Sacha looked at the piece of paper with surprise. She didn't blink or rub her eyes: she knew perfectly well what she was looking at. She just hadn't been expecting to see it.

But there it was, in black and white (or rather, purple biro ink on slightly off-white paper): Rona's birthday. There were two things that surprised Sacha about this. One was that Rona was so young - at 23, about three years younger than herself. It made the effortless authority that Rona commanded over everyone else - either in putting together the magazine or in organising a group expedition to a gig - seem all the more unlikely. And it gave Sacha cause for a momentary pause in thought for another reason: when she 'd been in primary school she'd regarded anybody born after 1980 as extraordinarily young, almost another generation entirely. It was a silly little thing, but those early impressions were hard to shake.

The other thing that surprised Sacha about Rona's birthday - and really it was even stranger than Rona's age - was the time of year it occurred at: her birthday had been just last week, specifically the day before she and Sacha and all the others had gone out to hear Mal's band.
Sacha couldn't believe that Rona hadn't told her, or that nobody else had mentioned anything. It seemed so out of character: Rona just didn't seem like the kind of person who'd keep her birthday quiet. Sacha couldn't help but suddenly feel a little excluded, just briefly: she felt keenly like an outsider. Once again she thought of home: she hadn't seen Canberra in months, and she had virtually no friends left there, but at least she was on solid ground there. Here in Melbourne it felt sometimes as though just when she found her feet the ground shifted beneath her.

It was foolish to be taking it personally, she told herself: but it was impossible to believe that Rona had not told any of her friends about her birthday. Which made it seem all the more like some kind of odd conspiracy. Sacha frowned at this thought: she realised how self-centred she was being. It was Rona's birthday - why would it have anything to do with her? Still, it was a mystery of sorts why nothing had been made of it. She thought of the various people who'd been at the gig last week: in a way, she supposed, they'd all been too wrapped up in their own little dramas to think of anyone else. Maybe. Well, Phuong hadn't seemed to be - but who knew? Likewise Alain: if anybody was going to make a big deal out of Rona's birthday - especially against her wishes - it was him. It still didn't make sense.

In a way it was disappointing: Sacha hadn't been to a birthday party in quite a while. Not since her sister's 21st two years ago, in fact. God, thought Sacha suddenly -Rona's almost exactly the same age as Kate. Suddenly all sorts of parallels between the two, previously hidden in her mind, became apparent.

Sacha's ear caught the noise of somebody stabbing a computer keyboard with a stiff finger: she looked up to see Rona jabbing a key angrily over and over, glowering at the screen. Really she wasn't so much like Kate, and yet . . . Again Sacha couldn't help but bring it back to herself: somehow she seemed to bring out the same responses, the same attitude and behaviour, in both her sister and in Rona. She wondered what Rona had been like two years ago: she knew that her sister had grown up a tremendous amount in that time - in the traditional sense, anyway: cutting back on partying, becoming more responsible, getting a decent job. It was a long time, it seemed, since Sacha had eased her sister through the drunken, queasy night of her 21st birthday party.

"For god's sake" shouted Rona unexpectedly and at nobody in particular. "Don't any of you people know how to spell?" She slammed the laptop shut and stood up abruptly, almost knocking her chair over in doing so. "I've gotta get some fresh air" she said loudly. "Anyone who's waiting for a computer can have this piece of shit."

Well, thought Sacha, there were similarities and differences between them.