I commit to staring out the window. D&G is early today—it’s only 1.45 and he’s already on his way to the skate park. His rear tyre pressure is low.
‘For the whole double lesson, you’ll be working in complete silence.’
Groans.
‘I’d like you to think of your moves on your game board as a series of steps towards a personal goal. Whether that’s something short-term, such as buying your first car, or long-term, like becoming an astronaut, is up to you. You need to consider possible obstacles or setbacks, and also positive steps that take you closer to your goal. Nobody can inherit a large sum of money from a mysterious benefactor, win the lotto or achieve anything without doing the work. Okay? Use the ladders. Do the work.’
Kobe asks, ‘What has this got to do with English?’
‘Everything and nothing,’ Mr Reid says. ‘We’re deviating today.’
‘What about the dice?’ Lee says again.
‘Pay attention. There must be a minimum of three black squares on each game board. The black squares are like the longest snakes. They’re your biggest obstacles—they take you right back to the beginning of the game. But you all have something that will give you a serious advantage, whether that’s your work ethic or a particular talent or simply the focus you need to achieve. Use that advantage.’
The only way I can think to swing an advantage is to be more like Dec: tough, stubborn, single-minded in the pursuit of winning, and afraid of nothing. It would be really helpful if his genes kicked in soon.
‘What’s the aim?’ Gurmeet asks.
‘The aim is to win, of course, but you need to counteract the setbacks.’ Mr Reid looks at the clock above his desk. ‘You have the full double lesson to finish the task. If that’s not long enough, you should complete it in your own time.’
Gurmeet releases a deep sigh that ruffles my paper and sends it floating to the floor. ‘Sorry,’ he whispers. ‘What’s your goal? I can’t think of anything.’
‘Me neither.’ I reach down to pick up the game board.
‘I wonder if getting Netflix counts,’ Gurmeet mutters, chewing his pencil.
I glance over my shoulder. Leila has already written something in the first and last squares.
I put up my hand.
‘McKee?’
‘What if I have no immediate or long-term goals?’
‘Then you can take the second option.’
‘What’s that?’
He gives me a cold smile. ‘You can design a board game based on an aspect of contemporary Australian society instead.’
I tear off a Post-it.
The last time Macy checked my job log at Youth was over four months ago. I’d applied for over a hundred part-time and casual jobs, received rejections for six, ‘we’ll keep your application on file’ emails from nine, and I didn’t hear from the others at all. Even Macca’s knocked me back. I haven’t applied for a single position since Christmas.
I stick the Post-it in the last square and stare at the blank space for most of the first lesson. All I can see is the jungle.
When the bell rings at the end of the day, I take the usual route via the path running next to the train line.
A kid who looks uncannily like Merrick pushes past me at the oval gate, breathing hard. He’s trying not to look over his shoulder, walking exactly like Merrick used to when someone bigger was on his tail.
I glance back. Two Year Tens are about thirty metres behind me, whipping at the weeds with sticks.
Merrick and I have taken this detour for the past year without incident. We know the blind spots: behind the junk heap, inside the old shed full of paint tins, under the drooping pepper tree where, years ago, someone set up an outdoor lounge room complete with sofa, lamp, coffee table, bookcase and a massive old TV, as thick as it was wide. We could always tell when there were signs we were being followed, or if the birds were too quiet, and we made adjustments: turn right, cut across the train line and double back, or seek safety in numbers, hop the train and ride for two stops until we were in the clear.
This route has its advantages and disadvantages. It’s a longer, sweatier, dustier walk, and it loops around junk food corner, so there’s no chance to stop for a frozen Coke on the way home. But it’s also safer—anyone who heads home this way is either running for the first train, in which case they don’t have time to start anything, or they’re already trying to avoid confrontation.
The council still hasn’t cut the summer weeds—now there are five or six different tracks and nobody can find the original way through anymore.
The Merrick look-alike kid makes a rookie mistake and turns left. Now there’s nowhere for him to go except along a kilometre of train line until he reaches the next stop.
