Everywhere Everything Everyone

by Warner, Katy;

  ‘Go away,’ I said.

  ‘She really likes him and we think they’d make a cute couple.’

  I heard her friends laugh. It was so … high school. I mean, it was high school, of course, but it just seemed so out of place with everything that was going on. Who could honestly care about crushes and gossip and popularity when the world was like this?

  ‘He’s my boyfriend,’ I said. Calmly. Or as calmly as I could. I hadn’t said it out loud before. It made me feel a little sad to tell Tash like that when, once, she would have been the first person I’d told.

  ‘So weird,’ she said, and backed away like I smelled bad. She headed back to her friends and they laughed, then made a big deal of looking over at me and laughing some more.

  My face burned. It wasn’t weird. Was it? I liked him. He liked me. What was weird about that? My brain raced with all the things I should have said to Tash – all these smart comments that would have shut her up straight away. Perhaps even made her cry. But it was too late now. So, I kept drawing as if I didn’t notice Tash and her friends – as if anything they said didn’t bother me. At all. I had way more important shit to deal with.

  ‘Santee Quinn, may I sit down?’

  It was Julius Warren.

  First Tash, now him. I just needed Magnus Varick to show up for the perfect trifecta.

  ‘Lunch break is almost over, sir,’ I said with a smile, and repacked my bag quickly.

  ‘You had quite a morning, didn’t you?’ he said, and sat across from me.

  I kept the smile on my face but my insides were churning. What did he know about my morning? I said something about my morning being pretty boring, actually, and that I had to get to class early, but he ignored all that and leaned forward. ‘I have news,’ he said. ‘About your father. If you want it?’

  ‘Why?’ I said quietly.

  ‘You helped me with some information so now I’ll help you. That was the deal. Remember?’

  What had I told him? I ran through all our meetings, tried to remember everything I’d said about Diggs. There was nothing I’d said that would get him into real trouble. Was there?

  ‘You’ve been so helpful,’ he said.

  I felt like I’d snapped, disconnected from myself. I was hovering above, watching this all unfold to someone who looked and sounded just like me but wasn’t me. No. No way.

  What had I done?

  ‘I don’t want anything from you,’ I said with a determination I didn’t know I still had in me.

  And I walked away without getting any information about my dad, and possibly destroying the only sort-of-Dad I had in my life right now.

  I was stupid. So stupid.

  I sat out the front of school waiting for Z. He’d texted me to say he had to stay behind for a bit and I should go on without him. I assumed he’d heard that Julius Warren had talked with me at lunch, assumed he knew I’d betrayed everyone and that he was done with me.

  I texted back: I’ll wait.

  And got a smiley face, kiss and thumbs-up back. So he didn’t know. I was going to have to tell him, though I wasn’t sure what to say cos I wasn’t sure what I’d done. Maybe it was the stuff about Diggs’s drinking? Or the way he’d physically gone at Z? Perhaps something like that would be enough to be considered a Threat … hadn’t Diggs said it was all about context?

  Shit.

  ‘Hey,’ Z said as he approached me.

  I didn’t want to look at him but I couldn’t help it. My heart twisted itself into a heavy lump.

  ‘I got you something.’ He grinned and handed me a paper bag. Inside there were markers and those ‘Hello, my name is’ nametag stickers and it was just so perfectly Z that I almost cried. ‘That’s why I was late. Had to make sure Karen had gone for the day.’

  ‘Karen?’

  ‘The receptionist,’ he said. Smiled.

  I didn’t care what Tash thought. This guy was everything. And I kissed him. Right there. In front of the whole school. I didn’t give a crap who saw it.

  On the way home I told him that Tash thought it was weird we were together and that Chloe had a crush on him and he cracked up laughing like it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. It made me realise I should’ve just laughed it off, too. I had to stop letting Tash get to me and promised myself I’d do better.

  ‘How ’bout the rest of your day?’ he said.

  I took a deep breath. Steadied myself.

  ‘You know that Julius Warren guy?’ I said.

  ‘That weird bald dude?’

