This is How We Change the Ending

by Vikki Wakefield

  Things have been moved around: the couch and beanbags are in a different corner, along with the television, and there’s a new green rug in the middle of the room.

  Macy takes the saucepan off the stove and slams it down on the counter. She has a tattoo of Harry Potter’s glasses on the back of her neck. Last week her hair was blonde, shoulder-length and frizzy; today it’s black, shaved on one side and long on the other. She looks tired.

  ‘Nice rug,’ I tell her. ‘It’s the exact colour of your eyes.’

  Her eyes are brown.

  ‘I couldn’t get the bloodstains out,’ she says.

  That shuts me up.

  ‘Want some?’ She slops burnt macaroni cheese into a paper bowl and pushes it towards me. ‘Grub’s up!’ she yells.

  No takers.

  ‘How’s Mim?’

  ‘Home,’ she says. ‘They let her out yesterday. Thomas is covering her shifts for a couple of weeks.’

  ‘She’s coming back?’

  ‘Of course.’ She eyeballs me. ‘This ain’t a job, Nate. It’s a calling.’

  Macy always smirks after a serious statement, which means I never know what she really means.

  ‘You were late.’ I say it without thinking.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I know.’ She points to the bowl. ‘Are you gonna eat that?’

  ‘Not if it was the last food on earth and people were eating each other.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ She laughs. ‘You’re a funny guy. Help me get some boxes from the storeroom, would you?’

  I follow her down the hallway.

  ‘How long you been coming here, Nate?’

  I shrug. ‘Since I was about twelve?’

  She reaches to the top shelf and levers a box up with her fingertips.

  ‘I’ve got it,’ I say, and reach past her to lift it down. ‘This one too?’

  Macy nods. ‘What do you think would happen to these kids if this place wasn’t here?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean if they closed us down.’

  I drop the second box. ‘They threaten that all the time.’ She doesn’t say anything.

  ‘For real?’

  Still no answer.

  ‘Is it because of what happened to Mim?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘But what has that got to do with us?’

  ‘Damage control,’ she says. ‘There’s no money for security and someone has to be accountable.’ Her face is red. ‘I get it from both sides, you know. They make me cross every i and t and it’s still not enough. I stay up nights filling out grant applications. I bust my arse for you guys and all I get is whingeing about how the PlayStation doesn’t work properly. I’m tired of fighting for you little shits.’

  She’s almost in tears and it makes me uncomfortable.

  ‘You dot an i. You don’t cross it.’

  ‘Did you hear what I said?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  She picks up the box and shoves it at me. ‘Put these rolls in the toilet.’ She storms off.

  What does she want me to do? I’m a kid. Grown-ups are supposed to sort this stuff out. I’ve got the rest of my life to obsess about dotting and crossing things—geez, I’ve got high school to worry about, and my own dysfunctional family, as well as the shit I shouldn’t be worrying about but can’t help worrying about.

  When I go back to the rec room, Macy is outside having a smoke. Tash is packing away her headphones. She still doesn’t look up.

  I grab two dessert spoons from the kitchen drawer, take the saucepan of macaroni from the counter and slump into the beanbag next to Tash. I hand her a spoon.

  She looks at me as if I’ve grown an extra head. ‘No way.’

  ‘Trust me on this. We’re taking one for the team.’

  Tash sighs. She gets it. She scoops up one noodle.

  When Macy comes back inside, I show her the pan: the saucepan is empty apart from the black crust on the bottom.

  ‘Laptops,’ Mr Reid says. ‘Be quick about it.’

  The whole class rushes the cart. There are twenty-nine of us and sixteen of them, and it’s a mosh pit: laptops surfing above the crowd, pairs of hands in the air.

  I don’t bother. It wouldn’t matter if I got there first—someone bigger always relieves me of my prize. Kobe Slater is the worst. He sits right next to the cart, and sometimes he grabs one for Andrew Brink and Seb Green too.

  I slump in my seat and keep working at the hole I’ve made in the wooden desktop with the point of my compass. I happen to look up, and Mr Reid is watching me.

  Up go the eyebrows.

  I put the compass down. Mr Reid favours the hierarchal process: fight and ascend, or submit and sink. Everyone finds the level they deserve, he says. The man is a dinosaur.

