This is How We Change the Ending

by Vikki Wakefield

  Shit. This is going to be like Dec’s version of The Sex Talk. I wrote it all down.

  Me: Jordan Brinkley grabbed my balls today.

  Dec: In or out?

  Me: In or out of what?

  Dec: Your pants.

  Me: What? Out.

  Dec: Did you give a full salute?

  Me: Huh?

  Dec: A trouser tent.

  Me: No! It hurt. I didn’t know what to do.

  Dec: [sighs] This is what you do. You gotta wait for her to come to you. Wait for her to ask for it, otherwise you’ll be a dog on a leash. Is she pretty? She got tits yet? Wait. How old are you?

  Me: Twelve.

  Dec: Mate, wank it until you’re old enough to bank it. Trust me on this.

  Me: Huh?

  Dec: No deposits until you can handle the withdrawal.

  Me: Withdrawal?

  Dec: It’s an art form, mate. You’ve gotta time your exit. Leave it too late and you’ll be changing nappies—one day you pull out your dipstick and there’ll be a fucken foetus on the end of it. Or two, in my case. Look at Nance. Shit. Never thought I’d say this—look, tell this Jordan chick, no glove no love. If your swimmers are anything like mine it won’t matter if you master the pull-out—these fuckers are egg-seeking missiles [grabs his groin].

  Me: Dec…

  Dec: Seriously, don’t they teach you this shit at school?

  Me: I know how babies are made. Dec…

  Dec: So you want to know about the relationship stuff?

  Me: [sighs]

  Dec: I love Nance. Nance loves me. It’s that simple. Nothin’ we can’t sort out when you’ve got love like that.

  Me: Yeah, but…

  Dec: Me and your mum were different. I felt it in here [grabs his groin again] but I didn’t feel it in here [puts his hand on his heart]. Me and Nance have got a leash on each other. That’s what a relationship is, mate. Y’know?

  Me: Dec…

  Dec: You’ll know it when you feel it.

  Me: Okay, but…

  Dec: This Jordan is just practice. You gotta go in with full armour until you learn how to wave your sword without starting something you can’t finish, okay?

  Me: Dec!

  Dec: What?

  Me: Jordan Brinkley is a guy.

  Dec: Whoah. Whoah. You let a guy grab your junk?

  Me: I was trying to tell you. He wanted to rip them off.

  Dec: Right. Well…

  That was ‘The Sex Talk’. Closely followed by the ‘How to End a Guy Who Grabs Your Junk’ talk. I wrote that one down, too. I haven’t had the chance to put either into practice.

  ‘Put the book away,’ Dec says now.

  I close my notebook and slide it under the pillow.

  ‘Sit up.’

  I do.

  ‘Pay attention.’

  I am.

  ‘You listening?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Dec clenches and unclenches his fist. ‘Family Services sent a letter. Your mum tracked us down again.’

  ‘Right.’ My head is spinning. Tracked us down…tracked us down…were we hiding?

  ‘She wants to see you.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Anyway, I can’t stop her. I tried. But you can—you’re a man now. You’re old enough to tell them you don’t want to see her.’

  Not if I don’t want to see her. And he tried to stop it? What’s up with that? But I have to be careful what I say. It’s like Otis saying my name first—Dec can’t handle being last.

  ‘Why now? I haven’t seen her for years.’

  ‘I know, right?’ He puts his heavy hand on my head. ‘Mate.

  It’s okay to be angry.’

  I am.

  ‘You just gotta put that big vocab into action and write a letter. Tell her to stay away.’

  ‘I could do that in two words.’ I’m saying all the right things, but already I’m leaning in the direction of her.

  He nods. ‘Make it at least a page. Like you put some thought into it.’ He takes his hand away.

  My head feels impossibly light. It’s going to detach and float off like a hot-air balloon.

  ‘What if I see her and I tell her? Then she’ll leave us alone.’ Dec is already saying no. No—she’s unstable. No—she’ll tear our family apart and we’re perfect the way we are. No—she’ll fill my head with bullshit excuses. Change my mind, brainwash me.

  And I’m telling him I can handle it—like he said, I’m a man now.

  ‘She left us.’

  ‘I know, but…’

  ‘This is all about her. Not you. She’ll hurt Nance and the boys.’