  ‘Yep,’ I said, and was about to tell him everything, but I never got a chance. Because we were home. And sitting outside the apartment block was one of those white vans. Its hazard lights were flashing. Its doors had been left wide open.

  I thought I was about to throw up.

  This was it. They were taking Diggs. I knew it cos I’d caused it.

  ‘Shit,’ Z whispered. ‘They know about the graffiti.’

  That stopped me. Of course it could be that. Of course they would know who we were. Julius had pretty much said as much. The Unit must have watched some security footage and traced us back to the apartment. We weren’t invisible or invincible; we were idiots. And I felt a little relieved then, cos they should have been taking me away. If anyone was going to suffer, it should have been me. Not Diggs. He’d done nothing wrong except take in an ungrateful, stupid idiot.

  The neighbours stood in their open doorways. Their whispers turned to silence when they saw us. Their icy stares followed us as we rushed upstairs.

  Z opened the front door.

  They were there. Of course. Unit Officers. And my worst fear was playing out in front of my eyes.

  CHAPTER 33

  The officers dragged Diggs down the hallway towards us.

  ‘Dad!’ Z ran to him.

  ‘Stand back,’ an officer yelled. Z didn’t, and the officer slammed him against the wall. Hard. I saw him gasp and struggle as all the air was knocked out of him and it felt like I’d been hit too.

  ‘I’ll be OK,’ Diggs kept saying. ‘I’ll be home soon.’ And for a second I thought I was hearing my dad telling me it would be OK and watching my dad getting pulled away from me forever. It was happening all over again. But this time, I stepped in.

  ‘Why are you taking him? What’s the charge?’ I shouted.

  The officers ignored me and kept marching Diggs towards the door. I backed out of the apartment as quickly as I could. ‘What’s the charge?’ I shouted again. Louder this time. But still, they ignored me.

  ‘Santee. Tell the kids I’m OK. Tell them –’ but he was cut off by the officers yelling, Get back! Stand aside! Move!

  ‘Santee!’ Diggs tried to yell over their shouts and I saw him twist and turn like he was trying to get to me, like he wanted to tell me something, and an officer raised his baton high above his head and hit Diggs and he staggered and fell and everything sparked and fizzed and I screamed until my voice disappeared. And then an officer was right in my face, his nostrils flaring, his skin red and sweaty and flaky. He swore at me: Little slut, dirty mongrel dog, fuck off. So much hate. Spit exploded out of the corners of his mouth and foamed and dripped like he was the dirty mongrel dog that needed to be shot in the head.

  And then he was gone. And Diggs was gone. The neighbours disappeared back into their homes.

  I stood outside the door. I could hear Mila crying. Softly. Softly. And I thought I should go to her but my whole body was shaking and shaking and there was nothing I could do to make it stop.

  ‘Santee.’ The voice sounded really far away. ‘Santee.’ I opened my eyes and there was Pip and suddenly I was crying these huge, heaving sobs that wrenched themselves out of my gut and it hurt so bad but I couldn’t stop. She wrapped her arms around me and whispered things I needed to hear but didn’t deserve.

  We were told to get whatever we needed from our bedrooms cos we were moving in with Pip.

  ‘But –’ Z said.

  ‘Your dad and I wor
ked this out already. No arguments,’ she said, and held up her hands like she wasn’t going to hear anything more about it. ‘Check your rooms carefully,’ she added. ‘Don’t leave anything you don’t want those arseholes to have. Understand?’ She looked right at me and Z then, as if she knew exactly what we were hiding. Understand? We nodded and I followed Z to his room.

  ‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ he said, closing his bedroom door.

  We hadn’t hidden anything because we hadn’t thought we’d needed to. Everything we used was stuff we were legitimately allowed to have. Pens and markers and sketchpads and stickers. Office supplies. Nothing that screamed Threat. But in a different context, who knew what they’d make of it? I couldn’t stop thinking about the context I must have supplied the Unit for their arrest of Diggs.

