Free They Told Me I Had to Write This by Kim Miller

and fish pieces and spring rolls and little bowls of sauce to dip it all in and they had the coldest Coke I have ever had. And even though it was only lunch we didn’t leave there for ages and we were talking through it all.
    And they asked me more about school and so I went in headfirst. And I told them that we learned about lots of things apart from bike racing like metaphors and onomatopoeia and rap-running and things that normal school never taught me.
    When I was talking Violet’s mum and dad were smiling and sometimes they would give each other a quick look with a grin. I didn’t like the quick looks so much but I liked it when they smiled. My dad could take a lesson from them.
    It was like ‘Clem the Clam Opens at The Opera House’ which is a visual joke, Gram, can you see it? I’ve never spoken so much even in group, but Violet was there and when she smiles I just open up. Still, I hope her mum and dad didn’t think I was off or anything.
    That bracelet must be the smartest thing I’ve ever done.
    Love from Redskin Ready Clem.
    WEDNESDAY, JULY 29
SOME THINGS YOU HAVE TO FIND OUT FOR YOURSELF
    Dear Gram
    Time to get high. We did the high ropes course again. It’s the best fun but when we started out I was nervous as. We have to climb up rope ladders to get to the walk rope, and have you ever tried to climb a rope ladder? It’s madaz coz they keep twisting and running away from your feet.
    We’ve been asking for ages how high the ropes are but Mr Sykes won’t tell us.
    ‘One day we’ll have to get to that,’ is what he keeps saying. So this time we were asking him again and somebody said, ‘Why don’t we measure it?’
    Mr Sykes said, ‘That’s a good idea, how are you going to do it?’
    Nobody could think of anything straight up until Pete said, ‘Why not get a bit of string and let it down from the ropes to the ground and then we can run the string along the ground and step it out?’
    Mr Sykes smiled at Pete and said, ‘You know? You could give that a go.’
    But Jacko, being Jacko, looked straight at Mr Sykes and said, ‘That won’t work.’
    Mr Sykes said, ‘Why not?’
    Whacko Jacko said, ‘Because we want to know how high it is, not how long it is.’
    We all started straight up laughing coz Jacko had done it to Mr Sykes again. Mr Sykes had been holding off telling us how high the ropes were until we came up with how to measure it for ourselves. They do that a lot around here, but I reckon Jacko and Pete cooked up this little plan to set him up.
    Mr Sykes started laughing with us and then he said to Jacko, ‘For that you can be the one to climb up the ladder with the string.’ And he took this roll of string out of his pocket which had been there all along. And now I don’t know who was setting up who.
    This place is pretty nangtastic. And you know what? That roll of string was just long enough to reach the ground and Mr Sykes must have had it in his pocket every time we were on the high ropes, just in case somebody came up with Pete’s suggestion.
    Mr Sykes sure got the laugh on that one, but Jacko is still the funniest kid in the place and Mr Sykes said that nobody had ever come up with that joke since they built the ropes course, which is a neat thirteen metres from the ground.
    Then I said, ‘They chose that for the height coz that’s the only piece of string Mr Sykes had in his pocket at the time,’ and that was fully stand-up for everyone and Mr Sykes laughed like he was one of us.
    Then Jacko put on Mr Sykes’ voice, which he does so easy and said, ‘You boys know that asking questions is not the only way to find the truth.’
    Jacko grinned at me and I knew we were on and I said to him, ‘Mr Sykes, if a boat is made of steel how does it float?’
    And Jacko did Mr Sykes again, ‘I dunno.’
    So I said, ‘Mr Sykes, how do fish breathe underwater?’
    ‘I dunno.’
    ‘Mr Sykes, if air is invisible why is the sky blue?’
    ‘I dunno.’
    ‘Mr Sykes, do you mind me