My phone pings. I stop to check it and the two Year Tens pass me about fifty metres along the track. One is a decent size, with sloping shoulders and a pushed-in face; the other is much shorter, with white-blond hair and teeth like a rat. I’ve seen them around but I don’t know them.
Ahead, I can see the other kid, darting erratically, trying to find the most direct route in a crazy warren. He breaks into a run and disappears around the next bend.
They follow.
I think about turning around, but I’m almost halfway home—my bag weighs a tonne, it’s hot, I’m thirsty and I’m a fucking senior. I’m tired of making adjustments.
I round the bend.
Here’s the blind spot: the pepper tree and the lounge room, just off the path, just out of sight. I used to find it funny that someone could be bothered installing an entire lounge room, but now it’s overgrown, covered in graffiti and other foul things I don’t want to think about.
If I look straight ahead I could almost pretend I don’t know it’s there, but the kid’s schoolbag is lying in the middle of the path.
Pug has pinned him to the couch. He has one hand on the kid’s head, pressing his cheek onto the broken inner springs, and Rat is making a documentary on his phone.
‘S’up?’ Rat says, unfazed.
‘Hey.’ I wave.
The kid on the couch yelps something, but I can’t make it out.
Rat films me as I walk past.
I know I should have said something. I’m not a complete arsehole. Just scared. It’s not as if I don’t have the words—I’ve been filling these notebooks with words for years and at least three are dedicated to writing down things I should have said at a particular time, but only thought about later. L’esprit d’escalier. Staircase wit. I’m packing a full arsenal of comebacks and takedowns. But here’s the thing about high-school social currency: you only increase your own by backing someone who’s already loaded. Doesn’t matter if you don’t think they’re a nice person (generally, people guarding the mother lode aren’t, because currency begets currency and, at their core, winners are capitalists). Or, you can accept that your pile will be depleted by giving it to a person who has none; you might have a moment of self-congratulation before you check your pile and find it gone, but it’s an act of sacrifice and, ultimately, self-sabotage. There might be nothing wrong with the kid on the couch. He’s probably smart and funny. It’s not his fault he was once on the losing end of a whole string of transactions—now it’s a legacy he has to carry all through high school. I bet he’s a regular visitor to the school counsellor. She says all the right things, but deep down she suspects he deserves the negative attention; she has no proof, but for some reason he is repulsive to his peers, so his claims must be treated with scepticism. They talk about him in the teachers’ lounge. He’s a strange kid. There’s something off about him. Maybe he doesn’t have the right shoes or clothes, or maybe he doesn’t say thank you when someone is kind. So she’ll counsel him, she’ll mediate, she’ll give him coping strategies and encourage him to work on his resilience, but she won’t give him what he really needs. He needs her to believe him. He needs another person to back him, to say he’s telling the truth and he isn’t to blame, because pretty soon it will
be too late. He’s starting to think he’s repulsive, too. But it won’t happen. We’re all protecting our currency. Even if I had stepped in, together we’d make a black hole that would suck anyone standing nearby into its vortex. Merrick was a master at spending currency he never had. Sorry, kid. Sorry I kept walking. Saying something means I have to do something, and that’s the part I don’t have written down.
If I was told the only way to guarantee my survival was to eat chip sandwiches for the rest of my life, I’d opt to die.
The boys don’t care—they’d eat chips every night of the week if they could—but Nance knows. She’s been staring at me staring at my plate. Hers is clean, Jake has been back for seconds, and Dec ate the chips but left the bread. He’s watching Goodfellas, which means Jake is watching by default, O is watching but no comprende, and I’m totally tuned out because I’ve seen it about thirty times in the last ten years. Each time someone gets shot, Nance covers her face with her hand and watches through her fingers.
It would make a great drinking game.
‘I’m going to bed,’ I say to no one in particular.
It’s eight o’clock.
Nance mumbles, ‘Good night.’
On my way past, Otis grabs for my ankle and misses. ‘Nate!’
