This is How We Change the Ending

by Vikki Wakefield

  Mr Reid is doing his no-blinking again.

  ‘I chose the only option I thought I could choose, except it turned out to be just as unlikely as Will ever making four hundred grand a year.’

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘Sorry, Will. I’m pissed off.’

  Nothing from Mr Reid.

  I punch the door. ‘Fuck! Why’d you bring us here anyway?’ With the exception of Lee, who’s rummaging through his show bag, we’re all hunched in, arms crossed. This is what it takes to bring us together.

  I used to like school. I liked it when my teachers praised me in class or shared my work. I don’t know exactly when I decided school was pointless, and I don’t know if school did it to me or the other way around, but now it feels like taking a long train ride in the dark—nothing to see, nowhere to go but straight ahead, no place to disembark because the train never, ever stops. I’ve been waiting for my time like it’s some kind of inevitable destination. I’m starting to think you have to close your eyes and jump.

  Mr Reid puts the car into reverse and looks over his left shoulder, even though it has a reversing camera. ‘I’m glad you’re all pissed off,’ he says slowly, as he pulls out of the car park, narrowly missing the heavy wrought-iron gate. ‘It means you’re thinking.’

  I shake my head. ‘What good is that? It’s not like we can do anything.’

  He nods as if I’ve scored a point. But then he says, ‘Of course you can. This is about life. It’s easy to choose the path of least resistance—it’s much more difficult to be the resistance.’

  Gurmeet huffs. ‘Who has time for that? We’re all just trying not to get our heads kicked in.’

  ‘This is how I see it,’ continues Mr Reid. ‘First you fight your allies—it’s just human nature. Then you fight your enemies. They’re beatable because they’re willing to engage.’

  ‘Then what?’ My rage has gone off the boil already. ‘What if you beat them?’

  Straightaway, I regret it. We’re trapped for the next hour in a car with a guy who probably practises his speeches on his fifteen cats. I don’t want to give him a platform.

  Reid makes eye contact in the rear-view mirror. ‘Then you fight apathy. Apathy is the true enemy because it just doesn’t care.’

  I reach across the console. ‘Is this the part where you say we can do anything or be anything we want—all we have to do is work hard and follow our dreams?’

  ‘No,’ Mr Reid says. ‘This is the part where I ask you to put your seatbelt on and stop waving your fist in my face. I’m not your enemy.’

  —

  When I get home, Nance is napping on the couch, curled up with her arms tucked under her legs. She looks as if she’s tied in a knot. The boys are asleep too.

  I throw my bag in a corner and forage in the kitchen for something quick to eat, but all I can find is a half-empty packet of plastic cheese slices and a dozen snack-sized packets of the barbecue chips nobody likes, including me.

  I’m still angry, mostly with myself. Apart from the girl who needed change, the Saint Monica’s students were nice: well-mannered, friendly, welcoming.

  They’re free to save the world. The rest of us have to find our way out of the jungle first.

  I pull out a chair at the kitchen table and take my books out of my backpack as quietly as possible. I have Geography homework and Chem revision to finish. Usually I try to get homework done during lunch because it’s quieter in the school library than at home, but today’s unexpected excursion means I didn’t have the chance.

  I get fifteen minutes of pre-procrastination done before Jake wanders in. He stares at Nance until she sits up, blinking, and Otis lets us know he’s awake too. A moment later, there’s the jingle of Dec’s keys. He staggers in with red eyes and a bleeding foot, which makes me simultaneously pleased that he does in fact bleed and worried he’s so far gone he doesn’t feel it.

  ‘You’re drunk,’ Nance says. ‘It’s not even five o’clock.’

  Dec falls onto the couch and pulls Nance close. Her knots unwind and she turns liquid. When O starts yelling from the bedroom, Dec pulls her closer and whispers something that makes her smile, and I wonder how long before they disappear into their bedroom and close the door.

  Like Dec said, he loves Nance, and Nance loves him. But it’s not simple like he said—it’s complicated in a way that makes my brain hurt, and it makes me worry I’m not normal because I don’t think about sex a million times a day like Merrick does, and when I do think about it, it feels like something I don’t want to do because of all the responsibilities that come from doing it. I suspect, if it’s true there’s nothing they can’t sort out with love like theirs, Nance wouldn’t cry as often as she does.

