"Stop putting your stuff over my side of the desk," Arthur muttered, ruling a pencil line down the middle of the desk. "There. That's your side. Keep your stuff over that line. You understand?"

 The holidays had ended. The penultimate school holidays. The end was in sight, or at least just around the corner. There was a sense of things winding down, a sombre procession of lasts fast oncoming. This was when things were getting serious. The time of minor assignments was running out. It seemed that everyone else had put their noses down for the grind. 

"This isn't Grade 2 anymore, Arthur," Titus said, with not much enthusiasm in his voice. Not this again. 

He stared at the worksheet in front of him, but it barely made sense. As usual, his own motivation had dropped off as the year had progressed. It was getting harder and harder to do any meaningful amount of work. The worksheets and practice tests and essays continued to pile up with little respite. It seemed that people were getting ahead of him. He wasn't sure of what exactly he'd done wrong. He was doing the exact same thing that he had always done, putting one foot in front of the other with little thought for what would this really meant in the big picture, but that seemed to be no longer enough. 

He was the only one supervising the Year 9s now, who had almost finished their elaborate creation. Or at least version 1.0 of it. The competition was in three months, but they wanted to get a working prototype and then use it as a stepping stone to getting more inspiration and adding more modules. They were working on it almost every day now. Sometimes they even worked on it during recess. 

"Then prove it." He heard Arthur say. It felt like from a thousand miles away. "Stop putting stuff on my side of the desk." 

"Hang on." Titus studied the line. "That's not fair. It's slightly to my side." 

"I'm not changing it," Arthur said, flatly. 

"Fine." He shrugged. Typical Arthur. "Well, then, I want that hole there where someone's drilled through." 

Before Arthur could stop him, he rubbed out a small part of the line and lo and behold, the straight line now had a Congo Pedicle-shaped bulb-out on Arthur's side, incorporating the hole in the orange-peel surface of the desk into his territory. 

 "Well, then I want that bit that says "LIFE SUCKS." Arthur smudged out a part of the border to the north and added his own squiggle to the formerly-straight border. 

Ncube cast her eyes over to where the noise was coming from. Then she saw it was Arthur, and her expression mellowed. 

"Well, then, I want that bit that's got the skull drawing." He reached over the line and drew a little circle around the offending sketch on Arthur's side, creating an enclave. 

 "Well, I want the eyeball." 

Arthur's drew a counter-enclave inside his line. 

"Well, I want the pupil." He drew another circle within Arthur's circle.

Arthur countered with a counter-counter-counter enclave.

He countered this move with a circle so small it registered to the naked eye as a dot. 

Not to be outdone, Arthur pulled out a bottle of whiteout and dribbled a tiny smidge of white in the middle the dot. 

Without missing a beat, Titus then pulled out a fineliner and dabbed a pinprick of black on the blob of rapidly-drying liquid paper. 

Arthur stared at the almost invisible black dot. Titus could see he was trying not to laugh. 

"This is getting ridiculous, you know." he said, finally cracking up. 

Titus felt unsure of what to say. This was unlike the stony Arthur that he was used to. Was this really a thawing? Or was it just one of those weird flukes in behaviour that seemed to crop up now and then in people? 

"What are you doing with your hands?" There had been a change in Arthur's tone of voice since he had spoken last. "I'm just...nothing." He stopped. 

He had been tapping on the desk without even being conscious about it. He could hear his breathing. 

Arthur shook his head. He didn't say anything more, which made it worse. The brief thaw was over. Titus bit his lip and tried once more to make sense of the worksheet in front of him. 

He felt tired. Maybe that was the lack of sleep. Although his level of fatigue seemed no longer aligned with his sleeping patterns. He had tried sleeping more during the holidays. Going to bed early and reading a book. This seemed to have no effect. Yesterday, the first day back, he had felt himself dozing off on the way home. 

He was waiting for the bell now, which would ring any minute. He put any thoughts of the worksheet to the back of his mind. It was year 12. Surely they could put away all the petty shit away and act like the adults they were soon going to be. He recalled hearing in past years people talking about what a smooth unit the Year 12s and how they all worked together. He wasn't sure if they were right now, but maybe it was somewhere in the making. A work in progress. They still had a few months. 

