Bus LIX

Jack: So what d'you think of the new headteacher?

Louisa: Bitch. All she wants to do is save money.

Jack: I feel she’s making some necessary savings

Louisa: You would

Jack: Why do we need two History of Art departments? Most schools don’t have one.

Louisa: They offer competing views. What sort of education would it be if we only ever got one view from one person?

Jack: An affordable education? And don’t even get me started on the ghost-hunting trips.

Louisa: Those were the best trips ever

Jack: Benny Rousseau is still in the asylum. He plays solitaire with Scott’s mum.

Louisa: There’s a two-person solitaire?

Jack: They take turns

Louisa: I can't remember the last time we didn’t know at least one person who was in the asylum. What happened?

Jack: I think we just knew less people before

Bus LVIII

Scott: My sister’s eighteen today

Louisa: I thought she was already your legal guardian?

Scott: Fake ID

Louisa: It’ll be nice when we can all go down the pub together

Jack: Oh, I won’t be drinking socially

Louisa: Why's that?

Jack: If I’m with good people, why do I need to drug myself? And if I’m with bad people, why aren’t I spending some quality time at home with the drink instead?

Bus LVII

Louisa: How’s the musical coming along?

Jack: Pretty well

Louisa: What’s the story?

Jack: It all starts off with this girl whose microwave breaks, and she’s despairing...when suddenly her oven starts singing to her. Telling her about all the exciting things you can do with an oven, and how microwaves are just for lazy people anyway.

Louisa: Elitist

Jack: I write what I know

Louisa: Wasn’t the musical meant to be more realistic this year? After ‘Moon Nuns’.

Bus LVI

Scott is wearing a black armband

Louisa: What’s up?

Jack: His microwave broke

Louisa: Oh dear. Can’t you get a new one?

Scott: Next week. When Em gets paid.

Louisa: Well until then, you're welcome to come use mine

Scott: Thanks, but I can’t cook with people watching

Louisa: At least you've still got the gas oven

Scott: Had it taken out after...well, you know

Jack: I’ve got something that’ll cheer you up

Scott: A grill?

Jack: Nope – a bendy straw!

Scott: So what?

Jack: You like straws, remember?

Scott: That was just talk. This is life.

Jack: Did I tell you I'm writing the musical now? They rejected Wallace's script.

Scott starts crying

Louisa: Scott, don't cry. It'll be okay.

Jack: Who knew a broken microwave could be so traumatic? Aren't they just meaningless objects of attachment?

Scott: Yeah, but they make life so much easier!

Louisa: My dad cried when our barbecue broke. We'd only used it twice in ten years.

Jack: Serious?

Louisa: To you, eating is just reverse-vomiting...but to some people, it's a way of life

Bus LV

Louisa: Let’s play a game

Scott: I’m all Snapped out

Louisa: Let’s play a little game called ‘I Wonder What Lizzie Is Doing’

Jack: I knew you were reading my private notebook! ‘Feeling the binding’ – worst excuse ever.

Scott: I bet Lizzie’s...fighting aliens

Jack: No, see, you haven’t read the rules. It has to be plausible. She could never be fighting aliens – teaching aliens the futility of war, maybe, but never fighting them.

Louisa: Can she be in bed with her hunky musician boyfriend who isn’t you?

Jack: Clearly you aren’t mature enough for this game

An old man admiring his blue-green orb

''That one had a good plot, but I never could get the characters right.''

Music Club XXXIX

Flinchy: How about we have a concert?

Bull: You going senile or something? We did that already.

Flinchy: No, I mean with us playing. Friends and family could come.

Harry: Our families are all dead. We don’t like to talk about it.

Bull: And none of us can play anything

Starchild: I can play guitar...

Justin: ...if the rest of us fill in half the notes from our imaginations

Starchild: It’s interactive

Flinchy: Don’t be so modest anyway, Bull. You won that prize for your tuba.

Bull: What’s a tuba?

