This is How We Change the Ending

by Vikki Wakefield

  Youth will be open for another hour—after that I don’t know what I’ll do. It’s against the rules for anyone to sleep at the centre, but if Macy’s staying there tonight she might let me curl up in a corner until morning.

  I can’t believe it has taken me this long to work out why Dec locks Nance out of the flat. His rule is: real men don’t hit women or children, but I think he’s afraid. Not of Nance—of himself. The only way he can stop himself is to put the door, with its steel mesh plate and triple lock, between him and the thing he wants to hit.

  Merrick was right: once ideas have taken hold, they’re impossible to let go. For so long I’ve told myself everything would be okay because Dec won’t hit me.

  But I’m sixteen. According to Dec, I’m a man now. It’s probably safer out here.

  When I reach the main road, it’s drizzling and Youth is in darkness. Macy probably has the outside lights switched off so Agnes won’t be offended by the wall.

  I cross and trudge up the footpath. As I pass the Rage Cage, I hear the scuff of shoes on the asphalt. It’s Deng—not shooting, just sitting there with his back to the mesh.

  ‘You can’t play in slippers,’ he says. ‘I will break your ankles.’

  He’s talking about his crossover—he changes direction so fast anyone would trip over their own feet in sneakers, let alone slides.

  ‘Hey.’ I push through the gate. ‘Where’s Coop?’

  ‘No Coop.’

  ‘Why is it so quiet?’

  ‘No lights.’

  ‘I can see that. So why are you sitting out here on your own?’

  ‘There are others,’ he says. ‘It’s okay.’

  I peer through the mesh. In the undercover space behind the wall there are a few kids sitting on the concrete. It’s dark there, too.

  ‘We’re locked out?’

  Deng nods. He lights a cigarette. ‘Yes.’

  He’ll have to quit soon if he wants to play NBA.

  I leave the cage and head to the entrance. The roller door is down. As well as the four kids huddled behind the wall, there’s a solitary figure at the far end. ‘What’s going on? Why is it closed?’

  ‘We don’t know,’ a boy says. ‘Macy isn’t here.’

  ‘Then why are you all sitting here?’

  Stupid question. They probably have nowhere else to go. Like me. Nobody says anything.

  The rain gets heavier and Deng takes cover with the rest of us. His phone screen lights up. The four are all boys, around twelve or thirteen. I don’t know their names, but the figure at the far end is a girl.

  Tash. She ducks her head but I can tell it’s her.

  I wander over, slide my back down the wall and take the space next to her. She ignores me. This isn’t the time or place to pick a fight, but I’m having trouble believing she hasn’t got something to say. She always does.

  ‘Do you have any idea what’s going on?’

  She sniffs and wipes her nose on the back of her hand. ‘Macy’s sick, maybe?’

  ‘But they’d call in Thomas or Mim, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘Nobody knows anything.’ She hits the home button on her phone. ‘It’s almost closing time anyway.’

  ‘Where are you gonna go?’

  She shrugs. ‘Stay here till the rain stops.’

  ‘Then what?’

  She half turns. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘Looking for you,’ I lie. The cold concrete is already making my arse numb. If Nance was here she’d warn me about haemorrhoids.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You know why.’

  She reaches into her bag, unzips a compartment and pulls out my two missing pages from my notebook. ‘I didn’t take them. I found them on the floor.’

  I grab the papers. ‘You used my words, though.’

  ‘I like your poems.’ She zips her bag and tosses it aside. ‘I’m shit at poetry. I’m much better at pictures.’

  ‘They’re not poems.’

  ‘They sound like poems.’

  ‘Well, they’re not. They’re mine and they’re private.’

  The rain eases. One by one, Deng and the other kids leave.

  ‘So what will you do with them?’ Tash asks.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘We could team up.’

  ‘And do what?’

  She gestures at the wall behind us. ‘Make a statement. Every bloody day if that’s what it takes.’

  ‘They’ll be watching now.’

  ‘Yeah. I know.’ She looks up at the camera near the entrance, pulls a selfie face and waves. ‘Anyway, you should take credit for the wall. You might be famous.’

