“The day my big sister Victoria turned sixteen and started working at the supermarket I was still only ten years old. She summoned me to her treehouse to tell me that she felt that everything in her life up to now had been only preparation. Now, she said, her real life would begin.”

“He thought he’d caught a croc when he pulled me up. Water brown all around me, colour of milky coffee, so I couldn’t see anything. I tried to swim away from the line, but it was caught around my foot. I wanted to stay under. I wished I could breathe water, and for a while I almost did.”

“Once, Aaron had said, people could walk in the East City without protective clothing. The winds were as light as my finger grazing your hand, the sun was so kind that people lay willingly in its rays, and delicate flying creatures called insects were everywhere.”