This is How We Change the Ending

by Vikki Wakefield

  ‘Does it hurt?’ He places his palm on my forehead as if he’s checking my temperature.

  I slap his hand away. ‘We should go see Mim. Take her flowers or something.’

  ‘We hardly know her.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess.’

  Merrick pulls out a slingshot. It’s lethal-looking, with an engraved metal handle shaped like a wishbone and a thick rubber sling. ‘How about some target practice?’

  ‘Where did you get that?’

  ‘Traded it.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Gold Star card.’

  I give a low whistle. ‘A Gold Star is worth…what? A hundred bucks?’

  ‘It was only worth what someone would pay for it.’ He shrugs. ‘Anyway, I wanted this. We could shoot some cans at the train station.’

  In roughly fifteen minutes the station will be swarming with schoolkids. ‘Nah.’

  ‘Bin chickens at Macca’s?’

  ‘That’s cruel.’

  ‘They’re feral, man. They eyeball me like they’re plotting to eat my face.’

  ‘And I suppose that puts you off your tasty burger.’

  ‘Hell, yes.’

  I shake my head. ‘First, ibises are only feral because we built a McDonald’s on their wetland—they have to adapt to survive. Second, don’t you see the hypocrisy in sacrificing an ibis’s natural environment to feed consumers of French fries and chicken nuggets, stripping it of its dignity and forcing it to resort to eating discarded pickles, and then calling it feral? The species faced extinction so you could have your cheeseburger. They adapted. There’s the root of your repulsion.’

  Merrick laughs. ‘I hope you get this fired up the next time

  Brock Tuwy has my head in a toilet.’

  ‘That’s different. You always start it.’

  We take the long way home through the alleyways to kill more time. In ten minutes school will be out and we’ll be all clear to re-enter civilisation.

  Merrick keeps turning the slingshot over in his hand. I wonder if he’s starting to regret the trade.

  ‘I still want to shoot something,’ he says.

  It comes to me. ‘I really hate that sensor light.’

  FIVE

  Tuesday morning, double PE. Drought has baked the school oval hard enough to splinter our shinbones, but twenty-four of us are skidding around in an inch of black sludge.

  Leaky sprinklers. I worry about that, too—thousands of litres, evaporating, wasted. If science is right, it’ll turn into rain somewhere else, but screw that. We need it here. It’s like watching Dec pump coins into the pokies, knowing we need them at home, but that they’ll end up in government coffers, probably subsidising some mining magnate who has plans to frack all the way to China.

  Teams have been picked, coloured bibs distributed. Merrick has played his third sick card this term and he’s sitting on the bench, nursing his fake twisted ankle, keeping score. The sun is so bright my eyes are gritty and sore, like they were the time Ryley Peake yelled, ‘Look, McKee!’ and gave me a welding flash in Tech.

  Ten minutes into the scrimmage game and I land on my arse. One semi-flat ball, courtesy of Brock Tuwy’s left foot—smack on the bridge of my nose. I didn’t see it coming. I don’t see it leave, either.

  The PE teacher, Mrs Davis, jogs over. ‘What happened?’

  Mrs Davis hates her job. She hates us. Why do teachers think we can’t tell? She speaks like she has something caught in her throat—I worry whatever it is might dislodge one day and someone will lose an eye. I worry that my nose has spread across my entire face. I worry that worry, my constant companion, is trying to tell me something. I think worrying is a form of prayer for people who don’t believe in god.

  ‘McKee caught the ball with his face.’

  ‘Nice catch.’

  ‘Bwahaha.’

  I stand up, clutching my nose with one hand, my arse with the other. ‘May I go to the bathroom?’

  ‘The bathroom,’ someone sniggers.

  Mrs Davis peels my fingers away. She gives a low whistle. ‘Better ice that.’

  She turns her attention to Liam Baker. He’s on his hands and knees, lapping sprinkler water from a hole in the hose. Mrs Davis should warn Liam he could catch legionnaire’s disease, but instead she points her finger at him and screeches, ‘Nobody’s laughing!’ while everyone laughs.

  ‘You are one ugly motherfucker,’ Brock Tuwy says. ‘And you just got uglier.’

