"Oh no. Nooo thank you sir, I think I'll work alone." Ronan spits. My cheeks colour with shame, he voiced exactly what I was thinking. Everyone's still talking, and DiLingo glides up to me and Ronan.

"You two will be raising a hen together." He says curtly, then continues on his way. I can almost feel my hair go from black to red as I move around and sit beside Ronan. He looks furious, and rightly so.

"Draw the life cycle of a chicken, in all the ways it can possibly be formed." DiLingo instructs as he hands out notebooks between us. Ronan takes ours an draws a few very realistic birds in a circle, then passes the book to me. I label the pictures, huffing a bit.

"So. You're Emma right?" Ronan says suddenly. I nod. "Would you mind terribly if I come over to your house after school? So we can work on this chicken thing together?"

My cheeks stain a light watermelon colour. I don't want this boy at my house, I really don't. Ronan smirks, as if revelling in my discomfort, and bends over the notebook. "How about you to mine?"

I glance around the room, realising that everyone else was making similar plans, deciding whose house the bird would live at. I blink at Ronan, clearly hostile. "My parents won't let me have a chicken."

"Mine will." Ronan scribbles his address on a piece of paper and slides it over. "Come over when you want to. We'll have to set up coops and warmers and things."

"Suuuure." I put the slip of paper in my pocket and go back to my writing, listing down the things we'd need to properly raise a chicken. Ronan stares at me for a few seconds, and then looks down at the paper.

"Chickens don't eat grass." He points out, erasing the words. I exhale deeply, making my fringe fly everywhere. He smirks again and draws another hen in the corner.

"Alright then class, are you done taking notes?" Mr DiLingo calls. A few mumbled words answer him, and he seems satisfied. I close the notebook and scrawl EW & RC on the cover. Ronan slides it in his bag and stands up.

DiLingo leads the class out the door and towards the farm, a small section of grass and trees just across the street. I dawdle, waiting until Rose passes me so I can walk with her. We cross the road, following the rest of the class, and wander into the field.

The class is told quietly to stay where it is, and the teacher hurries off towards the chicken coops. We mill about the area, wandering over to say hi to the sheep and the cows as they stare at us curiously. After a while, DiLingo comes back with a pile of paper and a basket of eggs, small and round and warm.

"Alright, one between two, take a sheet as well." He says, walking to each pair and passing them the things. Ronan takes the egg, being surprisingly gentle with it. He cups it in his hands to keep it warm.

The sheet reads How to Hatch Chicken Eggs and goes on for a whole double page about incubators and towels and flipping the egg every couple of hours so it stays warm on all sides. I read through it carefully.

DiLingo is now passing around small wooden boxes stuffed full of tissues and discarded feathers. They each have a hinged lid and a lock to keep it closed. Ronan places the egg inside and shuts the box, pushing it gently into his bag. "What should we call it?"

"Chickpea." I answer instantly. "Just until we get a better name."

"These eggs were incubated by their mothers for the past few weeks. You are their mothers now. It will take them maybe two weeks to a month to hatch." DiLingo shouts. The bell explodes into sound and we all scramble to pack up. I pass the sheet to Ronan as he zips up his bag.

"That's the end of school, right?" He asks. "Catch my bus, we'll set up an incubator."

"You are not nearly as prickly or stand-offish as you tried to get us to believe this morning." I realised, shouldering my bag. Ronan grunts in reply.

I tap out a quick text to Alex: Going to friend's house. He lives at 42 Bluemoon Crescent, Nightingle.    come pick me up in two hours.

He? Alex answers. I can almost see the look on his face, and I know he'll never let me forget it. Ronan watches over my shoulder and makes a noise of laughter. We walk down to the bus stop and wait until a large white bus pulls up.

"Two tickets for Nightingle." Ronan passes a five dollar note to them driver and waves at me to get a seat. I push past the crowd and make my way to the back of the bus. Ronan sits down next to me, opening Chickpea's box to see if it's still intact.

The bus shudders to life and pulls out onto the main road, driving through the streets and dropping off people until it gets to Nightingle Station. We emerge on the footpath as a train roars past, dulling the sounds around me.

"Well, we'd better get going." Ronan rolls his shoulder and strides away, towards a small, honey-brick house hidden away amongst a few lavender bushes. He pushes the door open and holds out his arms, gesturing the small room in which we are standing.

"Well, this is the lounge room. We eat dinner and watch TV here." He says gruffly. "Tara! Logan!" He shouts as an afterthought.

"Who're Tara and Logan?" I mutter as Ronan heads towards the kitchen. He pauses for a few seconds.

"Parents. I'll bet they're outside." He says finally. "You hungry? I can make cheese on toast."

At that moment, two people wander in from outside. Both are very small and dark-skinned, with curly black hair. The woman breaks into a smile. "Hello. I am Tara, Ronan's mother. And you are?"