  ‘What’re you doing?’ Dec asks over his shoulder.

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Homework.’

  He snorts. ‘Right.’

  Nance shifts.

  Dec hauls her back. ‘Go see to O,’ he says.

  ‘I’m doing homework,’ I repeat. ‘This assignment is due tomorrow.’

  Nance tries to get up, but he catches hold of the straps of her top. One day I might tell him he looks like Jabba the Hut yanking Leia’s neck chain. But not today.

  ‘What’s for dinner?’ Dec asks.

  Nance says, ‘Chips?’

  Dec looks at me.

  I know what’s coming next—I’ll have to pick up extra-large chips and ninety-nine cent Vietnamese bread. Cheapest meal you don’t have to cook yourself, because Dec keeps his weed money for betting.

  Otis screams and Nance squawks.

  ‘Okay, I’m going.’ I close my textbook.

  The slap is loud and Dec’s head whips around. ‘You giving me attitude?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I reckon you are.’

  Nance’s eyes: she’s pleading with me.

  ‘I’m not. I’m going, all right?’ I make it halfway across the room before Jake appears in the doorway, holding something in his fist. Otis is quiet now. ‘What have you got? Where’s O?’ I ask him, but he presses his lips together.

  ‘Leave him alone,’ Dec slurs. ‘He’s just a kid.’

  Jake pushes Nance out of the way and crawls onto his lap.

  In the bedroom, Otis is lying on his side. It’s like he fell asleep on the floor halfway through a tantrum, except his eyes are open. One of his Barbies has been beheaded. I assume Jake has it in his fist, until I notice a raw patch of skin on O’s head, a chunk of his hair missing, and the Barbie’s head under the bed.

  There’s no way I’ll be finishing my homework tonight.

  I sit on the floor next to O, stroking his face, wondering why he’s not crying, worrying about whether eating chips four nights a week can cause adolescent heart disease and if bread that doesn’t grow mould after a month in a sweaty plastic bag is carcinogenic.

  Most of all I worry about Nance’s reaction when I tell her Jake has taken another piece of Otis, only this time he did it on purpose.

  TEN

  Full moon lunacy is an actual phenomenon. So are Friday Night Fights at Youth.

  By the time I roll in, three people have already been ejected and Macy and Thomas look as if they need full riot gear. It’s as if everyone has been on their best behaviour all week and Youth is the place to where it all spills over: an argument starts over nothing, others pile on for something to do, the fight ends up in the car park and the cops come to break it up. When the paras arrive for an OD, you know the party’s over.

  Deng’s hanging around the Rage Cage, bouncing his Spalding between his legs. Someone has cable-tied a rusty ring to the fence. There’s no backboard but I guess it’s better than nothing.

  ‘Shootout?’ he says.

  I nod. ‘I’ll get the lights.’

  ‘They’re not working.’

  ‘Unfair advantage.’

  He bounce-passes me the ball. ‘It’s okay.’

  ‘Where’s Coop?’

  He shrugs. �
�Where’s Merrick?’

  ‘Gone to the dark side.’

  A few younger kids gather to watch.

  Deng wants to practise his post moves, so I’m stuck in D. His advantages are many: he’s faster, more athletic, and his standing jump is almost double mine. When it’s one-on-one, we play no-charge rules in the key. Just about anything goes, except elbows and knees. His drives are pretty brutal, but I manage to put him off a few shots and box him out for some rebounds off the fence.

  After ten minutes, I’ve used all my oxygen.

  Deng beats his chest. ‘I am the beast in the paint!’

  I’m dripping with sweat. Deng’s not even breathing hard.

  ‘I quit. I’m going inside.’

  ‘One more,’ he says. ‘Fast feet. Like this.’

  He jabs left and drives right, leaving me flat-footed. His shoulder catches mine on the way through, and I land hard on my wrists and arse, hissing through my teeth as the asphalt shreds a layer of skin from my arm. The kids at the fence oooooh.

  Deng offers his hand, but I slap it away and get up by myself.

