6.13 IS ENSHRINED in a stream of blue, pink and green left behind by Bubbles, Blossom and Buttercup. The Cartoon Network characters on my watchface jiggle as I jog across the semi-empty Minchinbury lot without looking for cars. Duh coz no one actuals comes to this strip mall made up of an IGA, Happy Mafias Pizza, a newsagency conjoined with an argileh store and a heavily curtained massage parlour called Thai Delight. No one especially comes on a hot September night with a dense storm hanging over the entire state. Legit. Everything, including The Powerpuff Girls ticking on my wrist, is tinted orange because of a big ol’ dust cloud.

‘Sydneysiders woke up to a red dawn this morning due to an eerie once-in-a-century weather phenomenon.’ This was straight after school, before my shift. Channel 9’s Peter Overton was blaring from the TV. My five sisters and two brothers yelled about Mumma hogging the remote. Overton’s robot voice followed me into my room. I tugged off my Holy Fire High School blazer. Our emblem: Bible beneath a burning bush. Our motto: Souls Alight for the Lord and Learning. Fumbled through the dirty laundry basket for my dress-like work shirt that stunk of rancid onion. Our logo: a pepperoni pizza wearing a fedora and holding a Tommy gun. Our motto: Happy Mafias Pizza: Real Italians Leave the Gun and Take the Cannoli.