  ‘I don’t want to be famous. Why don’t you take the credit?’

  ‘I can’t. I’ve already been busted three times—two clean-up orders and a two-thousand-five-hundred-dollar fine.’

  ‘Shit.’

  One last burst and the rain stops altogether.

  ‘The rain’s stopped,’ I say.

  She gathers her things and stands. ‘Come on—I want to show you something.’

  NINETEEN

  Tash lives in a block of flats in Rowley Park West. Merrick and I have always had an unspoken agreement not to come here—we keep to Bairstal, or the Rowley Park side, where our enemies are known and we know all the exits. We made Rowley Park West out to be the slum of all slums, but even in the dark I can tell it’s pretty much identical to Bairstal.

  If I had known Tash lived this far from my place I wouldn’t have walked all the way with her. And she insisted on taking the side streets because someone she knew might spot her, so it took us forty minutes to get here.

  ‘Why do you always wear the same clothes?’ She plucks at the sleeve of my hoodie.

  I shrug. ‘Why do you always wear different clothes?’

  She doesn’t answer—just frowns at her socks as if she doesn’t agree they’re mismatched. She keeps asking rude questions. Why am I so skinny? Have I tried Roaccutane for acne? Am I as pussy as I look?

  I don’t know. Genes? No. Maybe.

  ‘This is where I live.’ She waves at the flats across the street. Exactly like ours, but painted green. ‘I’m not going in yet.’

  We sit on a low brick wall outside a weatherboard house with boarded-up windows.

  ‘So why aren’t you supposed to be out? Grounded?’

  She shakes her head. ‘No. Not really.’

  She asks a lot of questions, but she sure doesn’t like answering them.

  ‘Who do you live with?’

  ‘My mum and sister and my stepbrother and stepdad.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’ I must say it with the wrong inflection or something because she shoves me. ‘What’s that for? Why are you so angry?’

  ‘Girls aren’t allowed to be angry?’

  ‘Of course they are.’ I move further away from her. ‘But you are a bit full on.’

  ‘See?’

  ‘Yeah, but it’s not a gender thing. It’s a you thing.’

  ‘The fuck it’s not.’

  ‘You’re the one who used the word pussy.’ Again, she doesn’t reply. ‘Look, you’re home safe. I should go.’

  ‘Go where? And I haven’t shown you my piece.’

  ‘So show me.’

  A car passes slowly, only its parking lights switched on, and she tenses. ‘It’s not safe,’ she says. ‘Youth was safe, but now they’re closing it down, there’s nowhere safe.’

  ‘What about school? Where do you go?’

  ‘I don’t.’ She smirks. ‘They stop looking for you after a while.’

  ‘But what are you going to do?’

  ‘Run away,’ she says. ‘I don’t know where to yet. I’m still working on a plan.’ She jumps off the wall and strides across the street. ‘Come on.’

  I follow her into a laneway, dodging an orange-striped cat that shoots from behind a row of bins and tries to wind between our legs.

  ‘That’s Monty.’

  ‘Yours?’

  ‘He’s a stray.
’ She presses a finger to her lips. ‘Keep your voice down. It echoes in here.’

  The laneway is paved with cracked, uneven bricks, scooped like a drain in the middle and wide enough for two cars. An arched canopy hangs over crumpled iron fences on both sides, and the rear brick walls of the flats—three storeys high and without any windows—make the laneway feel like a tunnel. Tash leads me to a gap in the fence and slips through. On the other side is a flattened path winding through a tangle of weeds.

  Monty darts ahead and disappears.

  I can barely see my own feet; I’m wondering how I’ll be able to see whatever she wants to show me, when I realise she’s heading towards a faint greenish glow.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Through here,’ Tash whispers. ‘It’s the only one left.’ She ducks under a branch and pulls it back to let me pass. ‘Luminous paint. It’s expensive, so I only use it for accents.’

  ‘Wow.’

