Cirrus@Austlit

'The first lie came easy and large, like a gobstopper falling wet from my mouth. It came out of nwhere during a lunch break. I told them my family owned an enormous farm with many horses and trees. I was eleven, and had recently arrived at a new school. The girls I'd befriended had mostly been lifelong friends, and they'd developed a weird and intimate ritual of discussing their parents properties (plural). "Does your dad still have the beachside place?" were not words I'd ever heard before and I didn't know what to make of it. "Yes," was the response. "Prices around there are skyrocketing."' (Publication abstract)