Free Loop by Brian Caswell

it’s not all that frightening. Not really.
    I never realised before how great it is to be just plain average …

THE LONELY PLANET GUIDE TO INTER-DIMENSIONAL TRAVEL
    I am easily satisfied with the very best.
    Winston Churcmll
    SMS
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    â€˜What the …?’
    I was staring at the mobile with a frown. What I was reading made even less sense than things related to Chad usually make. And I’m pretty used to things not making a whole lot of sense when they have anything remotely to do with my devo big brother.
    â€˜You’ve got to stop squinting like that, Sarah,’ my mother said, sneaking up behind me with a washing basket full of damp football jerseys. ‘It’s unladylike.’
    She’s immune to ‘searing looks’, of course, but I shot her one anyway. On principle.
    â€˜What do you make of this?’ I asked, moving across to the washing line and shoving the mobile under her nose.
    â€˜Very nice, dear. Is it new?’
    â€˜Not the phone, Mother. The message. Can you understand it?’
    She looked down, squinting the way she’d just told me not to. ‘All this text messaging stuff,’ she complained. ‘How you kids can make any sense of it, I don’t know.’
    â€˜That’s the point. I can’t make any sense of it. Chad was in the shower and his phone rang, but when I checked the message, all I got was —’
    â€˜What are you doing reading Chad’s messages?’
    â€˜Hello? I’m his sister. I’m supposed to be doing things like that. It’s expected.’
    She shook her head, giving her best what-did-I-ever-do-to-deserve-this ? performance. She even rolled her eyes, shook her head and did the big breath-intake, like one of those prom-queen mega-bitches in a third-rate teen comedy. I nearly pointed out that the Oscars weren’t on for another six months, but I was about three seconds away from having to help her hang out the washing, so I chose discretion over valour.
    â€˜Maybe it’s a code,’ I muttered to myself, as I carried the phone back inside the house.
    â€˜Touch my phone again and I’ll … I’ll …’
    Chad always has trouble threatening me. It’s easy to threaten other boys. Boys understand threats. But girls, especially younger sisters, even if they are fifty IQ points smarter, at least twice as athletic and only one year younger …
    Okay, it isn’t fair. But who said life was supposed to be fair?
    Especially for big brothers.
    I think there must be a statute somewhere that gives younger sisters the sovereign right to do things to their brothers that no boy would dare to. Because when you’re sixteen and basically decent, and you’d never dream of doing anything remotely in decent to get even with them, you’re basically … well, basically, you’re stuffed.
    Chad would go to threaten me, then realise there was really nothing he could threaten me with, so he’d end up standing there like a goose saying, ‘Touch my phone again and I’ll … I’ll …’ and coming up with nothing.
    â€˜And you’ll what?’
    I stood there with my hands on my hips for a three-count, showing absolutely no fear. Three is the ideal number. Any less doesn’t have the desired effect; any longer and you enter the realm of diminishing returns.
    Then I skipped out of the room, tossing the phone onto the bed as I went.
    Chad was always football mad. Well, from the time he was twelve years old, at least. That was when the entire Parramatta first-grade team had come to train on the school oval as a publicity stunt and they’d let him do the ‘ball-boy’ thing.
    He’s big for his age. Which is the reason he ended up playing front-row, even though he really wanted to play half-back.
    â€˜Not that it matters,’ I used to point out. ‘When you play for