  I hold up a hand. I just want him to give me space to breathe and think.

  ‘Write the letter,’ he says. ‘You’ve got us. You don’t need her back in your life.’

  That’s Dec. Always telling me what I need.

  To whom it may concern,

  Thank you for your visitation request. At this point in time it has been disrespectfully declined.

  To Ex-Mrs-McKee,

  You owe maintenance. And an explanation.

  Dear Angela,

  It’s been a while. How are you?

  To Mum,

  I don’t need you. I don’t want to see you. Things are fine without you. I can’t remember what you look like.

  Dear Mum,

  When you were packing your suitcase I asked you what you were doing. I knew what you were doing. You had only packed your things, not mine. Except for my baby photos—you took them, but not me. I can’t remember what I used to look like.

  I can write letters to nobody like nobody’s business—why is the real stuff the hardest to write? In the end, I go with something simple but true:

  Mum,

  Here’s my number. Btw, Dec can’t know. I can’t promise anything.

  NINE

  Six of us have been chosen to attend a careers expo at a school called Saint Monica’s: me, Will Farnsworth, Lee Fortescu, Gurmeet Chambal, Leila Price and Zadie Zhang. In a surprise ambush, Mr Reid didn’t tell us about it until this morning, probably so we couldn’t get out of it.

  I have several problems with this excursion: I’m sure it contravenes all kinds of laws to take us off premises without parental permission, and I have trouble believing there was ever a saint named Monica. It’s as ridiculous as having a saint called Keith. Also, my underdeveloped frontal cortex can’t compute how I’m supposed to decide what to do with the rest of my life when I can’t even decide what do to tomorrow, or the day after that.

  ‘Why us?’ Leila says.

  ‘We’re geeks,’ Gurmeet replies.

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ I mumble.

  Zadie throws me a dirty look. ‘Most likely to be employed one day?’

  I point to my chest. ‘Again, I offer Exhibit A.’

  I don’t know what I am. I’m not a geek. Geeks have no currency here. I don’t count as sporty—basketball is a calling for Deng and an escape for someone like me. I’m not tough either, but I will be when I start growing out instead of up. When Dec’s genes kick in.

  ‘We’re losers,’ Lee says.

  No one disagrees.

  We’re packed into Mr Reid’s Audi Q7. Will keeps messing with the LED touch lights. I have the passenger-side kiddie seat in the back and my knees are touching my earlobes. Zadie Zhang is next to me, playing Tetris on her phone, trying her hardest not to make any kind of contact, and wearing her usual long-suffering expression. (Zadie suffers a lot because alphabetical order means she’s last at everything.) She doesn’t give me the slightest twinge in my reproductive organs, but Zadie’s disgust upsets me more than most. She’s my female equivalent, except she thinks she’s better than me, and if Zadie Zhang would rather deliberately headbutt the window than accidentally let her knee brush mine, things are more dire than I thought. I’d give anything to be kissed by a girl—even Zadie. I don’t fantasise about her—not exactly—but I do feel our futures are somehow intertwined.

&nbs
p; Rowley Park’s Class of 2020 High School Reunion—only about ten people have turned up because the rest either didn’t graduate, or they died from drug overdoses or botched burglaries. I’ve filled out a bit. My acne has cleared up, but otherwise I look the same (no way am I getting a makeover in order to win friends and influence people). I don’t recognise Zadie at first. I buy her a drink and she tells me she’s an air traffic controller—all that Tetris has paid off. She’s got amazing legs. She’s impressed when I tell her I broke Wyatt Roy’s record for becoming the youngest federal politician and she wants a ride home in my government car, but not before we have a surrealconversation about waxing versus shaving. She grabs my hand and runs it along her inner thigh. (I realise I’m a hypocrite for making Zadie hot, but I can’t rewrite the scene when she’s singing ‘No Diggity’ to me.) ‘Oh, waxing, definitely,’ I tell her, and she whispers, ‘Pleeeease—’

  ‘—stop touching my leg!’

  Okay, so I sometimes fantasise about her.

  ‘I didn’t mean to,’ I stammer. ‘We turned a corner.’

  ‘What’s going on back there?’ Mr Reid eyeballs me in the rear-view mirror.

  Zadie says, ‘Are we there yet? Because if we’re not I’d like to switch seats.’

