Footprints in Your Heart

Remy: Pot au feu

We lock eyes for a second, or rather I lock onto the one eye of his that I can see because the other is obscured by the hippo's big yellow ear.

'So, er...' He clears his throat and shakes his head back to sweep his soft black fringe off his forehead. His cheeks are getting so red I can practically see the blood pooling underneath. It doesn't take a genius to know what he's thinking about. 'Did you –'

'I confess!' I cut over him. As someone who hates speaking in awkward situations myself, I feel obliged to show solidarity to my fellow victims. 'I overheard you. On the phone. But' – I add quickly as he ducks his head in mortification – 'I'm trying to unhear it. Really trying, I promise.'

He lifts his head back up to search my face, tilting it slightly to work around the hippo statue. It's starting to become really inconvenient. 'Okay. I trust you.'

I blink. This catches me off guard. I was expecting him to yell, run away, never speak to me again, or all three. 'Sure. Great. Consider it forgotten.'

'Thank you.'

We stand in fidgety silence for a while, before I check myself and wonder what the hell I'm doing not talking. I'm Remy Griffin. Man, the bully on PhotoGloble is messing with my head.

'So,' I say, taking a step into the garden bed to make my way to his side of the hippo. It's harder than I thought it would be weaving around the seedlings, and I doubt Mrs Cirillo would appreciate feeding stomped-on lettuce to her kids. 'I'm Remy. You can probably tell I'm from here, and...okay, it's rude, but I'm just going to ask. Are you here to steal something?'

He lets out a soft laugh. The audacity, I haven't even said the punchline yet.

'Because if so,' I continue anyway, 'the auditorium has some spectacularly ugly trophies I can recommend.'

'Maybe another time,' he says with a gentle smile. I can't help noticing that everything about him is gentle, which is pretty cute. Not that I'm attracted to guys. For me, people who defy toxic masculinity norms get points without even trying. 'Kai. I just moved here. My dad sent me to check out the school.'

'That'd make sense. More so than the thievery,' I say, and he laughs again, accepting my enthusiastic handshake. 'All right, I have to show you around.'

'Oh. I've already been.' Kai adjusts his shoulder bag. It has a pressed green-yellow maple leaf pinned to the front. 'The librarian gave me a tour. Mrs Barlowe, I think her name was?'

'I didn't mean the school,' I say dramatically, stepping closer to him so our heads are almost touching and sweeping my arm across the horizon. He seems a little uncomfortable, so I move away. 'There's a whole neighbourhood out there. Fernsworth awaits.'

'I like it so far,' he says, following me as I traipse across the grass, though the pattern of his feet indicates that his mind is elsewhere. 'I miss Klento, though.'

I can tell he's holding something back, but I don't want to ask because it might be related to the thing I'm supposed to be forgetting. It probably is. 'Where's Klento? Haven't heard of it before.'

'Melbourne,' he says. We've reached the school gates now, where a group of kids are sitting at the bus stop shelter, still waiting for their ride. Jasmine Kwon looks up at me and smiles. Oh my goodness, she is incredibly pretty. How is she so pretty? I think I've forgotten how to smile and wave back. Or breathe, for that matter.

Kai's voice brings me back to reality. 'It's the suburb with the weird, huge stones? We call it Stone-on-Cone because they look like ice cream. Together.'

I have no idea what he's talking about, but my reaction to rocks that look like ice cream is the same regardless. 'That's insane.'

'Yeah,' he says, but now that my mind has finally shelved thoughts of Jasmine, I can tell there's a layer of sadness underneath. I hope that's not because of me.