Early Sunday morning, she reached the Wheeler's place and texted Shawn, only for him to appear a moment later and lead her around the side of the house to the bungalow. "Mum's not here," he explained, collapsing on his bed next to an open laptop and half-finished packet of chips.

"So you stayed up all night eating chips and playing games?" she asked, noticing several other empty food packets scattered around the messy room. The draws on his dresser sat half open, clothes were deposited all over the room, and the bed was unmade and rumpled. Even the stereo in the corner managed to be in a state of disarray, surrounded by CDs and their covers.

"I would've anyway; it's the weekend." She grinned at the defensive note in his voice, moving over to the stereo and picking up a CD cover. "You like The Angels?" he asked.

Izzy shrugged, putting down the cover. "Never heard of them," she said truthfully. She glanced at him, and then burst out laughing at the mixture of hurt and disbelief reflected there. "Is that bad?" she asked between giggles, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

"Yes." There was no argument to be had on the topic, as he reached over to the stereo and located the Angels CD. A minute later, the opening chords of a song entitled Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again started playing, blessedly quieter than the volume she usually ended up listening to music at. She liked it from the moment she heard it, though the swearing in the middle made her raise an eyebrow.

"Hey Shawn?" she asked as the song ended and another started.

"Yeah?"

She dug her iPod out of her pocket, holding it up so that he could see it. "Do you think you could give me some new music?"

Immediately, the iPod disappeared from her fingers. "Sure," he said, already plugging it into the laptop next to him.

"Thanks." There was silence, broken only by the busy hum of the laptop and the music still quietly pouring from the stereo. "So where's your mum at?" she asked finally, pulling her legs up and crossing them underneath her.

He shrugged, eyes fixed on the screen in front of him. "Dunno. She went out last night and didn't come back."

"Oh." Another pause, as she searched for a change of topic, sensing Shawn's discomfort. For the first time that morning, she became aware of how hungry she was, like she'd just disintegrate into nothing if she didn't eat soon (she hadn't had anything since leaving the Wheeler's place yesterday evening, as usual). "Got any food?" she asked. He stared at her for a moment, then pointed to the bag of chips next to her and she rolled her eyes. "Food that isn't total junk. How can you even eat chips this early in the morning?"

"How can you not?" he asked, setting the iPod and computer to the side and standing. "There's probably something in the fridge." Izzy followed him out into the small kitchen of the bungalow, leaning against the bench as he raided the fridge for something more suited to breakfast than chips. "What exactly do you want?" he asked, still staring into the fridge.

"Do you even know what breakfast is?" she responded, looking around. "What about cereal and stuff like that?"

"I know what breakfast is, Izzy," he insisted, closing the fridge and opening one of the cupboards, pulling out a box of fruit loops.

"Sure you do." While he searched for a bowl, she opened the box, stealing a small handful before he could even pour out a serving. "Okay, you know what breakfast is," she admitted, her first handful of the cereal filling her mouth with delicious flavours.

"Told you," he replied smugly, throwing a few in his mouth and carrying the bowl back to his room. "Your iPod's done." The device came flying at her as she sat down again, landing neatly in her lap. She shoved it in her pocket without a second thought, going for the cereal again.

"Thanks," she said between fruit loops, chewing and swallowing before voicing her next question. "Ready for school tomorrow?"

"What do you think," he replied dryly, bringing a smile to her face. "Why do you always sit alone?" he asked suddenly, curious eyes fixed on her.

"What do you mean?" she asked back, feigning ignorance.

"In maths, you always sit alone, even though you could move up and sit with me and Nuts."

"Could I?" she responded innocently, avoiding his eyes.

"Well, yeah."

"Oh."

"What the hell is going on here?" That was Shawn's mum Amber, who was standing at the door looking murderous (which really wasn't much different from how she usually looked). Not to be intimidated, Izzy shoved another few fruit loops in her mouth, leaving the talking to Shawn.

"Izzy got here early, so I let her in," Shawn explained patiently. "Where have you been?"

"None of your business," she replied stiffly, going from attack to defence in a matter of seconds. "Keep that music down." With that, she disappeared.

"What was that about?" Izzy asked in a low voice so that Amber wouldn't hear her.

