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seem to notice. Am I red? I feel like I’m totally tomatoed.
    “You wanna twos me?” he asks.
    “I don’t smoke,” I say. But confidence rises from nowhere and I take the rollie, hold it for a second, then take a drag. Boldness jolts me upright. Something awakens inside me. Like I’ve taken a teeny step from uncool kid to something better. I like it. I feel a bit sick, but I like it. I don’t cough.
    My rebel gene is kicking in.
    “Are you sure about that?” he asks. “Looks like you do.”
    I shrug, not knowing what to say, and hand the rollie back.
    Finn takes a pack of tobacco from his back pocket, flicks it open and pulls out a clump, along with a paper and a filter, which his fingers magically transform into a rollie. I go to take it, but he pulls his hand away. Cocking an eyebrow, he slips the rollie behind my ear, pushing back my hair.
    “Since you don’t smoke and all, maybe you could not smoke this one later,” he says.
    “Oh, this is Isaac,” Finn says, playfully punching him in the ribs.
    “Hey,” Isaac says.
    “Hey,” I say. “Seen you around school.”
    “Upper sixth,” he mumbles. Wow, he really is the strong, silent type. Finn scowls at him. “Young Finlay’s my baby brother,” Isaac adds.
    “Shut up!” Finn thumps him hard in the stomach. “Yeah, we’re brothers. Fortunately, I’m the looker of the pair. Who wouldn’t fall for this cheeky grin?” He flashes a smile. His deep brown eyes hold a kind of wisdom. Though younger and leaner than his rougher-looking brother, Finn seems to call the shots.
    He nudges Isaac and whispers something.
    “You’ll have to excuse me. Later, tiger,” Finn says. “See you in Art. Maybe you can get me from another angle.”
    They disappear before I can get a word out. As they saunter toward the PE block, I can’t help watching Finn. All stride and glide and no problems. I step forwards to where he was standing and lean against the wall. I breathe in deeply, trying to capture some of his easy nature simply by being in the space he occupied.

CHAPTER 7
    Miss Tillsman, our Biology teacher, wears colourful, dangly enamelled earrings. She has short, fluffy hair: weightless, anti-gravity wisps just right for sweeping cobwebs. Her chin and long neck are almost seamless, and she smells like a patisserie.
    There’s something comforting about her scent. Everyone trusts and respects her. I think it’s part of a cunning plan to win students over, like when supermarkets pump out bakery smells to entice customers.
    Biology teaches that smells are important. Butterflies secrete pheromones to send messages to the opposite sex, but it’s more than a scientific
nudge nudge wink wink
. Besides attracting a mate, pheromones warn of danger and mark out territory so that butterflies survive and often thrive in great numbers. Without pheromones, how could they dodge a predator or find a mate? Males would probably fight each other to the death over territory, and where would the butterfly population be then? At big fat zero. That’s where. Pheromones are an evolutionary trick; a secret, secreting ingredient that keeps the world going round and the sky full of flashes of dancing jewels in summer. Basic biology. Miss Tillsman’s in on the smelly secret. She uses Belgian buns to break us. How can you answer back to a sweet feather-haired teacher who smells like pastry?
    She’s also a good teacher. She makes things interesting. Lauren says they did an experiment investigating the rate of osmosis in potatoes, and with the spare ones, she made them all chips for lunch. No one forgot that lesson.
    I sit between Lauren and Sienna. We spend the lesson modelling the human respiratory system, making lungs from balloons and plastic bottles and discussing what happens to the bronchi during an asthma attack. Greg is blowing up balloons and letting them fly about the room.
    A red one soars, squeals and lands on Sienna’s shoulder.
    “Juvenile.” She rolls her eyes and