This is How We Change the Ending

by Vikki Wakefield

  ‘There’s a gym,’ she says, smiling at the ceiling. ‘It’s on the third floor, and there’s a lap pool, too. You could work out.’ She sits up. ‘What do you reckon?’

  I reckon both my parents are fixated on the idea of me lifting weights, and I’ll most likely never have a bedroom to myself.

  ‘It’s great. When should I come and stay?’

  She waves her hand. ‘Let’s get used to the idea of each other first. Come on. I’ll make you a smoothie, then we can sit on the balcony. I’ll show you my plants and my view.’

  Getting used to the idea of each other involves watching her bustle around the extremely white kitchen, wearing skintight yoga pants and a T-shirt that reads Inhale, Exhale, Repeat, and mowing a clump of grass on the windowsill with a pair of scissors. She throws the grass into a blender along with a frozen banana, a pear, a handful of leaves, a few ice cubes and something called almond milk.

  Over the racket, she says, ‘Do you like the place?’

  I nod. It isn’t as far from home as I thought. Only three buses. The apartment block is near the port, a few hundred metres from a stinky beach where the tide goes out so far the water is a mirage.

  ‘Here you go.’ She puts a straw in my glass but she gulps straight from hers. A pale green moustache sticks to her upper lip.

  I take a mouthful. The smoothie tastes like grass clippings with a slight banana-ey aftertaste. Watching her, I feel almost optimistic. She’s happy. Over-hyped and possibly nervous, but happy. I’m not really looking forward to meeting the succulents, but her mood is contagious.

  ‘Let’s go outside.’

  The balcony is just big enough for a two-person setting and a few potted plants. There’s only a glass fence between me and a six-storey drop.

  Mum smiles when I press my back to the wall and sidle along it. She laughs when I choose the chair furthest from the corner where two glass panels meet. ‘Scared of falling?’

  ‘Scared of landing.’

  ‘How’s your smoothie?’

  I take another sip. The flavour hasn’t improved. ‘It’s interesting.’

  ‘It’s good for you.’ She points to something below. ‘See what I mean?’

  ‘I would if I could move, but I can’t.’

  ‘The childcare centre. It’s just down there.’

  Now she mentions it, I can hear children’s voices, but they’re so far away it’s only a pleasant hum—nothing like O’s screaming at close quarters.

  ‘Do you want to go for a swim?’

  ‘I didn’t bring a change of clothes.’

  She holds up a finger. ‘Wait.’

  I wonder how much a place like this costs. It must be heaps. Then again, there’s no one around, hardly any cars on the street. Maybe it’s one of those apartment blocks built during a boom, before there was a bust. A ghost condominium. Maybe no one fell for the whole ‘beach living’ thing, or maybe the old blokes in waders scared them off.

  I lean forward in my chair. The sky stretches for miles, broken only by other high-rise apartment blocks. The air smells like mud.

  ‘Here.’ Mum tosses me a pair of board shorts. ‘They’re probably too big, but they’ll do. I’ll pick some up in your size for next time.’

  I hold up the shorts by the waistband. They must be the boyfriend’s. They look new. They’re way too big but there’s a drawstring waist.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Get changed in my bedroom if you like. There are spare towels in the bathroom.’

  I go inside.

  The bathroom is a two-way: doors leading off the lounge and the bedroom. The apartment must be about half the size of our flat, and the flat is tiny. I’m not sure how we’re going to make this cohabitation thing work in such a small space, but I’m willing to give it a shot.

  I open the double doors in the bathroom expecting to find a linen cupboard, but it’s a mini-laundry with a washing machine and dryer. In the cabinet above the basin, there’s no razor, no Lynx—only perfumed girl stuff. Just a single purple toothbrush on the counter. I peel back the shower curtain. I’d smash my elbows if I tried to wash my hair in there. Again, only one set of Herbal Essences shampoo and conditioner, pink bottles. There’s no evidence the sponsor boyfriend stays over regularly.

  This is a good sign. If I got a job, Mum and I could trade up to a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment. This could work.

  I fold my clothes and leave them on the toilet seat. The shorts are too long and bunched up around my waist, and my chest is white and concave. I put my T-shirt back on.

