Don't ever ask me again if I hate living anywhere with you and Jasmina. This Rock reminds me of the boy I was and being with you in the palace reminds me of the man I want to be.' 'Not just any man,' she whispered. 'A King. Mine.

I´d read fantasy if they had simple names like Jane and Bob from Wagga," I say. "Why does it have to be Tehrana and Bihaad from the World of Sceehina?" Jimmy looks at my mother and rolls his eyes. "No wonder they call her bimbo behind her back." And my mum laughs. And because of that, Mark Viduka, the soccer player, stops being my brothers hero, and Luca and Pinocchio run after Jimmy like he´s their idol.

If something happened to me, whose face will be on the front page of the paper begging for me? Is a person worth more because they have someone to grieve for them?

I wasn't there that day to get on the three forty-seven to Yass", he says. "I was there to throw myself in front of it.

My body becomes a raft and there's this part of me that wants just literally to go with the flow. To close my eyes and let it take me. But I know sooner or later I will have to get out, that I need to feel the earth beneath my feet, between my toes - the splinters, the bindi-eyes, the burning sensation of hot dirt, the sting of cuts, the twigs, the bites, the heat, the discomfort, the everything. I need desperately to feel it all, so when something wonderful happens, the contrast will be so massive that I will bottle the impact and keep it for the rest of my life.

And at that moment Jude thought something that he would never forgive himself for. He wished that he had never met any of them.

See them together and you will feel a force that will take your breath away.