This is How We Change the Ending

by Vikki Wakefield

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  I have questions I’ve never asked. Worries I’ve never shared. Thoughts that circle and collide and die screaming because they never make it outside my head. Stuff like that, if you let it go—it’s a survival risk.

  Sixteen-year-old Nate McKee is doing his best to be invisible. He’s worried about a lot of things—how his dad treats Nance and his twin half-brothers; the hydro crop in his bedroom; his reckless friend, Merrick.

  Nate hangs out at the local youth centre and fills his notebooks with things he can’t say. But when some of his pages are stolen, and his words are graffitied at the centre, Nate realises he has allies. He might be able to make a difference, change his life, and claim his future. Or can he?

  This is How We Change the Ending is raw and real, funny and heartbreaking—a story about what it takes to fight back when you’re not a hero.

  CONTENTS

  COVER PAGE

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  TITLE PAGE

  PROLOGUE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ALSO BY

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT PAGE

  For Roan

  You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.

  URSULA K. LE GUIN

  PROLOGUE

  Dec said we wouldn’t start hunting until dark. Pitch black was better for shooting. Hard to aim fast and shoot straight when you had to sort heads from tails—when it was just two beady eyes you could aim for the middle. You don’t want to nick them, he said, especially the young ones. They never forget. Can’t chance having a wounded animal come back for you when it’s grown with a full set of teeth.

  I was eleven. It was about eight degrees but it felt like zero. We were somewhere north of a town called Fiston—me, Dec, his mates Jarrod and Brett, one ute, two tents, three eskies, and a gun—and all I knew was it took five boring hours to get there and we could have stopped way sooner and still landed in a spot that looked the same: no fences, red dirt, sick-looking trees and lumps of moonrock. It was the furthest I’d ever been from home.

  Dec told me to pitch the tents and get a fire started while they sat on the back of the ute, drinking beer. I’d only ever pitched a tent in our backyard; here the ground was rock-hard beneath six inches of dust, nothing to make the pegs stick. When they weren’t looking, I weighed the pegs down with rocks and covered them with dirt. I made a circle of stones and tried to light a few dry sticks, but I burned my fingers. The fire went out.

  ‘Like this.’ Brett reached into a toolbox on the tray.

  ‘Let him do it,’ Dec said. ‘Only way they learn.’

  Brett ignored him. ‘Watch.’

  When I wasn’t around, they made Brett fetch the beers. Dec and Jarrod talked about him behind his back and laughed to his face. It made them feel big to make him feel small—part of me hated them for it, but I knew if I had to pick I would rather be like them.

  I expected Brett to rub a couple of sticks together and whoof, fire, but instead he squirted Zippo lighter fluid onto a greasy rag and poked it underneath the pile I’d made. He flicked his lighter and the sticks went up like they’d been burning for hours.

  ‘Add the big stuff when the small stuff’s caught. Right, kid?’

  I glanced at Dec.

  Dec let it go. ‘Get on with it.’

  I ran off to gather more wood. I didn’t have to go far. I dragged a dead branch to the pit and dropped the leafy end into the flames; sparks shot skyward like a swarm of fireflies. I stacked medium-sized pieces in one pile, big ones in another. The stack of wood grew, and so did the pile of empty beer cans.

  The way to please my old man was to keep doing whatever he asked until he told me to stop.

  Dec looked on with flat eyes, the gun across his lap. He wore shorts and a singlet and his feet were bare. He never seemed to feel the cold. I counted eight empty cans on the ground, but that was between three of them; I’d taken my eye off Dec so I wasn’t sure where he was at.

  Three was okay. Five was borderline. Eight was dangerous.

  Dec had shown me how to use the rifle at home, twice, unloaded. I remembered everything he showed me: back straight, chin up, steady, aim, breathe out, squeeze. Never aim if you don’t mean to shoot. Both ends can hurt you, loaded or not, and plant your feet or the kickwill put you on your arse. But the way his fingers fumbled and his tongue poked from the corner of his mouth made me worried the gun knew him better than he knew it.