  Z started ripping out pages from his sketchpad and tearing them into tiny pieces. I shouted at him to stop, but he wouldn’t. He was crying and ripping up the paper and I joined him until the floor was covered in sad confetti. We broke our markers and destroyed our pens and ruined all the stickers. For a moment, I wanted to set the whole lot on fire.

  But then, as I looked at the stuff in my room, it came to me: everything was from them. The Drivers. I’d never asked for any of it, but somehow they just knew. The sketchpad Z had given me. The pile of clothes from Mila. All the things Diggs had bought, like it was no big deal. Except it was. I made a pile of all my stuff. I didn’t want any of it to burn away to nothing. I didn’t want any of it going to the Unit. It was mine. And I’d keep it forever.

  CHAPTER 34

  Pip’s apartment was small and messy and not made for four people. We crowded into her dusty-smelling lounge room that had way too much stuff in it: three mismatched, lumpy armchairs and a little table surrounded by wobbly looking chairs and a whole jungle of house plants that curled towards the light streaming in from the window. I didn’t know how we would all fit in there but Pip said, We’ll work it out, and she sounded so cheerful I almost believed her. Mila curled up into one of the armchairs, surrounded by her bags, and stared at the wall. She hadn’t spoken for hours. Every now and then tears would slide silently down her face.

  ‘Let’s bake a cake,’ Pip said.

  Mila didn’t respond.

  ‘I don’t think Mila wants to,’ Z said.

  ‘I’ll need more butter.’ Pip kept right on talking as if everything was normal. ‘Zac, Santee – you two can get butter and we’ll get started. Won’t we, Mila?’

  But still Mila didn’t move.

  ‘I think I should stay with her,’ Z said.

  Pip gave him one of those looks and said, ‘Butter.’ She shoved some money into his hand and pretty much pushed us out the door.

  Everything looked the same. How was the world carrying on as if nothing had happened? It should have been all over the News – Douglas Driver: Falsely Arrested! – with his face on screens across the city. People should have been crying and demanding that the Unit fix it, bring him back.

  But, just like when my own dad was arrested, there was none of that.

  Me and Z walked in silence. I didn’t know what to do, what to say. Should I hold his hand? Comfort him? Tell him everything would be all right even though I knew that was a lie, and so did he? But the biggest question circling and circling around was: should I tell him this was all my fault?

  We walked through the familiar sliding doors and into a silent, almost deserted store. There was no crappy music playing over the speakers. No kids throwing tantrums or stressed-out parents or impatient shoppers in long queues for the checkouts. And there was hardly any food on the shelves. It felt as if we’d missed something – a big sale or a massive riot. The dairy section was nearly empty. I picked up a lone tub of yoghurt.

  ‘Remember that cartoon cow?’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘When we had to hitchhike from the National Park. Remember? The truck had a cartoon cow painted on the side. I thought we could trust the driver cos of that cow, remember? Turns out I was right. And you kept asking her all about cheese and stuff …’ I rambled, trying to get something out of him. A tiny smile. Just a glimpse of the Z I knew. A sign that he was going to be all right. But his brain was somewhere else entirely. I didn’t blame him.

  We stared into the refrigerators. I reached for some butter but a woman swept in from nowhere and grabbed it from me and before I’d realised what had happened, she was rushing to the cash register, her arms full of whatever she could carry. There was a time, not that long ago, when I would have chased her down and yelled at her and got my own way. But now? It didn’t seem so important.

  I asked the guy who worked there if there was anything more out the back, any stock that hadn’t gone out yet.

  ‘Nope,’ he said. ‘That’s it.’

  ‘When are you restocking?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  How could he not know? They needed to restock right then and there. If they didn’t … I looked at what remained on the shelves. There wasn’t much to choose from and I figured if we didn’t buy food now, we might be waiting a while for our next chance. I copied the woman who’d stolen our butter and filled my arms with whatever I could manage. Z followed me around in a daze.

  We had some supplies, but no butter, and I wondered if we should try another store just in case.

  ‘No,’ Z said. ‘I’m going to HQ. I’ve gotta find out what’s going on.’