  Brock Tuwy is a year older than the rest of us. He was held back in Year Nine. He’s big, nasty, always cashed up, and I think he only comes to school because he has broken everything in his own house and the school at least replaces the things he breaks. He’s a destroyer, and I don’t mean that as a compliment—he doesn’t create anything, just tears things down. I wasn’t even on his radar until late last year, when I was practising a smile (something Merrick suggested I do regularly and in secret; apparently I don’t smile convincingly enough to pass for normal) right when Tuwy had to attempt a Physics equation on the whiteboard in front of the class, and failed. Anyway, freak convergence: Tuwy turned around, ready to kill anyone who dared to laugh at him, and there was me with a smile so wide my gums had dried.

  I look down. The ball has landed right at my feet, probably because it’s coated in muck, no longer ball-shaped, and weighs about three kilos more than a ball should.

  Brock’s eyes draw a straight line from my face to the ball. He makes a noise somewhere between a cough and a giggle. He toes the ball. It just misses my nuts and, when I cover them and lean over, he boots it again into my chest.

  Oof. Down I go again. Stay down.

  Merrick comes out of nowhere. I’ve seen videos of parachutists and that’s what he looks like—mouth open, cheeks puffed, T-shirt sleeves billowing like sails. Or like a rabid flying fox. He launches himself onto Brock’s back and digs his fingers into his eyeballs before I can remind him that we’ve talked about this: he has to control his temper, he’s trapped in a body that can’t back up his mouth.

  Mrs Davis is about to intervene but her squat legs can’t carry her fast enough. Brock peels Merrick from his back and flings him to the ground. Merrick’s T-shirt is shucked, revealing his gleaming set of ribs—to Brock, they must look like a cabinet full of his grandmother’s best china. He swings back his leg and takes aim.

  I’ve already figured the odds—a short victory and long period of regret—but I still get to my feet, pick up the ball, wind back my right hand, and upper-cut-swing it like an orange in a sock. The ball smashes into Brock Tuwy’s throat; his head snaps back and his legs fly out from under him—human motion in a graceful arc. Until he hits the mud.

  Physics isn’t my thing either but, if there’s a sweet spot, I found it.

  Mrs Davis screeches.

  Merrick sits up, dazed.

  I’m still half-winded, and Brock is clawing at his yeti-sized Adam’s apple, wheezing, thrashing.

  Mrs Davis bends over him. ‘Get up. Shake it off.’

  Brock rolls onto his side. His breaths are slowing.

  I take a step back from the action. The circle closes me out. By now my nose has its own heartbeat. If Brock is dead, I’m dead. I can barely survive a life sentence in Bairstal, let alone prison.

  ‘He’s choking,’ someone says.

  ‘Who knows CPR?’

  ‘That’s when you’ve stopped breathing, dumbarse, not when you’re trying to breathe.’

  ‘Get up, Brock,’ Mrs Davis says, white-faced. ‘Everyone’s laughing at you.’

  Nobody laughs.

  ‘I can’t help you if you won’t help yourself.’

  That’s what she says when she’s out of ideas.

  ‘Call an ambulance, Mrs Davis.’

  ‘Roll him onto his back.’

  ‘Let’s carry him to the office.’

  Merrick stands. He casually picks up his pen and note-pad and scribbles something. He holds it up so I can see.

  Tuwy—1.
/>   Merrick/McKee—2.

  I grab the pen from him. ‘You started it, you idiot,’ I hiss.

  Merrick’s jaw drops, but he’s laughing, and through the gap between somebody’s legs I catch a glimpse of Brock Tuwy’s face. He’s on his side, still wheezing and clutching his throat, but he’s staring at me, not a broken capillary in sight.

  He’s faking.

  This is my chance to rewrite history:

  Furious, I yank the ink tube from the pen, thinking of the countless number of disgusting spitballs Brock Tuwy has landed in my hair from the back of the classroom. I blow through the tube. It’s clear.

  ‘Let me through!’

  Merrick stops laughing. So he should.

  The crowd steps back.

  Mrs Davis, useless as ever, is standing over Brock’s writhing body with her phone to her ear. She covers it with one hand and says, ‘What on earth are you doing?’