***

"Dude. Hurry up," one of the Year 9s yelled out behind him. 

Titus was heading for the science block, a routine that had become progressively more common during his lunchtimes. The Year 9s were half-heartedly tagging along, their ability to maintain a coherent group behind him hampered by a variety of distractions, both digital and analogue. 

At the end of the line, Declan was deeply engrossed in the process of unfolding the intricately-folded wrapper of a chocolate bar, and somehow managing to not trip in the process, something Titus would have never quite managed at the same age. 

"Shut up. I'm trying to get it unfolded without ripping it. Do you know how hard that is to do while you're walking?" 

"It's just a wrapper." Ibrahim said. 

"I'm keeping it," Declan replied. Look at it. It's beautiful. It's a work of art." 

"Dude, it's literally just a piece of paper." 

Declan ignored him, admiring the crisp fold in the gleaming paper. "It's much more than that. Wrapping doesn't need any talent these days," he continued. "It's just so uninspired. Just the same thing over and over again. You just hire some graphic designer to cook up a snazzy logo, slap it on some plastic foil, and then a machine does the rest. It's a lost art." 

They reached their destination. Titus pushed open the already-ajar door to the spare room. For a moment he couldn't really understand what was happening. 

The big sprawling mess of extruded aluminium and odds and ends they had constructed was still there, and so was the field of junk that had blossomed around it over the last few months. But augmenting these were several large cardboard boxes. Avi and Pat, the chair and vice-chair of the science committee, were standing in front of the boxes.

"Oi!" Several shrill voices came from behind him. "What are you doing?" 

"Hey!" Declan was indignant. He pushed past the others and confronted the two. "Where's the hammer module? I was working on that!" 

Titus stared at his fellow science committee members in confusion. "What's going on?" 

"We're sorry," Avi said. "He told us we needed to pack it all up for something." 

"Who?" 

"Him. The new guy." Pat said. He was one of the many people in his year level that Titus knew of but didn't really know. 

The puzzle pieces were slowly beginning to fall into place in his mind. "Does Boyle know of this?"

"Well..." they began to say at the same time, then hesitated for a moment. 

"Did you guys even ask him?"

"Well, we just assumed that he'd gone through it with you guys already." 

"You just assumed." His face reverted to an inscrutable, blank expression. "Why? Did he tell you why?" 

"I don't know. He just told us to do it." 

"That f-" Titus caught his tongue, as De Silva himself strode into the room. 

"Apologies for my lack of punctuality," he said, observing around at the tableau before him. Titus noticed he was holding a familiar-looking appliance behind his back. "I had a slight holdup in the Year 12 lounge."

The others seemed to look at him in reverence. This only made him feel mildly disgusted. 

"My apologies for any confusion this may have caused." He paused for a moment for effect. "We are currently in the process of reviewing the way we fund extracurricular activities. It has come to my attention that there, are some, ahem, irregularities. As you are most likely aware, this activity is funded by the astronomy budget, which is supposed to fund the astronomy club-"

"Which hasn't existed for about five years," Pat completed the sentence. 

"Precisely. Unfortunately we have to suspend all activities as we do our audit and try to untangle this mess. That's the protocol, or so I'm told. Of course our priority is causing as little disruption to you guys as possible, we're going to try and finish that and get you guys back on track as soon as possible," De Silva continued, in the measured drawl of a man relishing his act of bureaucratic skullduggery. "As soon as we figure out what is going on, we will get your competition back on track." 

"The competition is in six weeks," Titus heard himself say. The silence of the Year 9s behind him was palpable in the air. 

"Well, that's good," De Silva was typing something on his phone. The tone of voice was upbeat but the reactions of the others around him told the true story. "There'll be plenty of time to catch up. As I said, I promise you this whole matter will be concluded as swiftly as possible. I get that this was an unpopular decision, I know, but it had to be made."

"I wasn't objecting to that," Titus said in reply. choosing his words carefully. "I was just saying that I think it would be much better if the people who were working on it packed it up. You know. Just in case something breaks..." 

"Yes, of course, certainly." De Silva was still checking his phone. "I just thought it would be better and safer if we stored it away for the time being, so it doesn't get damaged while you're not working on it. So I asked the science committee to help out. Avi, Pat, you can go now. Thanks for your help." 