‘Shut up.’ Dec nudges him with his foot. ‘Get me a beer,’ he says to me.
I grab a Heineken from the fridge. Dec sends me back for a Miller. I offer the Heineken to Nance, but she shakes her head.
‘Top’s off. You gotta drink it,’ Dec says.
‘I don’t like beer.’
‘You’ll get to like it. It’s a required taste.’
I sit back down. It takes me ten minutes to drink the beer. When I say goodnight for the second time, Dec points to my plate resting on the arm of the couch. To get a few moves ahead, I collect Nance’s and Jake’s too.
‘Come here.’ Dec snaps his fingers. ‘Forget something?’ He takes a cold chip from my plate and flicks it at my head. ‘Finish your chips.’
Acquired. Beer is an acquired taste.
‘I don’t want any fucking chips!’ I drop the plates. They don’t smash—they bounce.
Jake and Otis freeze.
Nance says, ‘It’s okay. It’s okay.’ Her eyes are like glass.
Dec tells her to shut up. He cocks his head and smiles before he tips the last of his beer down his throat. He stands, grabs his wallet and keys from the table, and tells Nance he’s going to the pub.
On his way out, he slips me a wink.
When he’s gone, I run to the bedroom and slam the door. A minute later Nance knocks gently, but I ignore her until she gives up.
I put on my shoes and leave through the window so I don’t have to see Nance cleaning up the mess I made.
Nance thinks Dec is getting worse, but he’s always been like this. She thinks it’s the beer and the gambling, but I know it comes from way back—maybe it was his dad, or his dad’s dad, or his dad’s dad’s dad. Maybe it was his mum. And the reason I know is because it’s in me too, and someone like Nance will always make excuses for me if I let her.
Gunshots are still coming from the TV when I’m outside on the street. It’s getting harder to tell what’s real. I keep walking until I can’t hear them anymore.
I’m not sure what the wink meant—it could mean Dec was sorry, but it felt more like a welcome to the club. He knows he’s winning. There comes a point in a script when you’re too familiar with the characters and you know all their lines, and all you can see is how fucked up everyone is.
That goes for life, too.
THIRTEEN
I need new exercise books, so I go to administration at lunch. There’s a full house for detention seated on the row of chairs outside the Acting Principal’s office. Year Nines. All staring at the box on the shelf containing their phones.
‘I need two ninety-six lined and one graph, please.’
Mrs Gough, the admin lady, looks uncomfortable. ‘You can’t put that on account today, Nate.’
‘Why not? I always do.’
‘The account’s been closed. I’m sorry.’ She turns away to straighten a perfectly straight stack of paper.
‘Didn’t we pay?’ This has never happened before. ‘I’ll try to fix it up next week.’
‘It’s not that. Off you go. Have your lunch.’
‘But I don’t get it.’
She comes back and leans close to my ear. ‘I’m not supposed to say. The account you used—it was a school account. It was just for some of you. The teachers used to chip in every week to pay it off, but the Acting Principal has shut the account down. I’m sorry.’
‘Oh.’
She sighs and reaches under the counter. ‘Look, just take them. I’ll do some creative stocktaking at the end of the month.’ She hands me the books.
Mortified doesn’t begin to cover it. I’m trying to control the early symptoms of spontaneous combustion. It’s polite to advise people if they’ve been granted honorary membership to the Charity Club, so their humiliation doesn’t play out in front of the entire lunchtime detention crowd.
‘Don’t worry about it.’ I push the books harder than I mean to. They skid off the counter and onto the floor.
Mrs Gough tilts her head. She’s disappointed in me. She can have honorary membership to that club.
‘Can you wait for one moment, please?’ She leaves the admin area and strides to the end of the hallway to knock on the school counsellor’s door.
Oh, fuck no. Counselling? I brace myself on the counter and pretend to bash my head on it.
‘Nate? Can you come in?’ She’s holding the door open. ‘Miss DeVries would like a word. It won’t take a minute.’
