Danny

Danny was a kid I used to sit next to on the bus to go to Shepp High. Both of us should have been going to Mooroopna High because it was the closest high school to our home but his sister had been allowed to enrol at Shepp High so he was also able to study there. There were only three of us attending Shepp High, the rest were Notre Dame Catholic College students, dirty-minded boys of Italian descent and stuck up girls.

Danny was just a genuinely nice boy. Freckle faced, floppy fringe, clean cut. He was a year younger than me so we only interacted on the bus and during school holidays. When the school holidays rocked around we would ring each other up and plan extremely long bike rides down up and down the highway we lived on and head off into the bush by the river, kilometres and kilometres, just on pushbikes not fancy bikes.

Danny's dad had a different view of life and did not believe in borrowing money so the family of four had lived in a tiny two-bedroom cottage on a corner block near the highway for many years until they could pay cash for a larger block of land and an enormous, two storey house to be built.

He was very chatty and absolutely smitten by a girl call Lou, a very pretty, smooth skinned, high cheekboned, plump ballet student with the end aim of getting into NIDA. But Lou didn't like him in that way and continued to have a series of boyfriends during their friendship much to his chagrin.

I remember when I turned 16, Danny turned up at my door with his mum and the hugest bouquet of 16 pink roses. I also remember Mum getting quite upset one day because Danny's mum had phoned wondering where we were and I suggested that there was more than just bike riding going on. "Aren't you concerned about where they are?". she wanted to know. Mum wasn't fazed at all. Probably glad I was out of the house in the fresh air.