The other two, relieved of their duties, also mumbled about needing to be somewhere and disappeared. 

Titus was formulating a plan in his head. "OK. So just leave us alone for a bit, and we'll get it packed up, and then leave the boxes here. That's okay, right?"

 "Yep, that's fine," De Silva said, impatience creeping into his voice. "Well, I'll leave you to it. Got a meeting now. Gotta skedaddle."

He watched them through the window as they walked across the oval. De Silva off to some other jobsworth appointment, the others off to lunch or whatever they did during lunchtime. He felt the stress drain out of him.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Let the stress float away in the breeze. 

"So what are we going to do?" Four voices said behind him. 

Titus glanced at the boxes. "Well, they can't tell the difference between our stuff and the other stuff lying around, right?" He gestured at the piles of junk around them. 

They shrugged. "I guess." 

"OK," He made sure they were listening. "This is what we're going to do. We're just going to fill up the boxes with random junk. Meanwhile, we're going to move all of our stuff to a corner of the basement, and we'll continue to work on it there." 

"Maybe we should just listen to him." Ryan said, in a small voice. "What if he finds out?" 

"He's not going to look in the basement." He reassured him. "He's just not that kind of person. Doesn't have the, uh, proactive streak about him." 

"But what if he does?" Titus could see that he was getting flustered. "Look. It's not going to happen. I'll make sure of it." 

Ryan still didn't look convinced. Neither did the others. 

He sighed. He didn't have the energy in him for a proper pep talk, but he'd do his best. "Look. You wanna win this competition? Do you really want to?"

"Yes." They said in unison. 

"Then do what I say. Forget about him. We're already registered." Titus looked them in the eye. "He can't force us to not go to this competition. You listen to me. We're going to take everything apart and get it down to the basement. From now on, when you arrive to work on it at lunchtime and recess, don't wait outside. Just go straight in. We don't want to draw attention to ourselves. Make sure he isn't watching you. He can't see us." 

Declan, Ibrahim, Ryan and Dylan nodded. 

"OK. Now let's get packing." 

***

"We didn't do anything," Fraser said, "and he just barged in there and switched it off, and took off with it." 

"Well, they're paying him, what, $100,000 a year?" Titus shifted slightly for the passengers who were still finding their place on the moving tram. They were standing in the gap in the seats where the conductor's cubicle had once stood. "They may as well get some value for the money."

"It's just bullshit. He's just doing it because he can. He said that we were causing trouble and disrupting the other people in the building. That's bullshit. We got on fine with everyone." 

"Are you sure?" Titus said teasingly, thinking of his own experiences of the Year 12 common room. The glass walls, the loud music, the general rowdiness. "You sure that nobody dobbed you in, just out of sheer spite?" 

"Yes," Fraser deadpanned. 

"Are you going to try to get it back from him? Go to his office and have a heart to heart?"

"He said we weren't getting it back until we had proven ourselves to be trustworthy. Whatever that means."

The speaker overhead crackled, partly from the static and partly from the tram driver's own enthusiasm, as he braked for the next stop. "We're now arriving at the Shrine of Remembrance, built from 1927..." The Z class, being the second-oldest in the fleet, did not have automated stop announcements, but that only provided an opportunity for some of the more enterprising drivers to make their own over the PA system. Some of them even did weather forecasts, shared family recipes, told tall tales from bygone eras, etc. This particular tram driver had just shared his mother's recipe for rice pudding. 

A few passengers got on. Most of the people on the platform were, sensibly, heading for the considerably less crowded tram hot on their tail. 

The gentle ding of the door chime sounded, but the doors did not budge. The driver tried again. No luck. 

"Step up, mate," He yelled, without looking. "We can't move if you're standing on the steps." The offending culprit finally realised his mistake and moved. Some people actually clapped. 

"This your first time riding this rodeo, eh?" The tourist smiled but didn't answer. 

Fraser shifted inward for some of the new arrivals. With the addition of the tourists the tram was even more crowded. "Why do we always get the small trams?" 

"It's a long story." 

"I like long stories," Fraser said. 

"Do your own research. All you have to do is type words into the Google search bar." 