  We’re supposed to be working on our book reports, but I figure I’ll use the time to knock something up about the mighty pen instead, so Mr Reid will get off my case. I pull out my notebook and begin writing. When I zone out like this, I only hear crickets.

  The sneeze arrives without warning. No delicate at-choo for me; mine bursts eardrums and scatters paper.

  ‘McKee! I won’t stand for your disruptions in this class.’

  There’s farting, burping, snickering, knee-jiggling, pen-tapping—and he picks on my sneeze?

  I sneeze again, which sets off a chorus of fakes.

  ‘Outside.’

  I gather my stuff and move to the corridor. There’s a chair by the door. I sit and wait for the talking-to. Fifteen minutes later I’m still waiting.

  I open my notebook again, tear out a page and begin writing. This is the first time I’ve ripped a page from my book, the first time I’ve said exactly what I think, unfiltered, to anyone but myself or Merrick.

  Mr Reid,

  Did you know? Human muscles have grown weaker about eight times faster than the rest of our bodies; over the same time period, our brains have evolved four times faster. We’re smarter, not stronger. We don’t need to chase prey anymore. Recessive genes abound because we can fix shit; we breed hairless cats and mutant dogs because we’re not happy with the painstaking job evolution has done over millions of years and unreal housewives need to colour-match their pets to their couches. We’ve got old, ugly, diseased men impregnating supermodels because the size of their eventual divorce settlement obvs outweighs the ick factor, and even a skinny kid like me has half a chance if I can prove I have a bigger bulge in my back pocket than my front. This is my time. I would have been unborn or dead early if these were Neolithic times. Supposedly the meek will inherit—one day, but not today, and not in your class. Not while we’re still living at home with our parents, and surely not while we’re wasting time sitting in a corridor anticipating an apology that doesn’t come, for a punishment that wasn’t deserved, for sneezing, which, by its very nature, is an involuntary reflex.

  I know you’re busy so I did some numbers for you: there are twenty-nine students in your class, and sixteen laptops. At least eleven students have their own devices. Granted, nine of these are alpha-people—por qué no los dos?—who fought and ascended and probably deserve two pieces of the pie. But if those students actually used their own devices, there would be just two without access to technology—not a perfect outcome, but I’m willing to stick with pen and paper and Benjamin Peros is always asleep anyway. Thoughts?

  Regards.

  Nate McKee

  P.S. I got bored and wandered off.

  When I’m finished, I leave the piece of paper on the chair and go to lunch.

  Mr Reid doesn’t bother coming to find me and there’s no announcement over the loudspeaker. I figured he’d forgotten I exist until I got back to my locker ten minutes early to grab my books for the next class.

  My note is taped to the door. Reid has graded it. And he’s made comments:

  B-. Rambling. Stay on topic and make the point, McKee. Take care not to allow sarcasm to undermine authoritative tone. ‘
Involuntary reflex’ = tautology (a reflex is, by its very nature, involuntary).

  P.S. Benjamin Peros doesn’t go to this school.

  I find him in the English room, still eating his lunch, shoes off, feet on the desk.

  ‘You’re smart enough, but your execution sucks,’ he says.

  I hold up my note. ‘For real? Peros doesn’t go here?’

  He sighs and drops the crust of his sandwich into the bin. ‘Keep it to yourself. If a seventeen-year-old dropout is that desperate to gate-crash my English class, I’m not going to stop him.’

  ‘He’s in my History class too.’

  Mr Reid nods. ‘The question is, what are you doing here?’

  ‘Turning up. Trying to pass Year Eleven.’

  ‘I meant right now.’

  ‘It was a sneeze.’

  ‘Your sneezes are full of disdain.’

  I laugh.

  ‘Your laughs, too.’

  ‘Not intentionally.’

  ‘Do you do anything with intent?’

  There’s something creepy about bare feet on a desk. Particularly a Morris dancer’s feet.