  ‘We’re almost there.’

  Saint Monica’s is all girls. Not only that, it’s a private school with a motto that sounds like a slogan advertising a deluxe Fiat or something. To get to the gym we have to walk along a long, paved path flanked by leafy trees and deadly rosebushes. Each brick on the path has a name engraved on it. Mr Reid tells us it’s called Avenue of the Millions. At first I think he means a whole bunch of people donated a million bricks, but then I realise he’s talking about dollars.

  Millions.

  A group of students passes us going in the opposite direction, and I’m guessing racquet sports and good nutrition must speed up evolution because the girls are terrifying in long socks and tartan skirts. They give us the side-eye—too polite to stare, but too curious not to look.

  Whatever the opposite of slumming it is, that’s what we’re doing today.

  Mr Reid leads us to a gym the size of four basketball courts. I bet he’s already wishing he hadn’t brought us here. Our school ‘uniform’ consists of any item from the K-Mart or Big W black-and-maroon collection or anything you can get away with. I’m wearing my ripped Cleveland Cavs T-shirt and black jeans—I never show leg, even in forty-degree heat, not since Brock Tuwy pointed out I’m knock-kneed as well as ugly.

  At the door, two girls hand us calico tote bags with the school emblem on one side. I’m dying to look inside (freebies are excellent) but I don’t want to look like a kid with a show bag.

  Lee Fortescu slips his hand into the bag and feels around. ‘There’s a pen,’ he announces.

  Mr Reid herds us into a foyer. ‘The idea is, you chat to whoever piques your interest and take information if it’s available. There are uni reps, too. Keep it short and to the point. Ask them whatever you like except how much money they make.’

  ‘That’s a fair question,’ Will Farnsworth says.

  ‘It’s a rude question. And remember, you’re representing me and the school. I chose you because I’m reasonably confident you won’t let me down. This is the dreaming part of your plan. Remember?’

  Dream—Goal—Plan—Action—Reality.

  We all nod.

  He checks his watch. ‘We have one hour. Imagine anything is possible and keep telling yourselves that. Off you go.’

  Anything is possible.

  Anything is possible.

  Anything is possible.

  We peel off in different directions.

  Saint Monica’s Recreation Centre (it’s not a gym) is packed, and the roof is high enough for another storey or a mezzanine floor.

  Our gym has yellow asbestos warning signs all over the walls and the rafters are so low that there are more balls stuck in the rafters than there are in the equipment lockers. Our gym is also the best place to collect samples to grow weird things in agar.

  I count around a hundred cubicles separated by carpeted partitions, with printed signs above each one, like Surgeon (Cardiothoracic), Veterinarian, Early Childhood Educator, Electrical Engineer, Human Rights Lawyer, Magistrate, Futures Trader, Member of Parliament, Geophysicist, Radiologist, Pathologist…lots of -ists and -ologists and -arians. It’s professional and intimidating, except they’ve used Bradley Hand font on the signs, and I find it hard to believe a school with a coat of arms and a Latin motto doesn’t have a policy to prevent font-based judgements.

  One line stretches from half-court to the baseline of Court 3; I join the queue, only to realise they’re all waiting for a uni rep. Zadie, I notice, is interested in teaching. (I’m not sure playing Tetris and avoiding human contact is the best preparation for that.) Gurmeet is still loitering by the entrance, and Will is helping himself to the coffee machine.

  I leave the line.

  There’s one guy by himself in the far corner. Franchisee. The only -ee in the room and I figure it’s a good omen: one day I’d quite like to be an employee. ‘Bob’ is obese, bald and unshaven, and he’s doodling cubes and arrows on a notepad.

  I sit down. ‘Nate,’ I say, offering my hand.

  ‘Bob.’ We shake and he leans back in his chair. ‘You’re my first. What are we supposed to do now?’

  ‘I dunno. Analyse your doodles?’

  He shrugs, tears the top sheet off, and screws it into a ball. ‘Ask me anything you want to know, I guess.’

  Fifty-three minutes to go—still almost a whole hour of feeling like one of Merrick’s bin chickens.

  On our way out, a grey-haired woman wearing a Saint Monica’s blazer hugs Mr Reid, tells him everyone misses him and says she hopes he has found what he was looking for.