Shawn shrugged, pouring the last of the cereal into his hand. "No idea," he said, before shoving it all in his mouth.

Standing outside her maths classroom on Monday afternoon, Izzy forced herself to stop and take a deep breath before walking in. She wasn't exactly sure why she was so nervous – of all the people, why would her friends mock her on a simple lack of knowledge (it had happened before of course, but these friends were better than they had ever been, and she was supposed to be the tough, devil-may-care sort of person, not some whiny little kid that bursts into tears at the first sign of criticism)?

She headed for her usual spot, though this time she stopped a row short of her seat and dropped into the one next to Shawn. He gave her a glance but not much more, as the class was beginning. There was no long and confusing tangent about equations for her to barely understand today, just a page number for her textbook. Flicking through, she found the page, stared at the maths (which may well have been hieroglyphics, for all she knew), and knew immediately that she wouldn't be able to complete them. Beside her, Shawn looked bored and was working slowly, but at least looked like he knew what he was doing. On his other side, Nuts was the same. Deliberately writing slowly, she copied out several sums, trying to look like she was on task, and then sat and stared at the words on the page, rolling her pen between her fingers as she tried to break down and decipher the sums as a particularly helpful teacher had taught her to in the past (in fact, the only decent teacher she'd ever had).

The scratching of pen on paper next to her paused. "You're supposed to answer them too, you know," Shawn informed her in a low voice, conversation disguised by several other quiet chats that had sprung up around the room.

"I know," she replied curtly.

"Were you planning on actually doing it?"

She shrugged. "If I feel like it."

"No one feels like doing maths, Izzy."

"Guess it won't get done then."

"Do you ever feel like doing maths?"

She snorted quietly, letting out a derisive laugh. "As if."

Without warning, he reached out and snatched up her book, sliding it across the desk and out of her reach. She lunged for it as it went, but too late – her fingers fell short and there would be no second attempt as Shawn held her back easily with one arm, the other flicking back through the few pages she'd filled with unanswered or incorrect sums over the past couple of weeks. When he was done, he slid the book back across the table to her.

"Are you actually that lazy, or do you not know how to do maths?" he asked after a long moment, attention back on his own work.

"I can do maths," she muttered sullenly. "Just not this maths."

"What, your old school didn't do this?"

"Every school does stuff in a different order. It's impossible to keep up. I've been to four schools this year, and I haven't learnt a single thing from any of them." Exasperated, she closed her textbook and leaned back in her seat, eyes wandering to the clock. Five minutes left of hell, and then lunch, finally. "Am I ever going to need this in real life? It looks too complicated to be useful."

"Probably not." Shawn admitted. "But you do have to know it to pass." He gave her a pointed look, and then returned to his studies. She ignored his not-so-subtle hints to get to work, watching him come up with seemingly random answers to question after question. In turn, he ignored her as she watched, forging onward through the work until the bell finally tolled to signal lunch.

"So you really don't care about failing?" Nuts asked as they escaped the classroom, joining the conversation. Izzy glanced at him with some surprise; it was a rare occasion that he actually participated in conversations, usually preferring to listen silently.

"I care about failing," she sighed, pulling her bag a little further onto her shoulders. "I just don't know enough to pass."

"Why do your parents move around so much anyway?" Shawn appeared on her other side, pushing his way through the crowd until they reached clearer ground.

She shrugged. "They lose their jobs, someone files a complaint with the police, teachers try to contact them, or family services pays a visit. Take your pick."

"Have you ever been picked up by the police?" Izzy stopped in her tracks, stared at Shawn for a moment, and then continued on like nothing had happened. A grin on his face, he hurried after her. "What'd you get picked up for?"

"I don't want to talk about it," she replied, lip curling. "Have you ever been caught somewhere you shouldn't be on your dirt bike?"

"Maybe."

"He has," Nuts put in, shrugging when Shawn cast a hurt look his way.

"Thought so," Izzy finished with a smirk as they sat down, knowing nothing further would be said on the topic. She made it all the way through lunch in fact, before one of those two topics was brought back around by the bell.

With a heavy sigh, she picked up her bag and turned towards the worst class of the day. "I really don't want to go," she said to the knowing smirk on Shawn's face.

