Other editions of book The Runaways

Gaby and Johno have lived next door to each other all their lives; she born into a Greek family and him suffering his Irish ancestry.Under the depressing social pressures of an Australia steelworks town, they form an unlikely alliance as they grow up sharing their experiences. At the age of ten Gaby learns for the first time that she is promised to be married to a cousin in Greece and rebels. However, with a childish promise to marry her himself, Johno is the only person who can calm her down.From kindergarten to secondary school, the pair survives their family’s issues and the inevitable mysteries and eventual experiences of puberty in their early teen years.The at fifteen, her parents start making plans for her wedding in Greece, Gaby reminds Johno of his promise and the pair runs away together during the Christmas school holidays.Taken in by an old Greek couple they find work on farms until they must decide if they return home to finish school of move on to something else. But as so often happens in life, fate intervenes and those decisions are not necessarily theirs to make.