  He takes a long time to answer. ‘Thank you for letting my students come today. It’s not an experience they’ll forget.’

  ‘It’s a fabulous learning opportunity,’ she says, beaming. ‘We’re always happy to share resources.’

  Mr Reid pats his comb-over all the way to the car park. ‘So what did you all think?’ he asks when we’re seated.

  Leila smirks. ‘There was an opera singer.’

  ‘Oh, do you sing, Leila?’

  ‘No. Just thought it was pretty unhelpful. All of it, really.’

  ‘Gurmeet?’

  ‘It was okay.’ Gurmeet stuffs his bag under the seat. ‘Just pamphlets and stuff.’

  ‘Oh yeah, I found my vocation,’ Zadie says, sneering. ‘What about you, Will?’

  Will shrugs. ‘The surgeon makes around four hundred grand a year. I asked and he told me, and then he said if I worked hard and studied for about ten years and paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, I could be one too.’ He frowns and gazes out the window. ‘Jobs are expensive.’

  ‘Such a great learning opportunity.’ Zadie reaches across and taps my shoulder. ‘What did you think, Nate?’

  I’ve got a hot spot just under my heart. It was there before Zadie touched me voluntarily, and it’s spreading. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many perfectly good sandwiches in a single rubbish bin.

  I mutter, ‘Options.’

  ‘What about options?’ Mr Reid says.

  ‘There were so many.’

  ‘And none appealed to you?’

  ‘Some did. I spent most of the time talking to a franchisee called Bob.’

  Leila laughs. ‘The lawnmower guy?’

  ‘The whole hour?’ Mr Reid says.

  ‘I felt sorry for him—nobody was lining up.’

  ‘Probably not the best use of your time, Mr McKee.’

  ‘I learned a lot. Twenty-five thousand bucks will buy me in. I’d have to mow about seven hundred lawns to recoup my investment—actually, more like eight hundred because fifteen per cent are write-offs. Once I pay tax and expenses I guess it’s more like a thousand lawns, plus franchise fees—so around twelve hundred lawns should do it.’

/>   ‘You’ve done your sums. Is mowing lawns a new life goal?’ Mr Reid is amused.

  ‘Nobody in Bairstal even has a lawn,’ I tell him. ‘And you have to have money to make money.’

  He frowns.

  ‘Forget it.’

  ‘No. Tell me.’

  I turn around in my seat. ‘Hey, Will? How much cash is in your pocket right now?’

  ‘None,’ he says. ‘I spent my last four bucks on their shit coffee.’

  ‘Leila?’

  ‘About fifty cents.’

  ‘Gurmeet?’

  He shrugs. ‘Twenty dollars. But that’s to buy nappies for my mum on my way home.’

  Will cracks up. ‘Your mum wears nappies?’

  ‘All right, all right. Your point, McKee?’ Mr Reid says.

  ‘Some girl was complaining because she needed change to buy a shit coffee and she only had a twenty, so I offered her my four bucks change. She really really wanted a coffee.’

  ‘And?’ Mr Reid looks nervous. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Don’t worry, I didn’t mug her or anything. I just—’ I rub my temples. I’ve got a massive headache. ‘If she’d given me the twenty, I would have split it with you guys. She’d have her coffee and we’d all be better off.’

  ‘But she didn’t want to trade?’

  ‘That’s the thing—she did.’

  ‘So? Did you take it?’

  ‘No.’

  Will whistles through his teeth. ‘Dickhead.’

  ‘She said, “Say please,” and when I took it she said, “Now say thank you.” Screw that. I don’t get why she was so surprised when I gave it back.’

  ‘A reasonable reaction would be to show gratitude,’ Mr Reid says.

  ‘It wasn’t worth twenty bucks to kiss her arse.’

  ‘Fair enough, McKee. Fair enough.’

  ‘I still think you’re a dickhead,’ Will says.

  But Zadie mutters under her breath, ‘Screw that.’

  It goes quiet inside the car. Mr Reid adjusts the rear-view mirror and starts the engine.

  I blurt, ‘You want to know what I think? I think we’re helpless, and being helpless is about the worst thing you can be—except maybe a psychopath, but anyway—there should be people who help us navigate this shit so we’re not helpless. So we have options. Real options. That’s what I think.’