Michael Sweeney’s Method

Penguin Books . October 2007. Young Adult Fiction.

Michael Sweeney and his friend Dud are just two of the many invisible nothings at their expensive school. They come from deep in the suburbs and they're not cool or tough or even that brainy. So they're pretty much left alone, until they make friends with the new American guy. And before long Michael Sweeny is somebody. But that's just the beginning of his troubles...

I think about my final year of high school often. A lot of what happened then has led me to where I am now – who I am, and what I’ve become. I did some stupid things and some smart things. I got into trouble, I experienced grief and I fell in love, all for the first time. I started to understand a few things about life. None of them were particularly original insights but they definitely change you, and once you’ve had them there’s no turning back. It’s kind of annoying.

On the wall above my desk is a newspaper photograph, taken that year, of an actor and me standing beside a man and a woman. They’re the parents of a boy I never met but who was as important to me as anyone I've ever known. It’s an odd photograph: the star’s right arm is draped a little uncomfortably across my shoulders; the parents are holding hands. Nobody is smiling, but it’s easy to tell that one of us is trying not to.

And it was all because of the American. I don't know why Dud and I didn't figure out who he was earlier, especially when half the country knew what was going on. I guess it’s the sort of thing you always think happens to other people, so it’s not as though we were expecting it.

Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. It happened a few years ago, and this is how it all starts...