  ‘It’s okay,’ he says. ‘You were in my way.’

  Deng always says things are okay, even when they’re not.

  ‘Charge.’ I punch my palm.

  He bangs his fists against his hips. ‘Block.’

  ‘It was a charge.’

  ‘Block. Your feet move. You flap your wings. You should be like a statue—no move, no fear.’ Deng spins the ball on his index finger, making clucking sounds, and the kids egg him on.

  It’s all right for him. He’s only fifteen but he’s already playing Under 23s. He doesn’t have to feel around for a way out. His exit has a big red flashing sign: This way to the NBA.

  I punch his precious Spalding like a speedball—it shoots through the cage entrance, ricochets off the car park light post and bounces across the car park towards the road.

  Deng chases after it.

  Cooper has finally turned up. ‘What was all that about?’ he says, staring after him.

  We still have an audience. My face burns. ‘He dropped his shoulder.’

  ‘No-charge rule counts.’ Coop catches Deng’s pass in one huge hand. ‘Can’t leave you two alone for a second. You’ve got anger issues, man.’ He shakes his head and lays the ball up.

  My temper can get me in just as much trouble as Merrick’s mouth.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say to Deng when he comes back. ‘I’m having a bad day.’

  Deng gives me knuckles. ‘It’s only one day.’

  ‘I’m having a bad life, then.’

  He throws his arm around my shoulders. ‘It’s okay.’

  Everything inside the centre is occupied: TV, pool table, laptops, beanbags. Someone’s playing music too loud and I can hear the thump of the ball as Cooper and Deng carry on scrimmage without me. Trent Povey, Youth’s resident spaceman, is taking up the whole couch. Povey can sleep through anything.

  Macy was here a moment ago, but now she isn’t. With Mim away, it just leaves Thomas and that makes me nervous.

  I’m still having flashbacks. I jump every time I hear the door.

  There’s been a new wave of kids in the past few months, some as young as eight. I’ve been coming here so long I’m starting to feel like staff, but Macy says she won’t know the new kids for half their lives the way she knows Merrick and me. These days she has to report everything. The system will swallow up these kids.

  According to the Book of Macy, the best people in youth services were once the worst human beings, or they’ve at least been up close and personal with some Very Bad Things. She says you shouldn’t judge others until you’ve sat down, shut the fuck up and listened to their story—and not just the parts you want to hear. Macy is straight up about recovering from domestic violence, meth addiction and homelessness. When she talks, we do as she says—we sit down and shut up. Macy can be scary, but she’s real.

  Thomas is ex-army. He lived on the streets for fifteen years. There was a rumour he served time for attempted murder, but Macy told us that’s not his whole story either. Some drunk idiots pinched his shopping trolley and rolled it into the river, so Thomas gave the idiot he caught a couple of busted ribs and made him dive repeatedly until he’d recovered Thomas’s worldly possessions—including the trolley. The guy had a bit of trouble swimming.

  And Mim—is just Mim. I can’t imagine her doing anything bad. I’m not sure she even has a story.

  Macy used to try to get things happening, like workshops and short courses, but I think she’s given up. The workshops are supposed to inspire us, but mostly they remind us that our ambitions are too ambitious. Bit like a careers expo. In the last year, we’ve had basic computer courses, basic cooking classes, basic origami. How to Write a Résumé. Painting to Relieve Stress.

  Most kids could teach the teachers a thing or two about programming or hacking, and we’ve got nothing to put in a résumé. Basic cooking? Yeah, most of us have mastered that in the spirit of not starving and dying, and learning to make an origami ninja star is only useful for the prototype—the real fun would be to make a working stainless-steel version in Tech.

  ‘Time’s up,’ I say to a kid of about twelve who just sneakily reset the laptop egg timer.

  ‘Fuck off,’ he says, not bothering to turn around.

  I can’t be arsed having a fight about it, so I flip through the DVDs in the rack. Merrick and I were up to L—The Last Airbender to be precise—before our friendship went on hiatus.

  The stack wobbles. I put up my hands, but it’s too late. The DVDs fly off the shelf as if I’ve cast a spell with an invisible wand. Out of a hundred, I catch maybe five.

