* In her office, interned by files that required action, Sarah gazed out the window. Across the road, a group of boys in their teens were outside the 7/11 drinking milk shakes and smoking cigarettes. They jostled and punched each other and rolled around on the ground, laughing and swearing. None of it seemed serious. She was not worried about them, they weren’t drinking alcohol. Lately the majority of her cases were alcohol related. Kids as young as 12 and 13, already alcoholics. The judges were frustrated. In the courtroom, the judges, the lawyers, the probation officers, the youth workers and the police sat in different sections and acted as if they had something against each other but in truth – but unfortunately they were all in it together. …show more content…
His house was about as different to Jo’s house as a house could be; it reminded Sarah of her parents’ house. Jack’s mother and her mother probably bought their curtains from the same South Yarra decorator, flowers screen printed on silk, fluttered in the breeze. They probably went to the same dinner parties, to the same opera and ballet productions. The house, set back behind a high fence on a corner block was what her mother would call, substantial. A period home (Sarah had no idea which period) surrounded by a lush lawn and well established large trees – grey and ghost gums. Standing on the door step waiting before she rang the bell, she pondered how Jack had met Ashleigh. Sarah’s parents and their friends didn’t go to the western suburbs, they said things like, I never drive across the bridge unless we are going to Lorne. Just recently Sarah’s Aunt Sophie, her mother’s youngest sister, told them that a friend had dragged her out to Yarraville. ‘I was literarily kicking and screaming, I kept saying no, why would I want to go there. But you know I was pleasantly surprised. There are some nice boutiques and some good cafes. I bought a clutch bag for Annie, which is just