  ‘That’s enough,’ Dec said finally. ‘We don’t need a bonfire to tell everyone we’re out here.’

  He handed me the last of his beer. He’d been giving me the dregs for the past year or so—said I needed to start getting match-fit. I was sure it was ninety per cent spit, but I swallowed it anyway. Jarrod laughed when I screwed up my face and gave me his, too.

  One minute it was bright, cold daylight; the next, the sun blazed and fell. It was almost dark when we set off. Brett drove, with me in the passenger seat. Dec and Jarrod stood in the tray, aiming the spotty. There were a few rabbits here and there, but one sniff and they darted underground. The ute bounced over jagged rocks and sandy mounds that Brett said were wombat burrows; we made new tracks where there were none and I hung onto the dash, trying not to bite my tongue, wondering how we’d find our way back to the campsite when every tree-rock-fencepost looked the same.

  I’d only eaten a packet of chips since lunchtime; if this was hunting, I worried we’d starve.

  ‘Fucken useless,’ Dec said after an hour.

  He ordered Jarrod to drive, like it was Brett’s fault the rabbits were too quick. Brett got in the back. I wanted to get in there too, but there wasn’t room.

  ‘Be quiet,’ Dec warned, though I hadn’t spoken a word since we’d left the campsite.

  Jarrod drove fast. We came across a clearing with more burrows. The ground moved: a wombat—fat, sluggish, unafraid, until Jarrod drove straight at it. I heard Dec whoop in the back, which meant Jarrod should stop. He braked hard and I braced myself on the dash.

  Dec let off a shot. Dirt sprayed, just left of the wombat’s head.

  The wombat looked over its shoulder and waddled off, slow as a turtle but still too quick for Dec’s second shot. He fired again, missing its backside by a mile. I prayed it would get away and it did, but Jarrod edged the ute forward and nudged the mound with the bull bar. The entrance crumbled and caved in.

  ‘Bury the sucker,’ he said.

  I didn’t know my heart could bang that hard without busting my ribs. I imagined the wombat suffocating down there—it wasn’t like we could eat it, so why was Dec shooting?

  I got out of the ute and stood in the dust-swirled glare of the headlights, gulping down the lump in my throat.

  Brett put his hand on my shoulder. Under his breath, he said, ‘Dug its way in—it can dig its way out. Got claws like a bear.’

  I nodded and
climbed back in the cab. I’d had enough hunting, but Dec wasn’t done. I turned around, saw the glint of the barrel, his body swaying. He slapped the roof twice and whooped again.

  We drove over the slack wire of a broken fence and entered a new landscape: flat, dry paddock with tufts of weed, a muddy waterhole in the middle. A few rabbits scampered from cover and took off, dodging left and right, searching for somewhere to hide.

  But Dec didn’t shoot—he’d spotted something bigger.

  ‘Goats,’ Jarrod said.

  They were bigger than any goats I’d ever seen, with full beards, yellow eyes and curling hooves. I counted eight, clustered around the waterhole. At first I thought they were blinded by our headlights, but then I realised they were curious, and not at all scared. They’d probably never come across people like us before.

  Dec couldn’t miss, not at such close range. Not with the goats just standing there, waiting to be executed.

  ‘Sitting ducks,’ Jarrod said. He crawled the ute towards them and stopped about forty metres away. ‘Roast goat.’

  The ute heaved. Dec had jumped off.

  The smallest goat in the middle took a step forward. It pawed the dirt.

  I took a breath and held it. Stuffed the urge to cry down deep. It was as if I’d landed on a different planet—there were no children here, only grown-ups. I closed my eyes and when my nose stopped burning, I breathed again.

  I wouldn’t look. If I didn’t look, I wasn’t part of it.

  The passenger door clicked. A rush of cold air and my eyes flew open.

  ‘Man up,’ Dec hissed, tugging my shorts.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Come on. Quick.’

  I shook my head.