"Don't go then," was his reply.

"What, you mean skip class?" It was an attractive prospect, so long as her parents didn't find out (but wasn't that the opinion of every kid that skipped class?).

Shawn nodded. "I'll teach you how to do that maths," he said, overly cheerful at the idea of more maths. She only needed a minute to think about it before accepting his offer with a shrug and a nod, following the boys out of the school (technically, they weren't supposed to leave the campus until school ended, but she had never been one for rules anyway). They walked a good fifteen minutes before they reached a small park that was hidden away down a side street and surrounded by high fences – the ideal place to loiter in school uniform without meeting resistance from one busybody or another.

On a picnic table under a big old gum tree, Shawn spread out his maths books, apparently serious about the whole teaching thing. Izzy sat down beside him with her feet tucked up under her, leaning forward to see better, while Nuts took up residence on the other side of the table, throwing out his opinion wherever he thought Shawn's explanations were lacking. Time passed quickly, and to Izzy's surprise, she found that she was kind of getting it despite lacking some background knowledge – some things she was doing just because she was told that that was how they worked, not because they made any logical sense. It was pretty clear at those moments that none of them were particularly gifted at maths, seeing as none of them properly understood it (not that the maths teacher would care. All they were concerned with was correct answers).

Eventually, 3 o'clock rolled around, and Shawn had to walk back to school to be picked up, as did Nuts. As they left the park, Izzy received a text from her mother's phone telling her to head straight home and so regretfully, she told the boys she'd see them in the morning and turned in the direction of May Crescent, already dragging her feet.

Her mother was watching TV when she got home. Judging by the absence of the car from the drive, Izzy guessed that her dad was out somewhere. As soon as she shut the door, the TV muted and her mother sat up straighter, indicating that she wanted to talk. "Isabel," she said before Izzy could ignore her and escape to her room.

"What?" Izzy sighed in response, turning towards the other side of the dark room, where their single faded blue couch sat.

"This boyfriend of yours, Seb or whatever-"

"Shawn," she corrected. "And he's not my boyfriend."

"Whatever." The woman took a deep breath and a swig of the drink in her hand to calm herself. "Don't mention him to your father again, okay?"

"You can't stop me from being friends with him Mum," Izzy started defensively, but her mother waved her free hand in the air almost instantly, cutting her off.

"I'm not saying you can't be friends. Just don't tell your father." Izzy blinked in surprise, staring. This wasn't the mother she usually knew. The attitude and general grumpiness was gone, replaced by weariness, like she was sick of something. Her life going around in circles, maybe. God knows Izzy was sick of the circles. The woman on the couch looked different, and not just in the way she spoke, or the way she carried herself…there were deep shadows on her face, lines that her daughter had never noticed before. Izzy couldn't quite put her finger on it, not in the half-light of this room without windows.

That was probably it. Just a trick of the light. Nothing more.

"Alright," Izzy said with a shrug, heading into her room and shutting the door firmly behind her. The TV sound came back on a moment later, leaking through the thin wall between it and her room. She dropped her bag on her bed and went over to the window, cracking it open enough for her to lean out. There was no flyscreen or anything to keep bugs out, but it was a small sacrifice for this sort of freedom – without a screen or anything, it was the sort of window you could climb out of and escape at any time, provided you didn't tip off anyone who would stop you with its screeching and shuddering as you opened it (vaguely, she wondered if her mother thought she was climbing out it right now. Or if she even cared. It wasn't like she'd come to investigate).

She breathed deeply, filling her lungs and her room with crisp afternoon air. Suddenly, she was reminded of an old farmhouse she'd lived in for three months almost exactly a year ago. There, on an afternoon like this one, the scent of freshly harvested crops and silos full of grain would hang in the air, making you breathe deeply and savour every lungful. It was a place she could easily miss, with kilometres of empty fields and the neighbours too far away to even see.

There had still been the incessant fighting there though, the shouting and slamming of doors and being snapped at by parents at the end of their tether. She hadn't had friends there, either; there was no house full of Wheelers to escape to more often than she came home, or Shawn to give her music and try to teach her maths.

She pulled away from the window. No, this was definitely one of the better places she'd ever lived, and she wouldn't go back to any of her old lives for anything.