  Dec was right: I look like a hairless whippet on two legs. Maybe I should start lifting weights. If I moved in with Mum I could work out every day.

  There’s a spare towel in the cupboard, like she said. I tie it around my waist and it comes to just above my knees.

  Mum’s waiting at the apartment door, wrapped in something that looks like a giant handkerchief with palm trees on it. ‘Are you ready?’

  We take the lift back down to the third floor. The pool and gym are behind ceiling-to-floor clear glass windows—anyone walking along the corridor can see in. The pool is long, narrow, deep-blue, too classy for bombs.

  ‘It’s nice, isn’t it?’

  ‘Amazing. It’s like a hotel.’ I take off my T-shirt and leave it with the towel on the side of the pool. I wade in using the steps. ‘It’s warm.’

  ‘Solar heating,’ she says. ‘This place is green-energy rated. Whatever that means.’

  I duck under and swim along the bottom. When I come up, Mum’s checking her phone. I breaststroke two laps and tread water in the deep end until she looks up.

  ‘Are you coming in?’

  ‘Oh, I’m not swimming,’ she says. ‘My hair will frizz. I’ll just sit over here and watch.’ She kicks off her thongs and stretches out on a pool lounge.

  Ten lazy laps and Mum’s still on her phone. My body has acclimatised, and my teeth are chattering. The pool doesn’t feel quite as warm. There’s a hair tie tangled with a clump of long hair floating in the skimmer box, and a used bandaid stuck to the side of the pool. If it’s true that one in five people pee in swimming pools and each swimmer contributes 0.14 grams of fecal matter, I worry the chlorine in this one has been neutralised. At this temperature it’s the optimum environment for Crypto.

  I get out of the pool and dry off.

  ‘Good timing,’ Mum says. ‘I didn’t realise it was so late.’

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Nearly twelve.’

  ‘Lunch?’ A grass-clipping smoothie is not food.

  ‘I have to go out in half an hour. Can we do lunch next time?’ She picks up her thongs and slips her phone into her bag.

  ‘Oh. Okay.’

  Fifteen minutes later, I’ve put on my dry clothes and Mum’s getting changed again. While I wait, I take a bread knife from the cutlery drawer, flip the coffee table upside down and tighten the screws.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Mum asks as she emerges from the bedroom in a fresh set of gym gear.

  ‘Fixing your table.’

  ‘You didn’t have to do that.’

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  I turn the table over, put the knife back in the drawer and pick up both smoothie glasses. The green stuff has turned to sticky froth. There’s a dishwasher, but I don’t know how to use one, so I fill the glasses with water and leave them in the sink.

  ‘You have to come and stay soon. Okay? We’ll make this work.’ Mum stands awkwardly by the door.

  I don’t know what she means by stay. Stay for a night? Stay for a week? Stay for as long as I need? I’ve been here less than two hours. She could have warned me this wasn’t a day trip before I caught three buses and skipped a whole day of school.

  Nice. Positive. Helpful.

  ‘Thank you for having me,’ I say.

  Everything seems back to normal at Youth. The rec room’s packed, Macy’s in the kitchen burning macaroni and someone’s playing the jukebox. Of all the billion
s of people on the planet, I wonder how many are triggered when they hear the song ‘Runaround Sue’.

  Tash materialises wearing a paint-spattered pair of denim overalls and a yellow knitted beanie. Not exactly low-key.

  ‘Good. You’re here. Did you sign the petition?’ she asks.

  ‘What petition?’

  She lets out an exaggerated sigh and pulls me by the elbow to a table near the entrance. ‘You walked straight past it.’ She watches as I sign my real name and the usual fake address, although she has no way of knowing it’s fake. ‘Macy says if every member signs we’ll have a hundred and sixty-two signatures.’

  ‘Is that—’ I check her expression. She’s frowning. ‘not good?’

  She sighs. ‘I’ve started one online and I already have over a thousand.’

  ‘Well, that is good. Right?’

  Macy’s watching us through a cloud of steam. I steer Tash away from the kitchen in case she offers us something to eat.

  Tash shrugs me off. ‘It means shit. Half the signatories aren’t even from this continent.’

