Chapter 3

"Here."

Once again, Izzy found herself faced with a sandwich at the beginning of lunchtime – a whole one this time, not just a roughly-cut half. Peanut butter oozed out the sides – not her first choice, but with a solid 24 hours and counting between meals, she wasn't in the position to be picky.

"Really?" she asked. Shawn nodded, shoving the sandwich towards her again.

"I looked pretty greedy asking for three this morning, so you'd better enjoy it."

"You didn't have to do that," she said, relenting and taking the sandwich from him, biting into it. It was heaven between bread after three missed meals.

"I'll add it to your tab," Shawn replied cheerfully, starting on his own sandwich. On her other side, Nuts grunted, having joined them for the first time that day.

"Great," she groaned, too busy eating to make much more of a joke.

"I didn't see you eat anything earlier," he commented through a mouthful of bread.

She swallowed hard, hesitant in replying. "I don't have anything," she said slowly, shrugging as if it were no big deal. "My parents aren't very good at grocery shopping."

"Oh." They fell into silence.

"So what are you guys doing after school?" Shawn asked a while later, sandwiches finished. Izzy was a little shocked at the speed his two had disappeared – she'd thought she was eating hers fast, but he ate twice as much in half the time, and still looked hungry.

"I'm grounded," Nuts said with a shrug, scratching his head.

"Izzy?"

She shrugged. "Nothing."

"Want to come over to my place?" he asked, surprising her again. She turned sharply to look at him, and he shrugged. "I'll replace those screens for you, and it'll be better than doing nothing."

A grin slowly spread over her face. "Will there be sandwiches?"

"If you want."

"Okay." She could hardly believe she was agreeing to it. Her mother would probably be furious if she found out that Izzy wasn't just wandering around aimlessly (who was she kidding – her mother would be furious if she was at home scrubbing floors and cooking a five course meal), but at the moment making her mother angry was just added fuel to the fire that the phone call from that morning had lit.

They had two lessons of maths then. Izzy sat behind the boys again, even though she knew that the two empty seats on either side of them were invitations to move up a row. She wasn't very good at maths, and watching Shawn and Nuts writing stuff down (even if she had no idea of the quality of their work) was daunting enough without them being able to see her sit there without a clue. The minutes dragged on, the teacher droning on about something she didn't understand, writing letters and numbers up on the board in seemingly random places. She couldn't complain though – every minute that ticked by was a minute closer to having to go home, no matter how long she stalled by going to Shawn's.

The bell rang, and they escaped, Nuts peeling off in the direction of the back gate, while Izzy followed Shawn towards the front of the school. "Are you sure your parents will be okay with this?" she asked, slightly nervous about it all. It had been a long time since she'd had a good enough friend to be invited anywhere.

"My parents don't live together," Shawn replied bluntly. Izzy blinked in surprise, taken aback by the sudden coldness in his words.

"Oh. Sorry." She had the feeling she should say something more. "Swap you?" she added weakly, immediately cursing herself for making a stupid joke.

A weak smile made its way back onto Shawn's face, telling her that he hadn't found the joke too offensive at least. That would be just like her, to alienate her new friend a day after meeting him. "No thanks," he said, heading for a white dual cab. The woman inside was blonde and cheerful, her face lighting up when she caught sight of them; this was someone she could get to like, Izzy thought. "Hey Nan," Shawn said as they drew up alongside the ute. "Izzy's going to come over for a bit – I told her I'd fix her phone. Is that okay?"

"Of course it is Shawn," the woman replied, waving a hand vaguely. "Hop in, kids." Shawn went straight for the passenger seat, his usual grin reinstated, leaving Izzy to hesitantly climb into the back, dumping her bag on the seat next to her.

"You're Izzy, right?" Izzy looked up to see the woman looking at her in the rear vision mirror, and nodded. "I'm Julie. It's nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too," she replied. "Thanks for letting me come over."

"Oh, it's no worries love, any time. It's always nice to meet Shawn's friends. So what do you parents do for a living, Izzy?"

There was a pause while Izzy racked her brains trying to remember her parent's latest jobs. "My dad's a mechanic, and Mum's working in the laundromat, I think," she said, looking out the window. "We just moved here."

"Well, that sounds interesting," Julie replied pleasantly as they pulled into the drive of what looked like a concrete mansion. As soon as she was out of the car, Shawn led Izzy in and past a large staircase into an equally large kitchen, lounge and dining room. Two men, one with greying hair and a glass eye, the other with a long mop of hair coloured a violent orange, sat watching some program about car racing on the other side of the room. Shawn headed straight for the kitchen, leaving Izzy standing awkwardly by the breakfast bar while he rummaged through to the cupboards and fridge for a snack, eventually pulling out a jar of Nutella and almost a full loaf of bread.