  The mural is painted on the side of the flats. It’s about the size of our lounge-room wall: an army of children with empty eyes, wearing hoodies, some holding a brain and others a heart in their outstretched hands. The colours are ghostly greys and misty blues, apart from the phosphorescent green coming from their hollow eye sockets. Only the figures in the front row have any detail, but it’s obvious there are thousands of children in receding lines, all marching behind a taller, cloaked figure beating an enormous drum.

  ‘They made me clean up the others.’ She stands back, hands on hips. ‘Nobody knows about this one. I didn’t tag it.’

  ‘It’s amazing. What does it mean?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Who’s the guy with the drum?’

  She rolls her eyes. ‘Who is he to you?’

  Dec. No question.

  ‘You’re really good,’ I say instead.

  She turns away. ‘I know.’

  ‘But why hide it? Why don’t you make art that’s legal? What if you got permission to paint the wall at Youth? Macy’s the director. Like she said, it’s our space.’

  She sneers. ‘I want to stay angry. I don’t want permission.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because discontented people are the ones who effect change. Happy people don’t—they just keep the status quo to protect whatever makes them content.’ She puts air quotes around the word. ‘The very fact that I graffitied the wall is what makes it newsworthy. If I was allowed, nobody would care.’

  I take a deep breath. ‘I meant why are you angry?’

  ‘Aren’t you?’

  ‘Yeah, but the things I’m angry about I can’t change. They’re personal. You appear to be angry with the whole world.’

  ‘Personal, how?’

  ‘Small stuff. Family stuff.’

  ‘That’s where it starts,’ she says. ‘We should go.’

  She heads back the way we came, this time letting the branch go to whip my face, and we exit the laneway.

  ‘You took a big risk with the wall.’

  ‘I stuck up a few posters. It’s only temporary, so it’s a lesser penalty.’ She pauses under the streetlight. ‘So are you in or out?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Are you going to fight or what?’

  For a moment I’m not sure what she’s talking about. ‘For Youth?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  When I take too long to answer, she changes the subject again.

  ‘What words would you put there?’ she says. ‘Caption it—whatever. My mural.’

  ‘I don’t know. I have heaps of stuff. I just don’t know if I want anyone to see it.’

  She considers for a moment. ‘You’re scared people will laugh at you.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘The right people don’t.’

  ‘You’re pretty smart.’ I smile. ‘For a high-school drop-out, I mean.’

  I wait for a comeback, but she just looks sad.

  The last time I pulled an all-nighter was when Merrick wanted to sit outside the FOMO Festival and we missed the last train. I can hardly keep my eyes open.

  I go in through the window. Ditch my bag in the kitchen. There are dinner plates still on the table and the air inside the flat smells like it’s been locked in for days. No sign of Nance or the boys.

  Dec and Jarrod are sitting in the backyard on our freshly laid turf, drinking. Jarrod always comes over on Sundays so they can pre-load on the cheap before they go to the greyhound track for some live action. I thought they’d be gone by now.

  Nance opens the bedroom door. Her eyes are puffy. ‘Where have you been? I was so worried.’

  ‘What are they still doing here?’

  Her nostrils flare. I half expect smoke to shoot through them. ‘What do you think?’ She slips through the gap and closes the door. ‘O’s asleep. He kept me up half the night. Are you okay?’

  ‘Fine. Where’s Jake?’

  ‘He’s upstairs with Margie. Where did you stay? Youth?’

  I shake my head. I don’t bother telling her it was closed for the first time I can remember. ‘It’s not a hotel. You can’t stay there.’

  ‘Oh. Merrick’s?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Tash.’

  ‘A girl?’ Nance is delighted. ‘Did you meet her at school? Is she your girlfriend? Is she nice?’

  Aside from not wanting to have this conversation with my eight-years-older stepmother, I also don’t want to have to admit that I didn’t exactly stay at Tash’s house. More like sat outside, in the dark, for hours, after Tash went inside to bed. Partly because I hooked into some random’s wi-fi, but mostly because I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.

  ‘She’s not my girlfriend,’ I say to cut her short. ‘Not even a friend, really.’

  Nance gives me a look she reserves for Dec when he says something disgusting. ‘Don’t be that guy.’