  ‘So? Do they even check who signed?’

  ‘Petitions are passive. People will sign anything as long as they don’t have to get out of their seats. We have to make them uncomfortable—then they’ll get involved.’

  ‘And do what?’ I ask carefully.

  ‘Be aggressive. Make them think doing something is more worthwhile than doing nothing.’

  Macy’s heading in our direction.

  Tash spins on her heel and walks away, which is a relief because she talks too fast and in circles. I really want to sit alone, do nothing and be passive for the next three hours until closing.

  Macy is suspicious. ‘What are you two up to?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I mumble. ‘That was the original plan, anyway.’

  She thrusts a bundle of worksheets at me. ‘Well, make yourself useful and copy these for the weekend’s workshop.’ She drops the office keys in my hand. When I don’t move straightaway, she adds, ‘Please and thank you.’

  I flick through the pages.

  The Body Positivity workshop is my all-time not-favourite. We’re supposed to sit around and say flattering things about each other. If you’re shy, you can make anonymous comments or confessions via The Box—this is after you’ve documented Ten-Things-I-Hate-About-Me and shared them with the group, apparently an exercise designed to exorcise self-loathing, but it only works if each member of the group is willing to talk you out of every bad thing you ever thought about yourself. It’s a bloodbath. After the first workshop, Macy said under no circumstances should delinquents like us be given anonymity, a permanent marker and total freedom of speech, but then she smiled and flicked someone with a tea towel and we knew she didn’t mean it. Macy always thinks the best of people. I thought she wouldn’t make the mistake of letting us read comments from The Box aloud ever again.

  ‘Mace. We all know how that turned out.’

  ‘None of your snark, mister. I’m not in the mood.’

  ‘Let me run a ninja-star workshop. Come on. Just once, before we’re all out on the street.’ I bat my eyelashes. ‘I’ll be good.’

  Macy snorts. ‘It’s against the rules, and it would be a massive breach of my duty of care. Thirty booklets, pronto, and knock on the toilet door—Povey has been in there for fifteen minutes.’ She gives me a gentle shove. ‘Hurry up. I need ten extra hands today.’

  I’ve often thought Macy is the closest thing I’ve had to a mother since mine took off, so I do as she says: bash the toilet door until Povey stumbles out blinking, unlock the office, load the sheets into the photocopier, program the machine to print thirty collated copies, slump into Macy’s office chair and spin slowly until the booklets are ready to be stapled. I look around for other things I can do to help Macy, but the best I can come up with is to make ten copies of my right hand and leave them on her desk.

  The door creaks open. Tash pops her head through the gap. ‘I’ve been looking for you. It’s almost ready.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘This.’ She steps inside and dumps a black portfolio case on the desk. ‘Lock the door.’

  I shake my head. ‘We’ll get in trouble.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’ She closes the door, turns the lock, unzips the case and slides out a sheet of heavy plastic-coated card with letters cut out of it. ‘I’ve kept it small so we can be in and out in, like, twenty seconds. Uses less paint, too. Tricky as shit with all those letters, but it’s clean—I’ve tested it and timed it. No serif, and the counters are hanging by a thread so we can’t saturate or it might fall apart. I reckon it’s good for fifty, maybe more, if we’re careful.’

  I have no idea what she just said.

  She whips out something that looks like a scalpel. Clocks my expression. ‘Relax, I’m not going to stick you.’

  ‘What is that?’

  She looks at the knife. ‘X-Acto.’

  I raise my eyebrows.

  ‘Stencil-cutter, you newb.’

  ‘What are you—a freaking professional?’ I hold the stencil up to the light. It’s my quote from the wall in block letters, enclosed within the shape of a house, two windows and a flame curling from the roof. ‘This is awesome.’

  ‘Yeah. I know. Let’s go blow some tiny minds.’

  ‘Apathy,’ I say, nodding wisely. ‘Indifference.’

  Tash is unimpressed. ‘Huh?’

  ‘They’re our biggest obstacles. That’s what my teacher said.’

  She rolls her eyes. ‘The biggest obstacle is buying the paint. I’m on a ban list.’ She tucks the stencil inside the portfolio and closes the zip.