It takes longer.
Miss DeVries looks like an ugly beautician. She does all the things—hair, make-up, nails—but the overall effect isn’t a fine endorsement for the beauty industry.
She tells me to have a seat, proceeds to click madly with her mouse, prints a bunch of pages that she shuffles into some kind of order, and reads through them. Twice. When she finally speaks, it’s not about me.
‘Connor Merrick,’ she drones. ‘It says here that you live at the same address.’
‘No. Same block of flats, that’s all.’
‘Oh.’ She picks up another piece of paper. ‘My mistake.’ She circles something. ‘Do you know the flat number?’
‘No,’ I lie.
Up goes a wonky eyebrow. ‘Phone number?’
‘No idea.’
‘Really? Because I’m having trouble contacting his parents, and I thought you might have some idea why he hasn’t been at school.’
‘I don’t know. He just stopped coming.’ It’s not unusual—the drop-out rate almost doubles here in Year Eleven. ‘He can leave, right?’
I suppose they need a form filled out or something. Dec’s proud of the fact he set a maintenance shed on fire the day he left school. I’m only here because the thought of being at home for six more hours a day does my head in.
‘Well, yes, but he was doing so well.’
I try to get a glimpse of the piece of paper she’s waving around now, but she whisks it away. Merrick? Doing well?
‘Like, passing?’
‘Excelling.’
Excel. Excellence. Merrick? She must have mixed up her pieces of paper.
‘Could you ask him to come and see me?’ she says. ‘Tell him if he comes back soon he’ll catch up in no time.’
‘I’ll tell him if I see him.’
‘Thank you.’ She looks at the clock on the wall. ‘And how about you? How are you going?’
It sounds like an afterthought because it probably is one. ‘Fine.’
Without looking up, she puts a diagonal slash through an entire paragraph of Merrick’s notes and slips the page into a tray marked ‘Outbox’.
Did she just make him disappear?
‘Okay, then,’ she says brightly. ‘You can go back to lunch.’
I’m presen
t and invisible.
Merrick is absent and excellent.
Don’t try too hard. Make fun of people who do.
Fuck.
On my way home from school, two undercover cop cars shoot past me on Dorrington Street. They don’t have their lights on, but you can always tell—Commodores, plain rims, a CB aerial and two blokes in the front who check you out without turning their heads.
When I get home the same cars are parked under the visitors’ carport, and I remember I never turned up to sign that statement.
Shit.
I sneak around past the bins. Nance and the boys are on the verandah, O lying on a grubby cot blanket, Jake playing with his cars in the dirt, staging crashes and making siren sounds under his breath.
‘It’s not us,’ Nance says. ‘It’s Barry in the middle.’
‘What’s happening?’
‘I’m not sure yet,’ she says. She grabs Otis by the leg to stop him rolling off the step.
The cops are definitely in unit twelve. Barry Pierce’s place. Merrick and I used to nick food from his Woolworths home deliveries—he’d leave the stuff sitting outside for so long, it seemed like a waste. He’s quiet and keeps to himself, but I suppose that description has appeared on every mass murderer’s psychiatric evaluation.
‘What do you reckon?’ she asks. ‘Drugs? Credit card fraud?’
‘Child exploitation material, for sure.’
Nance pulls O closer.
‘Where’s Dec?’
She jerks her head. ‘Inside. You’ll have to stay here. We’re locked out. He’s paranoid.’
That doesn’t sound like Nance; she always defends Dec. But she’s right about Dec being paranoid. He’s worse when the buds are ready and he smokes too much. He thinks everyone’s out to get him.
‘But why do you have to stay out—’
‘Because he thinks they’ll think we’re just an ordinary happy family.’ She picks up O and holds him in her lap. ‘Wave to the nice policeman. Hello, Mr Policeman.’ She grabs O’s hand and flops it around.
‘Are you okay?’
‘I wonder what would happen if I told them about what’s in your old bedroom?’
This is How We Change the Ending Page 11