  Her confusion is mirrored in Brock’s expression. He’s gone quiet and still.

  Roughly, I roll him onto his back and rip his hands away from his throat. ‘Emergency tracheotomy,’ I say. ‘Otherwise he’ll be dead by the time an ambulance gets here.’ I hold the pen just below his Adam’s apple. ‘It’s okay. I’ve done this before to my brother’s rabbit.’

  Brock’s eyes bulge.

  Under my breath, I say, ‘Your move, dickhead.’

  What really happens:

  Merrick says, ‘Your move, dickhead.’

  I excuse myself to go to the bathroom.

  I’m seeking an alternative reality by taking a different route home. To avoid getting my head kicked in by Tuwy—and to dodge Merrick—I choose the track that runs behind the disused warehouses on Smith Street, past the abandoned jeans factory and the empty public swimming pool. There used to be a row of Norfolk pines that gave some shade, but recently the council cut them down to make way for more public housing.

  I read about it. The soil is contaminated with oil. The buildings are cordoned off with temporary fencing. There’s a rat plague, junkie squatters, asbestos in the walls, lead in the pipes. The site’s still waiting for clearance from the EPA and could be vacant for decades.

  Don’t they know nobody cares? Offer people a roof over their heads today with a bonus terminal illness in twenty years’ time—they’ll choose the roof.

  We live in the moment. The future is too far away.

  It’s stinking hot and my phone’s dead. The skin on my face is swollen and tight. My clothes are crusted with dried mud and I have two days of afternoon detention, starting tomorrow. Brock’s move, as it turns out, was to elbow Mrs Davis in the cheekbone, call me a choice four-letter word and take off across the school oval like Forrest Gump. He didn’t come back to class. (When I was a kid, we used to have a German shepherd cross called Skitz who attacked you whenever you sneezed or laughed. Brock Tuwy reminds me of him.)

  A short way along, I realise Merrick is following me about fifty steps behind, whistling ‘Love Generation’. It’s driving me crazy, even though he’s a pretty good whistler.

  ‘Stop following me!’

  Anyone else would take that at face value, but not Merrick. He thinks I’m talking to him again, even after I told him I was never talking to him again.

  He closes the distance. ‘Wait up.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because. We’re mates.’

  ‘We’ve had this conversation.’

  ‘What? About loyalty?’

  ‘No, about including me in team Death Wish. I don’t want your loyalty.’

  He scratches his head. ‘What do you want? Seriously, McKee. What do you want?’

  Perfect scenario? ‘I want to be a sixteen-year-old philanthropist.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Someone who supports good causes.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Like a humanitarian.’ He nods wisely.

  ‘No, humanitarians are poor and they wear socks with sandals.’

  ‘So you want to be rich.’

  ‘Yes.’ I really, really do.

  ‘And then give it all away for a good cause.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘What for?’

  I squeeze through a gap between two sections of temporary fencing. ‘Well, I could be a humanitarian and lay a thousand bricks per day for Habitats for Humanity, or I could pay a thousand people to build their own houses. I’m thinking big.’

  He shakes his head. ‘No way you’d give it all away if you

  got rich.’

  ‘I would so.’

  ‘Nuh-uh. If you were born rich, maybe. But if you’re born poor and then get rich—maybe you’d blow it, but you’d never just give it all away.’

  ‘How would you know?’

  ‘I know you—all talk, no action.’

  Merrick throws his bag over the fence and climbs up it like a spider monkey. At the top, he grips the bar with two hands and flips over backwards, wincing when he doesn’t quite stick the landing and ends up eating dust.

  ‘What is it with you and doorways?’ I grumble. ‘There’s a bloody gap. Why do you have to do everything the hard way?’

  ‘Stick to your philanthropism,’ he says. ‘I’d rather get my hands dirty.’

  ‘Philanthropy.’

  ‘What-ever. You talk different to the way you do at school.’

  ‘What are you on about?’ I know what he means, but I won’t admit he has a point.

  ‘I mean you act dumb and it makes me want to punch you in the face.’

  ‘Well, you act smart and it makes me want to punch you in the face.’

  Merrick stops and lifts his chin. ‘Come on, then.’