  ‘Here, I’ll help you.’ It’s Mim. She kneels and scoops up a handful of cases.

  ‘You’re back.’

  ‘Macy had a call-out, so she asked me to come in for an hour.’

  Her hair is pulled back in a messy ponytail. She has a thin red scar across her nose, and she speaks through her teeth, as if her jaw is wired shut.

  She notices me staring. ‘It wasn’t as bad as it looked.’

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Fine, thank you.’

  ‘That could mean you’re fine, or you want everyone to think you’re fine, or you’re absolutely not fine.’

  ‘I pretty much say what I mean and mean what I say. I’m fine.’ She puts the DVDs back on the shelf and straightens the stack. ‘I don’t remember much about what happened, but thank you. I appreciate what you and your friends did.’

  ‘It was nothing.’

  She frowns. ‘It wasn’t nothing.’

  ‘No, I mean we really didn’t do anything. We didn’t stop him.’

  ‘It wasn’t up to you to stop him. You stayed, and that’s more than enough.’ She motions the kid with the music to turn it down. ‘It’s getting cold out.’

  ‘Yeah. Feels like summer is finally over.’

  For the first time since that night, I think I might cry. I don’t know why—it happened weeks ago, but things haven’t been the same. Or maybe I’m not the same. I hardly know Mim, but it feels as if I do—something about witnessing a person’s worst moment makes talking about the weather seem ridiculous. The scary part is, it might not have been her worst moment. More than anything, I want to ask her if there’s a crack in her life now, too. And, if there isn’t, if she’s no more afraid than she was before, how did she stop it?

  The front door swishes open.

  We both jump.

  Mim’s hands fly up. She presses them flat to her chest and breathes out.

  I guess that answers my question.

  ‘Tash,’ Mim says. She crosses the room and pulls her into a hug.

  Tash is blank-faced and stiff as a mannequin. She’s wearing her dad’s coat again, her hands stuffed deep in the pockets. ‘Is it true?’

  ‘What?’ Mim says.

  ‘Cranky said the centre’s closing.’

  I assume she’s talking about Thomas.
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br />   ‘We don’t know for sure.’ Mim’s expression isn’t giving much away. ‘I can’t really say anything more.’

  Tash snaps out of her trance and starts pacing around the perimeter of the rec room, weirdly agitated, like she’s high on something.

  ‘Some of these kids are going to take it hard,’ Mim says, watching her.

  ‘So it is true.’

  ‘It’s a rumour.’

  ‘I was going to stop coming here, anyway.’ It’s how I feel, but it’s probably not helpful right now.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t really fit in.’

  ‘Well, that’s kind of the point,’ she snaps.

  ‘I’ve aged out, then.’

  ‘You’re not too old, Nate.’ She points to the notebook in my pocket. ‘What’s in your little black book? I’ve always wanted to ask. Is it like a diary? Coming-of-age stuff?’

  ‘Coming-of-rage. I purge so I don’t explode, that’s all.’

  She laughs. ‘I exploded once. I sat on the kerb one day and decided to stop making excuses and blaming everyone else.’

  Tash is hovering nearby as if she wants to talk to Mim privately. I go to leave them alone, but Tash grabs my elbow and pulls me in.

  ‘We have to do something,’ she says. ‘Youth can’t close.’

  Mim tries to change the subject. ‘I’m going to make coffee if anyone’s interested?’

  ‘You don’t understand.’ Tash shrugs off her coat and ties it around her waist. ‘What if we raised enough money so they couldn’t shut it down?’

  ‘I don’t think it’s just about the money, Tash,’ Mim says, shaking her head. ‘It’s many things—’ She stops and gives a helpless shrug.

  I think about what Macy said. Maybe Mim blames herself.

  An argument has broken out at the pool table. Mim squeezes Tash’s shoulder before going to sort it out, and Tash glares at me for no apparent reason. She flounces off in the direction of the toilets.

  I take the distraction as an opportunity to claim a recently vacated beanbag. I flip through my notebook, searching for empty pages; they’re so loose I have to keep them together with a rubber band. I’m still not ready to start a new one. Earlier, I was itching to write something about the careers expo, but now I’m not feeling it.