"Come on." Fraser grinned. Titus felt something stir inside him. "Tell me the history behind this."

 "Long story cut short, when they privatised the network in the 1990s they rationalised things so that only certain depots had certain types of trams. Before privatisation any tram could go to any depot. And most of the small stuff ended up on the Swanston St corridor." 

"Interesting." 

"Don't 'interesting' me. It's not just a big deal for me. Who cares if it's a bit small? I like these. I really do. Except when someone doesn't close the window fully and it rattles. They're kind of underrated. They have the best power to weight ratio of any tram on the network, you know."

He went over the big filing cabinet of his mind. The single unit bidirectional tram, expressly intended to operate solo, was basically a creation of the British Empire. These were the ultimate expression of their type. A German-Australian heavy refresh of a Swedish-Australian design which could ultimately trace its lineage back to the earliest four-axle vehicles. The longest and most powerful, and the last of their kind, beyond Japan and some of the more egregious heritage-themed abominations going around the US. The only things comparable in Europe would have been the PCCs in Ghent. How significant was that? Beyond the usual whataboutery about irrelevance and how many people cared - because by they were pretty irrelevant by those standards - just how significant, objectively, was that fact? Surely it deserved to be celebrated in some way. 

"So what are you going to do about the, uh, Year 9s?" Fraser's voice brought him back to earth.

 "Screw his stupid fucking investigation." Titus shifted his position so the afternoon sun's glare was not so bright on his face. "Who cares if it's funded out of the astronomy budget? If money isn't been wasted on weirdly specific and totally pointless stuff, is it even a private school? Anyway, no time to wait for that shit. We're moving everything to the basement and we're just going to continue working on it from there on. I'm getting them there if it kills me. 

"It's cool that you care so much about them," Fraser said, not looking up from his phone. 

He sighed. "They're a bit... follow the rules. They think that he's actually going to let them continue after the thing's over. So innocent."

"Are you doing anything on the weekend?" 

"Nothing. We have a bye, because there's only six cross-country meets in a season and they have to spread them out, so it's a training session. Lap around the Tan and recovery. After that, I don't know. Staring at the wall in my room, maybe." The last line was only half-joking. 

"You wanna come round in the afternoon?"

"What? After sport?"

"Yeah."

"You don't have anything else on? What about your friends?" 

"They've all got stuff on."

"Your parents don't mind?"

"Mum's got work."

"When's your dad coming back?"

"End of next month. Hopefully."

"Okay. I really should be studying but it should work out."

"I'll pick you up." Fraser's expression exuded confidence. "Your boy got his Ps." He had turned 18 the day before. The big birthday bash was going to have to be the weekend after, though, because of a fairly daunting biology assessment at the start of next week. 

"Yes. I know." It was one of the last warm days in autumn, before winter truly set in. Titus was feeling quite hot in his blazer, in the oblique rays of the sun. Up in the ceiling, the forced-air ventilation wasn't doing much good. "96% on the test. You've told me a hundred times already." 

He reached up to unlatch the window and pull it down. Cool air streamed in. He stuck his head out of the window, into the recumbent sun's glare, resting his elbows on the window frame. 

Fraser followed him. "Why did I never think of doing this?"

"You've never done this before?" Titus watched the cars on St Kilda Rd going past in the afternoon glow. The run up to Flinders St was a lot more streamlined now that the stops had been rationalised with the track relay a couple of years ago, and they were going at a respectable clip. In the cab, the tram driver had his hands clasped behind his head.

"This is actually the greatest thing ever." Fraser leaned even further out. His long hair blew freely in the breeze. From his new vantage point he could see the a sliver of the flank of the tram, clad in the infamous Battleship Grey livery of the old Yarra Trams, and the rest was The Met Green and Gold that had managed to chip its way out of what had been its grey prison for the last 10-odd years. With every change of hands came a new livery. But there were always some stragglers. It was now more than eight years since the new Yarra Trams had taken over and somehow there were still some of the old grey ghosts running around. "It's so dirty outside. Why's it so dirty?" 

 "It's not dirt," Titus explained patiently. "It's carbon dust from the pantograph." He pointed upwards. "The drainage system wasn't designed to deal with this stuff. They were built with trolley poles. Which leave a lot less residue..."