  ‘You cohabitate with that guy. You procreate with that guy.’

  She follows me to the kitchen.

  I open the fridge and check inside.

  Dec is saying something to Jarrod that I can’t make out, and sneering at me through the window while he talks. He breaks eye contact and they both burst out laughing.

  ‘He feels bad for locking you out,’ Nance says. ‘Don’t make a big deal out of it, okay?’

  I want to make something of it, but Jarrod gives me the creeps. Ever since I missed the goat he likes to sneak up behind me, cup my balls and pass judgement on their progress south.

  ‘There’s nothing edible in here.’ I show Nance the expiry date on the milk carton. ‘The milk’s off. So’s the pineapple juice.’

  Her pupils shrink. She grabs her handbag, takes out a few dollar coins and slaps them on the table. ‘Go get some chips.’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  Nance regards me from the doorway. ‘They bring you up to do like your daddy done,’ she says. ‘It’s from a song. I can’t remember which.’

  I know it. It’s holding spot 99 in my Top 100.

  I’m working on Plan B. Well, staring at the ceiling and thinking about Plan B.

  I can’t live with my current situation. Merrick’s hanging with Tuwy and Fallon; Nance is so fixated on keeping the peace that she has forgotten about justice; Jake is turning into a mini-Dec with his crotch-grabbing and bad language, and Otis hardly says my name anymore. Jake has left Otis so far behind he’ll probably never catch up.

  But maybe it’s true that each time a door slams another one creaks open. Or I could frame it a different way: since my allies are dropping off, maybe it’s time to engage the enemy.

  Mum has texted six times in the past two days. She wants me to see her apartment.

  I lie awake for ages, listening for the sound of Dec’s keys in the lock. Upstairs, Margie sings to Kelly on the steps. Next door, Clancy sings to Elvis on the record player. In the room next door, Nance sings Otis to sleep. On the bottom bunk, Jake is spread out on his back like a starfish.

  Dec comes home at 2 am,
stumbling drunk and fumbling for light switches. He stays up for another hour playing his guitar, and I have to bite the corner of my pillow to keep from screaming like Otis.

  When the flat is finally dark and everyone’s asleep, I sneak into the kitchen—I take the twenty-dollar note from the empty plant pot on the kitchen table.

  So what if it’s a test?

  I fold it into a tight square and put it in my wallet. It feels more honest to steal from my own blood than it does to beg from a stranger.

  TWENTY

  Mum meets me downstairs in the lobby of her apartment building, a huge concrete block with lots of greenish glass and weathered timber and rusted metal panels. I don’t know why they try to make something brand new look old—it’s like when rich kids get new kicks and they dirty them up before they wear them.

  She shows me how you have to put a card into a slot to be able to press the buttons in the lift. ‘Security,’ she says. ‘So nobody who doesn’t live here can go past the ground level.’

  We zoom up to the sixth floor and she uses the same card to open a heavy door with 614 on it in brass numbers. Before I step inside, I make a pact with myself: I am one hundred per cent committed to being nice, positive, helpful.

  Dream—Goal—Plan—Action—Reality.

  I’ll be good.

  Mum’s apartment looks like it came fully furnished by IKEA—everything is white, brown or beige, apart from three flamingo cushions on the couch and a fluffy white carpet with pinkish streaks. It looks like a polar bear carcass. I brush against a coffee table and it squeaks. I run my hand across the spines of books on the bookshelf, and the whole thing sways.

  John the Sponsor might be a magician, but he’s not so handy with an Allen key.

  ‘It’s only one bedroom, one bath,’ Mum says. ‘There are two-bedroom apartments on the upper floors, but there was just me, so…’ She flips the flamingo cushions onto the floor. ‘The lounge is a sofa bed. This is where you’ll sleep when you come to stay.’

  When I come to stay?

  She pulls on a metal handle. ‘It’s stuck. Help me out.’

  I throw my weight behind her and the mattress unfolds, still covered with plastic.

  She lies on the side next to the window. ‘Try it.’

  I take the other side. My feet hang off the end. I can feel every spring. ‘Perfect.’