‘Woah, woah, easy there, sunshine!’ my foreman yelled out, ducking under a girder that was being slowly lifted onto the scaffolding. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’
‘Me?’ I asked, pointing at myself.
‘You see anyone else around here?’
‘Uh…’ I frowned, glancing around at the hundred-odd other people around us. ‘I guess not?’
‘Good guess,’ he said, arriving next to me, mildly puffed from his walk. ‘I need you on a job.’
‘I was just taking lunch—’
‘Not anymore,’ he snatched my brown paper bag and threw it off the side of the building. ‘You’re with me.’
‘What the heck?’
‘Look at this steel,’ he said abruptly, pointing at the girders. ‘Do you think the people who make this incredible product take lunch breaks?’
‘The steel fabricators?’ I frowned.
‘They’re not just “the steel fabricators”,’ he mocked me. ‘They’re the best steel fabricators around. Melbourne is built on the backs of their steel!’
‘Riiiight,’ I nodded, slightly concerned by how wide his eyes were bulging. ‘And why does that mean I don’t get lunch?’
‘Because I need you to pick up a shipment for me.’
‘I’m not a driver,’ I protested. ‘I barely know how to drive!’
‘Really?’ the foreman frowned, pulling a piece of paper out of his pocket. ‘Because your resume says you hold three classes of licence and worked as a truck driver on four construction teams in the last—
‘Ohhh, that kind of driving,’ I interrupted nervously. ‘Why didn’t you say?’
‘Anyway…’ he smiled thinly. ‘I need you to collect a shipment of steel beams from Melbourne.’
‘Fine,’ I sighed. ‘At least let me take someone to help load the steel.’
‘Your resume also says you’re a three time Mister Olympiad, able to lift more than six times your own body weight.’
‘Alright, alright,’ I snatched the paper out of his hand. ‘Everyone lies on their resume.’
‘Not like that they don’t,’ he chuckled. ‘Take Stevens – and don’t drop my steel!’