Dolores has made a new friend, Theresa. Her father is the local butcher, and she shares her string of saveloys with us at lunch time. Theresa plays knucklebones with us when it rains, and hopscotch on sunny days. I get to school early so I can practise. I want to be better than Theresa, I'm sick of her always winning. Even though we all hang out at lunch time, she has only shown Dolores the bruise her dad gave her when she spilt the pig's scrap bucket over her new bicycle.

My bicycle is pretty rusty, but it's not as bad as Dolores'. She has my mother's gossipy friend's old bicycle, stiffened by years in the garage, the seat pushed down so that her legs can reach the pedals. We are biking to the swimming pool, our towels stuffed into our front baskets, our swimming togs on underneath our school clothes. I love the fish-scale feel of the nylon on my skin, the way my T-shirt slides across it. The only problem is when I want to pee. Then I have to undress in the changing room toilets, my summer frock soaking up chlorinated water on the concrete floor. We're going to lie our towels out across the dry grass and sunbathe, the smell of coconut oil around us. When we're too hot, we'll either dive into the pool or pick our way across the bodies and prickles and buy something to eat with the two-dollar note I have tucked down my front.

Dolores and Theresa are whispering. I sit up, trying to join in, but they have curtained themselves off with their long hair. I lie on my pink towel, wondering whether I should get a jelly-tip or maybe salt and vinegar chips with a coke. Dolores is showing Theresa something. It looks like a burn on the inside of her arm. They whisper some more. My eyes sting. I jump up and dive into the pool, where my tears can mix with the water, along with the spit and pee and ice block dribble. You can't splash and do underwater handstands by yourself, so I swim a length, and then another, sliding up and down the black line like an abacus bead. If I make sixteen lengths on school swimming day, I can get a gold sticker to go on my certificate. When I touch the end of the pool at length number 8, Theresa and Dolores are parting their legs on the bottom of the pool, and taking turns to dive between them. "My turn, my turn!" I yell, after Theresa has gone. I dive down and swim through Dolores' legs, kicking strongly as I go.

She is grimacing when I come up. "You kicked me in the privates," she says.

Theresa glares at me, hand on Dolores' shoulder.

We walk our bicycles home, togs still wet under our clothes, hair drying in clumps. The sun is low; there's the smell of sausages and steak frying in people's backyards. I pick my way around the welts in the pavement. "Step on a crack, break your mother's back," I say to Dolores.

"Your mother's," she says.

How could have I forgotten? I want the cracks to gape.

"You're so insensitive, Rebecca," says Theresa.

Dolores smiles, hooking her arm through Theresa's elbow, straightening the wobble in her bicycle. "It's great to finally have a best friend. You're a friend, Rebecca, but not like Theresa."

I slow, slow, slow down. Theresa didn't even want to be Dolores' friend until I was friends with her. It was me, I took the first step, I said hello. Hello Delores, how are you? I showed her which part of the school guinea pig to press to make his penis pop out. I didn't say anything when she wrote her name on my eraser. I bite my lip, gripping my handlebars so the metal digs into my skin. I stomp on every crack because this is all Mum's fault; I should have waited for Stacey.

Delores and Theresa don't notice when I turn down the shortcut. I duck under the iron barriers, then climb back on my bicycle. I experiment with no hands, grabbing hold of the brakes when Dolores calls my name. But when I turn, she isn't waiting for me. Perhaps I never heard her voice in the first place.