  ‘What? Hit you?’

  ‘Yeah. Get it out of your system.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘And then I’ll show you what I’ve got in my pocket.’ He gives his version of an evil laugh, which sounds more like a squeaky dog toy.

  ‘Keep it in your pants, paedo.’

  ‘Fine. Look.’ He holds up an iPhone.

  ‘Is that an X? How’d you get that?’

  ‘It’s not mine. It’s Tuwy’s. I nicked it when I jumped him.’

  My guts lurch. So that’s what he meant by us being two-one

  up. ‘He’s gonna know it was you!’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Right. You don’t think he might retrace his steps and come to the conclusion that the last time he had it was right before he discovered the Artful fucking Dodger on his back?’

  Merrick looks so pleased with himself I think his face might split in two. With the amount of hindsight he has by now, his foresight should be improving.

  ‘It has a password,’ he says.

  ‘No kidding.’

  ‘It’s two-seven-six-two-five-nine.’

  ‘How’d you figure that out?’

  ‘Der. B-R-O-C-K-Y.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Deadly. Took me three guesses—Brock 1, Brocko, Brocky.’

  We’re about to come out behind the West Bairstal shops. If there’s going to be an ambush, it’ll be here. The Blockbuster on the corner has been empty for a few years. From experience, I know I can peek through the corner window and see along the concrete strip between the IGA, the deli and the laundromat. Chooks ‘n’ Chips on the opposite corner has an undercover outdoor eating area next to a block of public toilets—that’s the only black spot.

  I clean a patch on the window with my fist.

  Merrick comes up behind me. ‘All clear?’

  ‘I can’t see anyone.’ The shops are deserted. ‘You should go first since you got us into this mess.’

  ‘Okay.’

  I didn’t really expect him to go. Merrick is impulsive, not brave. But he swaggers down the middle of the strip, kicking an empty can. He’s cocky enough until he gets to the chip shop, but then he slows down, angling his body so he can see around the corner. Four more steps and he freezes.

  I mutter, ‘Shit—’

  Merrick adopts his
classic don’t-beat-me-up stance. He’s shaking his head, thumbing his chest and saying something that looks like, ‘Who? Me?’ He glances in my direction.

  My heart slams against my ribs.

  Merrick backs away slowly. Something makes him change his mind and he puts up his skinny fists. He disappears around the corner, into the blackspot.

  ‘Shit, shit, shit.’

  I wait for approximately two minutes. I know that’s two minutes too long, but I can’t get my feet to move.

  Just when I figure out that I can probably enter the chip shop and check through the side window before I decide to take on whoever or whatever is around that corner, Merrick dawdles back without a scratch on him.

  Typical.

  ‘You had me for a minute.’

  ‘You are such a disappointment,’ he says. ‘Where were you?’

  I shove him, only I push him harder than I mean to and his feet get tangled up in his bag straps. He goes down hard and cracks his skull on the concrete. I wait for him to fight back, but he just sits up, rubbing the back of his head.

  I’ll tell you what you get when you combine relief, anger and shame: stupidity.

  ‘There you go. More room for your brain.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ he says. ‘I’d rather swing and miss than duck and run any day.’

  I can’t stand the look he’s giving me, so I leave him there.

  SIX

  It’s official—it took six years for Merrick to come to our front door.

  When Dec got home late last night, he had to step over a pile of dog shit on the verandah. That’s all he did: step over it. Then he woke Nance and told her she had a delivery, which was code for clean it up. Nance is adept at deciphering code, but I said I’d do it. When I went outside to borrow Clancy’s shovel I found a Pokémon card next to the pile, which disproves our Art teacher’s comments about Merrick lacking nuance in his artistic expression.

  It’s not like Merrick to hold a grudge, but his ban for Tunza Fun ticket fraud (his photo is currently displayed on their wall of shame) means he’s supposed to complete community service, including running errands for the owner, Jack Berry, and doing poo patrol on Tuesdays and Saturdays at Jack Berry Dog Park. Otherwise Jack has threatened to ban him for life. ( Jack Berry is a local who got rich and stayed here. He spends his money on community projects, so most of our parks and playgrounds are named after him.)