  The ute heaved again. Brett came around to the side. ‘Might be better to let him take a rabbit his first time.’

  ‘Did I ask you?’ Dec said.

  Brett drawled, ‘Come on, man—he’s a kid,’ and gave me a crooked smile.

  I climbed out before Dec could wipe the smile off Brett’s face. I let him arrange parts of me to take the weight of the gun. He cupped my left hand under the barrel and hooked my right forefinger around the trigger, and neither hand shook because I had already decided I would aim to miss—just a fraction too high over that distance should be enough to send the bullet way overhead.

  ‘That’s yours—the dumb one in the middle. Right between the eyes. Don’t nick him.’

  Dec stepped away and my body went cold.

  ‘Aim.’

  I lined up the sight.

  ‘Shoot,’ Dec said.

  I made the adjustments—a twist in my shoulders, a dip in one knee, a slight tilt to the barrel—and I squeezed. The shot sounded like a jet had flown over. I staggered backwards and dropped the gun in the dust.

  Dec swore and hauled me back by the elbow.

  The other goats were restless now, but the little one lowered its head and stared back.

  Dec picked up the gun and aimed.

  I willed it to run. The goat knew, but it didn’t do anything.

  —

  They killed four. We left three of them lying by the dam. I threw up twice. Dec made me ride in the tray with the one he picked. Its eyes were still wet.

  When we arrived back at our camp and they hauled its body from the tray, I said I was tired and felt sick. I crawled inside the sagging tent and stayed there, heard them laughing, heard everything through the nylon walls and here’s what I know:

  goat skin comes off like a banana peel

  the kid’s got no idea

  no stomach for it

  no balls

  no heart

  no teeth.

  ONE

  Dec and Nance are fighting again. I lie awake, listening. It doesn’t upset me as much as it used to—not like when it was Mum and Dec, when I was younger and on my own. Nance can look after herself. With the pillow over my head, their fighting sounds like beatboxing: all hiss and spit.

  I toss the pillow aside and lean over the edge of the top bunk. The clock on the table reads nine thirty-six.

  Otis and Jake are hard asleep on the bottom bunk, head to toe, curled around each other. My half-brothers, three years and two months old. With the door and window closed, our bedroom reeks of piss and stale breath. Fresh piss or old, I can’t tell. O always stinks like urine or vomit or milk gone sour.

  Jake rolls over, talking in his sleep, and Otis moves to fill the space as if they’re two strange sea creatures inside the same shell. Twins. Jake has a bump on his chest and Otis has a dent on his; Nance says they were joined once, but Jake broke away and took a piece of Otis with him.

  For fifteen minutes I ignore my aching bladder. They’ll stop fighting if I show my face, but I don’t really want them to stop. Maybe tonight Nance will win.

  I throw back my sheet and slide off the bunk. The twins only hear each other—not the fighting, the sirens, the crickets, or the Elvis music coming from Clancy’s next door. Not my feet when they hit the floor.

  I push the window up halfway and start peeing through the gap.

  ‘Hey, Nate.’

  There’s a cloud of smoke rising above Nance’s dying hydrangea bush.

  ‘Jesus, Merrick. Let me finish.’

  Obligingly, he looks the other way and takes another drag on his cigarette.

  If I had to give a reason for Connor Merrick and me being friends for the last six years, I’d have to say it’s more about proximity than personality. McKee and Merrick, straight after each other on the roll call, except for the times there was another McSomebody. The last picks for team—united by shame—me because I’m lethargic to the point of being comatose, and Merrick because he’s smoked since he was twelve and it’s probably stunted his growth. He lives in the upstairs unit across from ours, but he spends every second week with his mum a couple of suburbs over. He’s a FIFO kid—he flits in and out. FIFO kids have two sets of stuff. I have a FIFO mum. Kids of FIFO mums have less of everything according to the law of diminishing returns.

  Merrick always enters and leaves through our window. In the entire six years I’ve known him he has never come to our front door.