  Mr Reid made us read The Life of Pi in the last term of Year Ten. He talked about the difference between anthropomorphism and zoomorphism, and he made us assign an animal to each classmate based on their personality. And to ourselves. If Mr Reid was an animal, he’d be a marsupial mole. Dec is a jaguar—with a tan. Merrick: definitely a meerkat. Nance is something soft and shy, like a rabbit. The weird thing is, out of twenty-six classmates, twelve said I was an armadillo, which is an impressive stat considering half of them couldn’t even spell it.

  Mr Reid is doing his no-blinking thing again.

  ‘I forgot the question,’ I say. ‘But I have one for you: if I was an animal, what would I be?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Enquiring minds want to know.’

  ‘Enquiring minds should try being original once in a while.’

  ‘Originality is undetected plagiarism.’

  ‘You’re a walking quote generator, McKee. I want to know what you think.’ Blink.

  ‘I think I’m not an armadillo.’

  ‘Well,’ he says. ‘That’s a start.’

  EIGHT

  I’m lying on the top bunk, lights off, window open, playing the waiting game. Usually I can call it: Dec won’t be home, Nance will spend from seven until nine trying to get the boys to bed, Clancy will fire up some Elvis and start crooning, and Margie upstairs will begin her nightly smoking ceremony on the top step. And some time between nine and ten, when all is quiet, Merrick will come to my window.

  Everyone does the same thing at the same time. Every night.

  But tonight, Dec is home. Clancy’s playing Bob Dylan super loud. Nance hasn’t even started the two-hour wind-down ritual, the boys are still bouncing off the walls, Merrick won’t be coming to my window, and I can’t smell smoke. The only sure thing is O’s screaming.

  It’s like the wind is blowing from a different direction: nothing is the same.

  At ten-thirty the front door slams. Dec strides along the pathway between the flats, probably on his way to the pub.

  A few minutes later, the bedroom door opens and Jake wanders in wearing pyjamas. ‘Nance says tell Clancy to shut up.’

  ‘Me?’

  He nods and yawns.

  ‘Is it bedtime?’

  Jake rubs his crotch just like Dec does. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Clancy, shut up!’ I yell through the window. ‘Happy?’

  Across the way, the light in Merrick’s room goes out. I squint. It’s a black night. I’ve been watching for over an hour and my eyes feel as if somebody threw sand in my face. Of course he would choose to make his move now.

  I make Jake squat next to me.

  Merrick shimmies through the open window and shuffles on his butt to the edge of the gutter.

  Jake tugs on my arm. ‘What are you looking at?’

  ‘Nothing. Go to bed.’

  ‘Merri…!’

  I clap my hand over his mouth. ‘Shh.’

  ‘Why?’ he mumbles against my palm.

  Merrick does a commando drop ‘n’ roll and gets to his feet holding his hip. He limps a few steps, turns to look up at his window, then takes off the same way Dec did. He’s up to something.

  Otis is sob-hiccuping in the lounge.

  ‘Tell Nance I’ve gone out,’ I say, grabbing a jacket. ‘Close the window when I’ve gone, okay?’ I slip my arms through the sleeves and shove my phone in my back pocket.

  ‘Where you going?’

  ‘Out, I said.’

  Merrick has a head start, and now Jake’s hanging onto the back of my jeans.

  ‘Let go.’

  ‘No.’

  I prise his fingers apart and he starts yelling.

  Nance comes to the bedroom with Otis on her hip. ‘Bed, mister,’ she says to Jake. ‘You going out?’ Otis has thrown up on her shoulder, but she doesn’t seem to have noticed. ‘It’s late.’

  ‘Yeah. Just for a while.’

  ‘Let go, Jake.’ She takes his other hand and winces when he grips her bandaged thumb.

  We’re a human daisy chain: I’m hanging onto the window ledge, Jake has hold of my jeans, and Nance is pulling Jake.

  Otis finds it all hilarious.

  Now Merrick is almost out of sight. I reach behind me and slap Jake’s hand hard enough to shock him into letting me go.

  Nance stumbles back. Her shoulder slams into the corner of the bunk bed.

  ‘Nate hit me!’ Jake yells.

  ‘I smacked you. That’s different.’

  Nance seems to fold in on herself. ‘There’s not a whole lot of difference, Nate,’ she says quietly, and gathers Jake to her body with her spare arm.

  ‘I have to go!’

  ‘Then go.’

