugs his schoolbag further up on his shoulder and stops.
  She smiles the kind of smile that is so good it feels like a punch in the stomach. Jordy looks up and down the street, but there is nothing to hold on to, just letterboxes, fences and scraggly trees. He gets in.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: four more paragraphs
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: I hate you, I say and pull away from her. She drops the bloody towel. The kettle still screams. I run down the path to the beach. The ghost crabs scatter. I put my feet in the water. It foams up around my ankles. I feel my ear, the scabby blood. I try not to cry. Jordy's there then, standing beside me.
  I can't figure out what's strange about him. I realise he's not wearing his school shirt. He's wearing a huge white singlet that falls off his shoulders. I can see the bones in his back. I'm not wearing my shirt, it's scrunched up like a used tissue somewhere in the caravan.
  I look down at my hollow chest and figure I'm burning. My shoulders already feel too hot. A breeze blows at me and flutters my uneven hair. It's long all to one side. It settles back on my sweaty forehead.
  We walk along the hard bit of wet sand. So many fishing lines stretch into the water. They're streaming like a party. Lures and pilchards catch the sun. I wonder if I stand behind a fisherman when he's flicking the line behind him, ready to swing it in a big curve into the sky and it makes that noise of the line unfurling from the reel, if the hook could catch right into my face, through my cheek. I'd be too heavy to be flung like the lure is, into the sea. I'd just be caught on the beach.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: the last four paragraphs
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: He scrapes his chair back and pushes himself up. He walks out of there. I twist in my chair to watch him. He doesn't look back. He gets in the truck, turns north, away from the camp, up the highway.
  I push open the door and walk out towards the pumps. I can hear Jordy behind me shaking twenty-cent pieces in his hand. I walk to the edge of the fluoro light. Out the back of the roadhouse I can see a car doing doughnuts. The headlights making long beams of dust. I can taste the dust. The squeal and rock-pop bangs of fireworks. The sky bursts into colour. It breaks into beautiful pieces. The pieces fade and fall. The car is still there, going round and round in circles. Jordy pulls my arm.
  Come on, he says. I grab onto him and he lets me. His skin feels hot. We walk to the phone booth, stuck there in the middle of nothing. He pushes on the glass and the door folds in on itself. The two of us squeeze in.
  You do it, says Jordy. He feeds the twenty-cent pieces into the slot. I hear them drop, They like you more, 'cos you're littler, he says. He holds the phone out to me. It's heavy in my hand. He types in the numbers, takes forever. The telephone hums in my ear and clicks loudly with each number. It rings.