Free Noah's Law by Randa Abdel-Fattah Page A

Lawyers closed for Christmas and Boxing Day.
    Amit and I spent Christmas Day at Bondi beach. Dad had to go into chambers to work on an urgent case for some big media mogul. Nadine and Mary went to Mum’s for a barbecue (vegie patties, of course). I begged Mum to give me the day to myself on the basis that Dad was forcing me to work through the last holidays I had before year twelve. Always willing to make Dad look bad, so that she could look like the nicer parent, she caved.
    Amit and I were drying off in the sun after a swim. It was a stinking-hot day and we were in bikini-perving heaven. Amit reached into my backpack for a packet of chips. The copy I’d taken of Bernie’s file fell out.
    â€˜Oh yeah,’ I said, sitting up. ‘I brought this from work to show you.’
    I took out the photographs of Bernie’s wife.
    â€˜Woah, that’s gross!’ Amit said.
    â€˜Yeah. Bernie’s pretty messed up about it all. And now they’re screwing him over with some story about how she was partly to blame. Pretty shocking, hey?’
    â€˜Totally.’ He paused and then cocked his head to the side. ‘Who on earth has a photo taken in front of Woolworths?’
    â€˜True. Grocery shopping doesn’t usually inspire a Kodak moment.’
    â€˜Which brings me to my next question: any Kodak moments with Jacinta to report?’
    I hit him hard on the shoulder. ‘You’re an idiot. I work with a girl and you immediately assume I’m making moves on her.’
    â€˜You’re sixteen,’ he said, a baffled expression on his face. ‘That’s what we do.’
    â€˜You give new meaning to the word desperate.’
    â€˜Don’t be so self-righteous.’
    â€˜Why not?’ I lay back on my beach towel and folded my arms behind my head. ‘It’s fun.’
    He gave me a sober look. ‘You’re cracking up. I’m seeing symptoms of an acute ageing process here. Too much time locked away in that firm, obeying instructions and acting mature. It’s disgusting and I don’t like it.’
    â€˜I couldn’t agree more.’
    â€˜We need to get you a life.’
    Remembering my pay cheque I brightened. ‘Let’s focus on the upside. I got paid. Five hundred bucks for two weeks. I’ve never had that much money before.’
    Amit’s conversion was instant. ‘Ask your aunt if she’ll give me a job.’
    â€˜You hypocrite.’
    â€˜Five hundred dollars worth of hypocrisy. It’s worth it.’
    I ended up shouting him to a movie later in the day. As we sat in the cinema munching on popcorn and comparing our ratings of the group of girls sitting in the row in front of us, I felt more like my normal self: girl crazy and a bit of an idiot, with not a photocopying task in sight.

    Dad managed to have breakfast with us on Boxing Day, though he had to be at the office by noon to work on a case. We were sitting on our back porch eating pancakes. Nadine and Mary had made a huge batch. Dad was sipping mint tea and reading the latest edition of the Law Society Journal .
    â€˜So Amit’s mum’s considering suing her boss,’ I said casually as I drowned a pancake in maple syrup. ‘A negligence case. That basically means her boss stuffed up somehow, right?’
    I had a general idea of what negligence meant, but I still couldn’t work out how Rodney was to blame for somebody else smashing Maureen’s head in. I got that Jenkins had a dodgy way of handling the money. But even still, why should Rodney’s business cop the blame for a murderer’s crime? It seemed a big stretch.
    Dad put down his magazine and sat up in his chair. I could see he was excited.
    â€˜Son, I think we can do better than that in defining negligence. Negligence is part of the law of torts which determines whether a loss that befalls one person should or should not be shifted to another person. In an action of