  I throw my leg over the windowsill.

  ‘You leave this house through the front door. You say goodbye, and you tell the people you love that you love them.’ Nance is crying. ‘If you love them.’

  I have no idea what I did to make her cry. I pull my leg back. ‘What’s wrong? Is it your hand?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Did Dec…’

  ‘He didn’t do anything. Go!’ She lays Otis on the mattress and gestures to Jake. ‘In you get, mister.’

  O has other ideas. Now that he has learned to roll over, it makes getting him into bed a wrestling match. In one slick move he flips onto the floor, and Jake bursts into giggles. But Otis has bumped his head—he lies there for a few seconds, stunned, until his mouth makes the shape that gave him his nickname and his uvula starts flapping and his scream could wake the dead.

  ‘Help me get him up!’ Nance shouts.

  I manage to get my arms underneath his body, but he’s thrashing and snapping at us. Nance cops a fist to her cheek and retreats. Jake has crawled to a corner. I pull Otis’s arms and pin them against his body; he arches his back and throws his head from side to side, switches direction and delivers a head butt to my nose, which is still sore from Tuwy’s kick.

  ‘Fuck!’ I groan and put him down.

  He stops screaming.

  ‘Shut those bloody kids up!’ Clancy next door bellows.

  ‘Shh.’ Nance covers O with her body and plants soft kisses on his neck. ‘You okay, bub?’ she says to me between kisses. ‘That was a good one.’

  ‘This place is a circus!’ I’m breathing heavily. I might be bleeding or it could be snot. ‘Fuck!’

  It goes quiet until Otis says, ‘Fuck,’ clear as day.

  Nance’s body is shaking. I can’t see Otis at all.

  ‘Don’t cry,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Nance, don’t cry,’ Jake repeats.

  She sits up with her legs tucked under her, hands on her knees. ‘I’m not crying.’ She’s trying to catch her breath. ‘Did you hear that?’ She slips sideways, holding her stomach, and gives in to an attack of silent, helpless laughter. ‘Did you hear what he
said? It’s a miracle.’

  I’d have put money on ‘fuck’ being one of O’s first five words. ‘It’s hardly a miracle,’ I tell her as something warm and wet drips from my chin.

  Otis reaches out a hand. ‘Nate.’

  I give him a death-stare. ‘Thug baby.’

  ‘Don’t squeeze,’ Jake tells me. ‘He hates it when you squeeze.’

  Otis grunts and wiggles his fingers.

  I give in. I move closer but stay out of reach. ‘What?’

  Closer, his hand is telling me.

  I close my eyes and lean in, ready for another hit, but all I feel is the lightest touch. When I pull away, Otis’s lips are stained with blood—my nose is so numb I didn’t even know I’d been bitten.

  ‘You’re bleeding.’ Nance reaches for the ever-present tissue in her pocket.

  ‘He bit me!’

  ‘He kissed it better,’ she says. ‘Nate, do you know what that means?’

  I nod. It means O is sorry. It means he feels guilt. He feels empathy. It means his world is bigger today.

  And now Nance is crying again.

  I’m lying on my stomach on the top bunk, again, trying to get started on the essay I owe Mr Reid. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s better than trying to work in the kitchen during feeding time at the zoo.

  I tear out another page and crumple it into a ball.

  After my nose took its second hit, I stayed awake for most of the night, waiting for Merrick to come home. That was two days ago. Maybe he got bored, or he’s gone to his mum’s. I’ve texted, but he doesn’t answer, and he’s blocked me on socials. I’ve even knocked on the door of the flat, but his old man just screeched something I couldn’t understand and threw a plate. The only good thing to come out of this is Nance’s hydrangea—it’s sprouting green leaves and purple flowers.

  I guess some things thrive on shit.

  There’s a light knock on the bedroom door, and it opens slowly. Nobody but Nance ever bothers to knock. I take aim for the basket in the corner of the room and land a three-pointer with the discarded page.

  ‘Shot.’

  My heart rate goes nuts. It’s Dec.

  ‘S’up.’

  ‘Gotta talk to you about something. Between us.’ Dec hoists himself onto the end of my bunk. The top of his head rubs the ceiling. ‘I don’t want Nance to hear.’