  I didn’t argue or tell him it was pointless, cos I understood. I was the girl who stood outside the prison, week after week, waiting to visit her dad even though there was a good chance he wasn’t even there.

  I’d always tried to avoid Unit Headquarters. It had those windows you couldn’t see through, but that they could see out of. That was the point, I suppose. The windows reflected everything back in this distorted, slightly golden way. I suppose it was meant to be impressive but it just made me feel uneasy.

  I think Z thought we’d just walk up the stairs and into reception and ask for his dad. Like visiting someone at their office. Simple. But it wasn’t going to be like that. People like us weren’t meant to go inside that building. Threats would be marched inside by people in uniform and that was that.

  They’d put up a fence. A wire thing that stretched across the front of the building and blocked the stairs and entrance. A heap of people peered through the wire, called out to the officers who stood guard on the stairs. We joined them, even though I knew it was useless.

  ‘Douglas Driver!’ Z added his voice to all the others who shouted the names of their missing people. ‘Douglas Driver! I need to see Douglas Driver.’

  The officers did a good job of pretending we didn’t exist. All the voices bounced off them and didn’t even leave a mark. They blocked out all our desperate faces and just stood there, still and expressionless, machine guns in hands. They were like robots. It didn’t bother them that people kept shouting and pleading and crying and rattling the fence.

  Z kept on shouting and every time he did – Douglas Driver! Douglas Driver! – it sounded like the words were being ripped from the back of his throat. I couldn’t stand hearing him like that. I added my voice to his and Z reached out and took my hand. And we stood like that, shouting.

  There must have been a hundred people there, maybe more. Enough to push the fence over. March up the stairs. Demand something be done. How could they stop so many of us?

  ‘Step away from the barrier,’ a voice boomed.

  More officers had appeared on the stairs. One repeated into a megaphone: Step away from the barrier, move along, step away from the barrier, move along. But it wasn’t until the officers started moving towards us that the shouting faded and people walked away. I was still holding Z’s hand, and I said something like, Let’s go home, and he said nothing as I gently dragged him out of there.

  CHAPTER 35

  There was cake because Pip had enough butter to bake, after all (I realised after you’d left, she said, sorry about that), and
we ate it in front of the News. We crowded around the little television on the mattresses we’d dragged in from next door that now filled Pip’s floor. We had taken whatever we could from the apartment and Pip had locked the door behind us.

  The Unit had turned up later, as Pip knew they would, to find whatever they thought could be evidence of whatever it was they’d taken Diggs in for. We could hear them turning the place inside out even though Pip turned the volume up on the TV extra loud.

  I stared at the screen but I wasn’t really watching. The images blurred in front of my eyes. I could still see the look on Diggs’s face as they dragged him away. The sound of his voice. The way he’d collapsed when they’d hit him. My thoughts of Diggs got all mixed in with my memories of Dad. My fault, my fault. The guilt kept surging and growing inside me.

  I replayed my conversations with Julius Warren over and over. What if I’d given something away with a look or my silence? What if I had accidentally given them that one piece of information they needed to make their arrest? I was to blame. For my own dad and now Diggs. I knew it. But there was no way I could explain any of that to them – not after everything they had done for me.

  The Government would move a new family into the apartment. Pip said that was what they did now. This was an area where people wanted to live, which meant someone important, a family of Good Citizens, would inherit the place.

  ‘That’s not fair,’ Mila said.

  ‘No,’ Pip said. ‘But it’s the way it is, my love.’

  ‘Can’t we change it?’ There were no tears in Mila’s voice anymore. She was all cried out, I suppose. In their place was the Mila I was more familiar with. The Mila whose brain was constantly tick-tick-ticking over and running ahead and outdoing all of us.

  ‘Maybe,’ Pip said. ‘But not for a little while yet. We have to be patient.’

  ‘When’s Dad coming home?’ she said.

  ‘Soon, love. Soon.’ Pip looked at me and Z. ‘And in the meantime, no more going for runs in the morning, either. You two have to be patient, too.’