Free Puberty Blues by Gabrielle Carey

jumped up to go over to her. My boyfriend grabbed me fiercely by the arm. ‘Don’t get involved.’
    â€˜But she’s hurt!’
    â€˜She’s just a fuckin’ moll.’
    A group of boys gathered around her. The same boys that had ‘gone through’ her the night before. She lay there moaning, clutching her stomach and writhing on the cement. They nudged and prodded her with their thonged feet.
    A moll was just a lump of meat with a hole in it—and that’s how they were treated. At least I got a ring.Friday and Saturday nights the boys went on their milk run. They watched TV until Mrs Dixon went to sleep and then sneaked down to the garage. There they waited for a big truck to come rumbling down the highway and under its noisy camouflage, rolled Danny’s mother’s Datsun down the driveway. And it was off to Sylvan Headlands at a hundred miles per hour, at three in the morning. Sometimes they picked up Johnno and Dave on the way.
    They cruised Sylvania Waters and Sylvan Headlands, the richest areas where some people were foolish enough to leave out two weeks’ worth of milk money. They tore up the cheques. The car jingled its way along with heaps of twenty cent pieces.
    They didn’t’ have much to spend their money on. Marijuana wasn’t in yet, heroin unheard of, and alcohol an occasional treat when a big brother was obliging. So of an afternoon when we wanted to find the boys we mosied along up to the Arizona Milk Bar. There they’d be, feeding their twenty cent pieces into the pinball machines.
    â€˜Give us a game,’ we whined.
    â€˜Ping off, I’m up to seventeen thousand, five hundred and forty.’
    After the boys had a particularly successful haul, they sometimes gave us one of their free games. One flicker each. We always lost, and went back to slouching over the pinball machine, watching them rip.
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    One night, on the milk run, when all the guys had had a turn at driving, Danny and Greg sneaked the car back into the garage, called Sandy the dog, and headed off for Sue’s place. I was staying the night.
    Sue and I were fast asleep in our best nighties. We lay cuddled up in Sue’s bed. I awoke with a start. There were little drops of cold water all over my face Splat. Splish. I looked up to the window and there were two blond heads peering through the flyscreen. How romantic. They were flicking the slimy fish pond water all over us.
    â€˜They’re here,’ I gasped into Sue’s ear.
    â€˜Huh?’
    â€˜They’re here. It’s them.’
    Sue pulled the blankets over her head.
    â€˜The door’s open!’ I hissed out the window.
    They tip-toed in past Mrs Knight’s bedroom.
    â€˜Come on. Get out,’ Danny ordered, nudging me with his foot.
    â€˜No. It’s too cold,’ I whined, clinging on to Sue. Sue lay silent.
    â€˜Come on.’ He kicked me out of bed. I thumped on to the floor.
    Garry and I camped in the corner of the room with the dog.
    â€˜I’m freezin’,’ I complained.
    Danny, very generously, chucked over a blanket. Garry and I huddled up on the floor. Danny proceeded to really wreck the bed. Instead of climbing underneath the blankets, he pulled them all out and lay them on top of him. The room was silent, exceept for the sound of Danny unbuckling and unzipping.
    He pulled up Susan’s little blue Woolworth’s nightie, pulled down her fake, leopard-skin underpants and jabbed it in. Pop. Shove. Pop. Shove. Well, at least Danny would have another mark in Jacko’s screwing competition. In Jacko’s drawer, pinned to the wood, was a piece of paper with all the boys’ names on it. Johnno, Dave, Wayne, Danny, Gull, Hen and Strack. After each conquest they got a tick next to their names. Danny didn’t want to come last.
    Garry was trying to score.
    â€˜Can I?’
    â€˜No. I can’t. I’m on m’ rags.’
    Garry was beginning