  ‘Can I hang here for a bit?’ he says when I’m finished. ‘Senior’s tossing my room again.’

  His old man’s a mean drunk. He throws things around, including Merrick. He usually passes out before midnight, but he’d be hitting his peak about now.

  I shrug. ‘Dec and Nance are at it.’

  ‘You mean…’ He smacks his palms together.

  ‘Nah. Like, brawling.’

  ‘Oh.’

  I check the twins: still twitching and dreaming. And I’m not getting to sleep anytime soon.

  ‘We could kill some time at Youth? Might be some fresh meat.’

  YouthWorks is the local youth centre, open every night until twelve. Merrick likes going there since he discovered that having a supreme mathematical mind pays massive dividends at the pool table. He looks hopeless with his tiny head and big ears, and sometimes you get meatheads who’ll bet they can take him by slapping a whole pack of smokes on the table. Nobody can beat Merrick. I swear I can see glowing equations swirling above his head when he’s plotting how to pot three colours off the white. Shame he can’t apply the same genius when he’s studying Trig.

  Merrick nods. ‘Good call.’

  I grab my notebook, slip on my shoes and climb out, leaving the window open just enough for re-entry.

  ‘Imagine how big your brain might get if you stopped depriving it of oxygen.’

  I tuck the notebook inside the waistband of my jeans, at the back. Make sure my T-shirt covers it.

  He brushes me off. ‘I gotta slow it down until my head catches up. Or else my skull will crack.’

  Plenty of people have tried to crack his skull. Merrick’s brain-smart but street-stupid—he’ll get us both killed someday.

  We squeeze between our row of sixteen letterboxes and thirty-two bins, push through the side gate, and head down
Whittlesea Road. Three of five street lights are out; the two that work are swarming with bugs. Summer ended a while back, but Bairstal must get the memo late. A few weeks ago, we had six days straight over thirty-five degrees and we all looked like a new species with purple faces and bulging eyes; all we could do was talk less, pant like dogs and sleep under wet sheets.

  ‘I got sixty-four per cent on my Chem test,’ Merrick says. ‘I’m officially an over-achiever.’

  I shake my head. ‘What’d I tell you? What’s the first rule of high school?’

  ‘Don’t try too hard.’

  ‘And what’s the second?’

  ‘Make fun of people who do.’

  ‘Spoken like a true prodigy,’ I say.

  He screws up his nose. ‘Who said that anyway?’

  ‘The Wolf!’

  ‘Not that. High school rules.’

  ‘Channing Tatum. 21 Jump Street.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’

  We’ve been working our way through the second-hand DVD collection at Youth for over four years; we can carry on whole conversations just using movie dialogue. Merrick and I know each other so well, we hardly have anything original left to say.

  We stop at the main road between Bairstal and Rowley Park. Two Subarus are nudging each other at the lights. We’ve got time to cross, but if one of them jumps the green we’ll be skids. I throw out my arm to hold Merrick back.

  He makes an L sign on his forehead. ‘Give me an Evo any day.’

  ‘Like you could ever afford an Evo.’

  We cross.

  ‘I’d tune up a Ralliart. Same motor, only detuned,’ he says.

  ‘Nah, it’s a whole lot different. Chassis, I reckon. Brakes, too.’

  ‘Point is it’ll look like a shitbox until they’re eating dust. Now that would be ironic.’

  ‘No. It really wouldn’t.’ I’ve tried to demonstrate irony about a hundred times and he still doesn’t get it. ‘Anyway, face it. I’ll never get my licence.’

  ‘Why not? I can’t wait.’

  ‘Think about it—I have to log seventy-five hours, we don’t have a car, and a driving instructor costs sixty-five bucks an hour. That’s more money than I could scrape together in six months. Which leaves one option—steal a car and fake a logbook, but then I’d still have to come up with the money for the test. In that time, I reckon the person whose car I stole might have noticed their car is missing and I’ll get busted for boosting and the licence I never got will be suspended for twelve months. It’s a vicious circle.’