Free Lifespan of Starlight by Thalia Kalkipsakis Page B

all about how much you contribute to the state.’ I must seem
a bit unsure because he keeps going. ‘So make sure your plans for the future sound
useful, okay?’
    ‘Yeah. Thanks.’
----
    We arrive five minutes early for the interview and have to wait for ages, our backs
slowly sagging with each click of the clock.
    We’re still there when the next interviewee after me arrives with her dad, and our
backs snap straight again. She’s one of those bouncy people with a ponytail that
flicks when she moves. I return her grin nervously and try not to look at her A2
art folio. Architecture, perhaps? Disaster co-ordination?
    When it’s finally my turn, I’m already on the other side of nervous. We enter the
meeting room to find two empty chairs at a round table with about seven or eight
people in business suits sitting around the circle. They all have labels in front
of them: important community members, school staff and the principal opposite me.
I think it’s meant to feel inclusive and equal. I just feel sick.
    Everyone stands when we come in and I resist the urge to curtsey. It’s all so formal.
The year nine co-ordinator introduces herself as Ms Leoni and asks us to take a seat.
    No-one speaks while we all shuffle into position. I make a point not to let myself
focus anywhere near Mum because I know she’ll be smiling so hard that I might throw
up.
    ‘Coutlyn Roche.’ Ms Leoni taps at her keyboard and all faces lean towards their compads.
‘Now. Your test scores were good across the board. Very good, in fact. You’re starting
with the exact broad base that we’re looking for. And your references are solid,
too.’ She pauses to peer at her screen. ‘I’ve had some trouble chasing one of your
teachers for a phone reference … Miss Smythe?’ She looks over at us. ‘Is that it?
With a y?’
    Mum and I turn to each other: ‘Isn’t it with an i?’
    ‘I think it’s a y but no e.’ My heart’s beating so hard that I’m sure the guy from
Orion Energy sitting next to me is about to ask what the noise is.
    We mutter about the spelling some more and then I shake my head. ‘Actually, you know
what? I just remembered. She got married last year and changed her name.’
    ‘Oh! That explains it.’ Ms Leoni smiles. ‘What’s her married name?’
    Her married name, it turns out, is even harder to spell than her maiden name and
we only have to disagree twice about the spelling before Ms Leoni tells us not to
worry, she’ll sort it out. I don’t let her know that the only teacher in the city
with that name is on an extended holiday.
    The whole room relaxes after that. Especially me. A woman from the Disaster Co-ordination
Centre keeps nodding at everything I say, so I find myself speaking to her and just
glancing around the table here and there.
    They ask about my goals after leaving year twelve, and the guy from the CSIRO grunts
something like yaar when I list the universities that offer Bioengineering.
    I’m even able to take a full lungful of air by the time they ask about my hopes for
after uni. I have heaps of ideas about ways that food technology might help us feed
more people and I’m only at the start when a man at the edge of my sightline shakes
his head.
    ‘Feed more people and you’ll also have to house them. Not to mention the extra energy
and water.’ He’s skinny with age, red flaky skin. This guy is old.
    My eyes flick to the name label in front of him: Minister for Resources and Rationing.
I take a breath. ‘True, but … we can find ways to deal with that, too.’
    ‘We already have tighter rationing because of the problems with the Murray Darling.
How would we cope with another disaster like ’79?’ He’s talking about the fire that
went through the city’s water treatment plant. ‘Why feed illegals when we already
struggle with the citizens we have?’
    My lungs have gone empty. I glance at Mum, and immediately turn away. She was gripping
her seat so hard that I could see the network