"New friend, Shawny?" the older man called out, wandering over.

"Oh yeah, Pop, this is Izzy," Shawn said by way of introduction, dropping the food onto the counter and looking for a knife. "She just moved here."

"Ah, Izzy. Short for…Isabella?" he asked, a joking grin on his face.

"Just Isabel," she corrected. She liked this family, Izzy decided then and there. They seemed to always be smiling and joking around, not yelling at each other like her own parents.

"That was my second guess," he blustered, sticking out a hand for her to shake. "Wayne Wheeler, at your service."

"Nice to meet you," she replied politely, shaking his hand.

Shawn returned then, shoving a piece of bread slathered in a generous helping of Nutella into her hands. "I'll be right back," he said, before disappearing into the backyard, his own piece of bread in his hands.

As he left, Julie entered, dropping her keys on the counter and heading to the sink, stopping short when she saw Izzy taking a bite out of the chocolate-covered bread Shawn had given her. "Oh Izzy, you sure you want to eat that?" she asked. "These boys, they always put too much of that stuff on."

"Its fine," Izzy replied after swallowing, licking Nutella off of the fingers of her right hand and sitting down in one of the stools arranged around the breakfast bar. "I haven't had Nutella in ages."

"Alright, well you just let me know if you want anything else."

Izzy nodded, and then took another bite, only to be interrupted this time by the other guy from the couch, the one with long hair and a sort of stupid-looking face. "Hi," he said with a stupid grin that matched his face. "I'm Kayne."

"Izzy," she replied, eyes following him as he went for the chocolate spread as well. Shawn reappeared then and sat down next to her, two screens in his hand. She dug her phone out of her pocket and handed it over without a word, finishing off her snack before grabbing her bag and digging through to find her shattered iPod, handing that over as well.

A few minutes later, he was done and handed them back to her. For a moment, she just stared at them, not really sure they were her things. Her phone hadn't had a clear screen since she'd bought it, and the iPod had gone for fifteen dollars on eBay with its screen already shattered – she'd never seen it without the cracks. The casings were still dented and scraped, but at least they were useable now.

"Thanks," she just about breathed, tucking the iPod into her pocket and scrolling through her phone, marvelling at how easy it was without dead pixels cluttering it up. She had two missed calls from an unknown number, one that she recognised when she checked call history. No longer interested, she dropped the phone onto the table.

"Whose number is that?" Shawn asked, leaning over to look at the screen.

Izzy reached out and turned the screen off. "No one. I'll tell you later."

He looked at her strangely for a second, and then shrugged. "Alright then." Moving on, he turned to Julie instead. "Nan, do we have any chips?"

"In the cupboard, Shawn," she replied without turning.

A moment later, Kayne threw a bag of chips in Shawn's general direction, which Izzy caught before they hit her in the face. "Nice catch!" Wayne commented, to which she grinned, handing the chips to Shawn.

"Thanks." As soon as Shawn opened the bag, she dived in, grabbing a handful before he could even think about it. She hadn't had such good food in ages – her parents always bought the cheapest stuff they could find, even if it tasted like absolute rubbish (that was assuming they went shopping at all).

"So when did you move here, Izzy?" Julie asked, glancing at her from the sink, where she was washing dishes.

"We got here on Tuesday, and I started school yesterday," Izzy answered around a mouthful of chips, grabbing another handful.

"Do you like it here?"

Izzy had to think about that for a moment. It was the same as any other place she'd been – a cheap house on the brink of falling down, the school in the district with the cheapest fees, her parents arguing every time they came near each other. But she'd been here four days and already had two friends, which was a bit of a record for her. Most people actively avoided her or barely tolerated her if they decided she wasn't too bad. She'd had friends at other schools, sure, but they'd been on and off, sometimes liking her, other times sick to death of hanging out with her. She'd only known Shawn and Nuts for two days, but already they didn't seem like those sorts of friends.

"Yeah," she said finally, smiling. "I do."

It was almost dark when she finally left, waving goodbye to a full house of Wheelers and laughing when Shawn's mum warned him not to take off on his dirt bike. "You sure you don't need a lift home?" Julie asked again, a worried look on her face as Izzy shook her head.

"I like walking," she replied; it wasn't a complete lie, she did like walking, just not particularly in the dark or back to her house. Shawn followed her to the front door, leaning against it as she left the house.

"So who was trying to call you earlier?" he asked, an easy grin on his face (because he knew she'd be hoping he'd forget about it).

"One of my old friends," she said with a shrug, not intending to say anything more. It felt abrupt though, and before she knew it more was pouring out. "Ex-boyfriend, actually. I haven't seen him for months, told him not to call me but uh…" She trailed off as Shawn nodded.

"I'll see you on Monday?" he asked.

"Yeah," she replied. "See you Monday."