Justin: He’s completely self-taught. Doesn’t even know his instrument’s name.

Music Club XXXVIII

Violetta: You want me gone?

Jenny: No, not at all. But we don’t want you to become institutionalised either. You need to retain contact with the outside world.

Violetta: I’m not ready

Jenny: We believe that you are

Violetta: So I get no choice?

Jenny: The decision is ultimately yours, but we would strongly recommend a visit home at this point in your treatment. If things get too much, you’ll always be welcome back here.

Violetta: But it was home that made me sick. Why does nobody understand?

Jenny: There were some problems, I know, but we’ve spoken to your parents and they promise to make things better this time

Violetta: They’d say anything! They don’t care.

Jenny: We can keep you alive here indefinitely, Vi, but what would be the point? You’ll only really live if you go out in the world and make it a better place for yourself.

Music Club XXXVII

Justin: You’re angry at the newspaper?

Harry: There was a cockroach. Crushed it with my fist.

Starchild (nervously): There are cockroaches down here?

Justin: No, just one. It was on the Lonely Hearts page.

Harry: Why does Flinchy have to leave his junk lying around anyway?

Dom: Couldn’t you have taken the cockroach outside or something? It wasn’t doing us any harm.

Justin: How come you’re here so early this week, Dom?

Dom: Flinchy’s getting his car repaired, so my mum gave me a lift. If you see any more cockroaches, take them outside. They’re misunderstood.

Bull: Do you have sex with cockroaches or something?

Dom: They’re just my favourite animal. I don’t like seeing them get hurt.

Harry: I’m that way with rats. I used to go down in the sewers and catch them as pets.

Bull: I don’t even know where to begin making fun of that. Does nobody here have a normal favourite animal? Like wolves, or sharks?

Justin: I like cats

Bull: Little bit sissy, but okay

Music Club XXXVI

Flinchy: So what instrument do you play?

Harry: Huh?

Flinchy: Justin told me you boys play instruments together. I can’t wait to see Bull and his tuba.

Harry: Oh, I’m...maracas

Flinchy: Tuba and maracas? Must be an interesting sound.

Music Club XXXV

Jenny: Eat something, Vi

Violetta: I do eat

Jenny: Barely

Violetta: It’s just the opposite of taking a crap. It’s disgusting.

Jenny: You’ll die if you don’t eat

Violetta: Like I said, disgusting

Jenny: It’s disgusting to live?

Violetta: Out of fear, yeah. You people only eat cos you don’t want to suffer. Your bodies blackmail you. I’m in total command of mine.

Jenny: That’ll be why you can’t sleep at night? Why you need the radiators on in summer because you’ve lost all your body fat? Why you haven’t enough energy to walk across a room?

Music Club XXXIV

Justin: This is the best night of my life

Flinchy: He certainly knows how to pound those ivories

Starchild: I feel like a different person

Bull: A shitter person

Harry: Please tell me it’s over

Flinchy: Perhaps you’ll enjoy the second half more, Harry. And there may not have been any violence, but there was some blood.

Dom: That trumpet guy with the nose-bleed

Flinchy: A cautionary tale for us all

Music Club XXXIII

Flinchy: I was at the hospital this morning...

Bull: Nothing fatal, I hope

Flinchy: ...visiting Andrew, and he suggested we should take a club outing. Either that or he wanted a club sandwich. In any case, I think a club outing would be fun.

Dom: You want us to go clubbing?

Flinchy: No, I mean some sort of outing...as a club

Dom: You’ve lost me

Harry: I wanna go somewhere violent. A boxing match, or dog-fighting. Get the old blood pumping. You’d like to see some violence, wouldn’t you, Bull?

Starchild: A nostalgia trip

Bull: Go fuck a tree

Starchild: That’s the best you can manage? You’re not even gonna make me fuck a tree?

Flinchy: Moving away from...tree-fucking, I was thinking of something a little more musical. Perhaps a concert?

Harry: Great idea. Heavy metal or gangsta rap?