  I’m thinking of the locked utility cupboard in Tech, and the key stuck in a blob of Blu Tack on the inside of Mr Trask’s desk drawer, and the unsupervised access I have to the Tech workshop because I am, essentially, a trustworthy kid.

  I’m feeling restless and pissed off. I’ve been good all day.

  ‘I can get the paint.’

  She smiles. ‘Red and black. Lots of black. But it’s not completely finished. We don’t have a tag.’

  The words have never come more easily. ‘Ungrateful Youth.’

  Tash swears under her breath. ‘Short words are not your strength. This is going to take a bit longer.’

  TWENTY-ONE

  I’m supposed to be copying detailed theory notes on Archea, single-celled organisms. Archea thrive in extreme environments previously considered unable to sustain life: the Dead Sea, hot springs, salt evaporation ponds and acid lakes—shitty places like that.

  Our Science teacher never bothers to check our notes, so I’m faking. He always speeds through theory to get to prac so he can play ‘Clash of Clans’ on his iPad for the rest of the double period. I hate prac. I prefer to work alone. Especially since Abe Farrugia is my lab partner for the term and he’s a methanogen: a single-celled organism that produces large amounts of methane gas as a by-product of his digestive and energy-making processes.

  I zone out.

  Tash texted this morning to say tonight’s the night. She said it’s a new moon. I’m not sure if that means it’ll be safer in the dark, or she believes in astrology. I add Bairstal and Rowley Park High to my list of inhospitable environments, close my notebook and doodle a burning house on the cover of my textbook.

  It’s not until we’re packing up to leave the lab that I notice another foul odour. When I wasn’t paying attention, Kobe Slater switched seats to sit behind me. I suspect I’ll find the rotten-egg bomb in my bag or my hood later. On the upside, it means I pass through the halls without bumping into anyone because they all give me a wide berth.

  I make it to English a full two minutes before everyone else.

  Mr Reid looks up, surprised. ‘To what do I owe this newfound enthusiasm?’

  I shrug and slide into my seat.

  He strides to the whiteboard, picks up a pen and writes:

  If you would rise above the throng

  and seek the crow
n of fame,

  you must do more than drift along

  and merely play the game.

  —Edgar Albert Guest (Ambition - 1881)

  ‘Not games again,’ I mutter.

  ‘No, not games.’ He bows. ‘Role playing.’

  Role playing? I bang my head on the desk. I dropped Drama so I wouldn’t have to do this stuff.

  ‘For someone who demands originality you sure use a lot of other people’s words.’

  I think I’ve pushed him too far this time, but he nods.

  ‘I have to play the game too,’ he says.

  The rest of the class arrive. Mr Reid closes the door and I don’t get to find out what he means.

  I vague out again and sketch another house with finer detail. This one’s even better. I’m thinking of the paint I have stashed in my locker, wondering if it will be enough.

  ‘Claim your future,’ Mr Reid is saying. ‘Visualise your goal. Go towards it every chance you get.’

  Kobe Slater stands.

  ‘Where are you going, Slater?’

  ‘I’m moving towards my future Big Mac.’

  ‘Sit down, please. It’s time to devise your plan, people. For your homework assignment you are to write several scenes featuring you as the hero.’ He points to the board. ‘Think about something that’s happened—or could happen—where the outcome could have been changed by reacting differently. Identify your fatal flaw in each situation, overcome it, rewrite history and move towards your future.’

  I must have missed the fatal flaw speech, but Reid has rammed enough Ibsen and Shakespeare down our throats over the past two years that I get the gist.

  ‘What’s your fatal flaw?’ I ask Peros on our way out.

  ‘Time mismanagement,’ he says, without missing a beat.

  ‘I’m a gamer.’

  ‘Makes sense.’

  ‘What’s yours?’

  ‘Can we only pick one?’

  Mr Reid stops me. ‘McKee.’

  ‘Uh-oh,’ Peros says. ‘Good luck.’

  When everyone has left, Mr Reid gestures for me to sit down. ‘I need to—elaborate,’ he says.

  ‘Looking forward to it.’

  ‘Ask me anything.’