"That was the first time she had me the Short Boy. The first time she met the Late Boy she was only fifteen. It was summer, and she remembers the white pants that came just below her knee and the cheerful aqua of her lace top. She would never wear those colours now, but they suited her sixteen year old personality perfectly."



"Melbourne Train Girl sat in the State Library near the magazines. Her red shoes lay in front of her chair, and she curled her stockinged feet up underneath her. Sitting some way across from her was a boy in a black jumper. Melbourne Train Girl watched him from where she sat."



"Melbourne Train Girl and one of the loveliest girls she knows parted ways on the corner of Exhibition and Little Collins Streets. Melbourne Train Girl turned left, the Lovely Girl right. Three lively forty-something women bustled through the doors of a large hotel foyer in a cloud of forty-something chiffon and forty-something perfume. they laughed and exclaimed their way into a waiting taxi, one giving Melbourne Train Girl's stockinged legs a disapproving glance as she passed."



"Tonight Melbourne Train Girl had banana in her fruit salad. Bananas are very expensive and therefore very sparse at her house. One night, after a very bad day some weeks ago she burst into tears at the sight of two tiny bananas sitting in the fruit bowl."