The Sidekicks

by Will Kostakis

  ‘They’re very small.’ He mimes the croissant’s size.

  ‘Then bring small plates,’ Thommo says.

  ‘Anything to drink?’

  ‘I’m right with water.’

  ‘Long black,’ I say.

  ‘Orange juice, please,’ Miles croaks.

  The waiter takes the menu. We don’t say anything. He returns with the croissant on one side plate, and two spares. Thommo breaks the pastry and gives us each a third. He reconsiders, breaks his in half, and then halves one of those pieces. He gives one to Miles and one to me. Coz he’s a swimmer.

  ‘Do you remember House Competition Day?’ he asks.

  Miles furrows his brow, and then an, ‘Oh,’ and a nod.

  The teachers are always lax with the roll on House Comp Day. We had dodgeball the period before lunch. Zac convinced us to throw our games, get eliminated and explore the city for a few hours. Miles too. We ended up at a bottle shop attached to a bar. Thommo, Zac and I went in. Zac grabbed a six-pack and walked straight to the counter in his uniform.

  ‘Look, mate, I know this looks suss,’ he said, speaking through his bottom teeth to sound older.

  The owner didn’t let him say more. ‘Out, or I call the cops.’

  Zac gave him a curtsey. ‘Good day to you, sir.’

  And we bailed.

  Thommo shakes his head. ‘Can’t believe he thought that’d work. Such a moron.’

  ‘I can’t believe Miles played hooky.’

  Miles is quick to his own defence. ‘Well, I was not going to drink anyway.’

  Thommo rolls his eyes. ‘Oh, get off your high horse for a minute. You and Zac were selling black-market essays.’

  I pick up my croissant. ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. They had an underground operation going. Made thousands.’

  ‘Hundreds,’ Miles corrects.

  ‘Fuck me.’ I’m impressed. ‘I thought Zac told me everything.’

  ‘He definitely didn’t,’ Thommo says. ‘Thanks.’

  The waiter’s put our drinks down in the centre of the table. I pick up my coffee and Miles slides his juice closer. He leans in. He misses the straw and chases it around the glass with an open mouth. He gets it eventually. And sucks on it, accomplished.

  ‘But yeah, the takeaway from today is,’ Thommo says, ‘Miles would pay Isaac to be the face of his illegal essay empire, and Isaac would then pay you for narcotics. So really, if anyone’s blameless in all this, it’s me.’

  ‘That is not funny,’ says Miles.

  But he’s the first to laugh.

  The gate sings on its hinges as it shuts. ‘Are you sure it is okay for us to be here?’ Miles asks.

  I press my card against the sensor. The lock whirrs. ‘The straight-A student, the son of a teacher and me. I’m pretty sure if they have to choose between us, they’ll kick me out.’ I push the door open.

  ‘What’s the worst they’re gonna do?’ Thommo asks. ‘Send us home? Ooo!’

  ‘Just stick with me,’ I urge. ‘You’ll meet some chicks. Try not to act like yourself.’

  ‘I have a girlfriend,’ Miles says.

  ‘Sure you do.’

  The mess hall is divided by gender. In the rec corner, the Sacred chicks swarm around the pool table, while a handful of them try to play snooker in the gaps. The guys are either in their assigned seats or part of the scrum around the cardboard seating chart – it doesn’t take that long to find your spot, they’re just freaking out about the girls they’re sitting with.

  I pull out the closest seat. Thommo does the same. Miles hesitates.

  ‘It is allocated seating, though?’

  ‘No one ends up sticking to it,’ I tell him.

  ‘Surely they will realise . . .’

  On cue, Collins turns away from the catering ladies and notices I’ve brought company. Miles shits a brick. I wave. Thommo tries not to laugh. Collins excuses himself and comes over.

  ‘Suppress all of your instincts,’ I mutter to Miles. When Collins is close enough, I say, ‘Hey!’

  ‘Gents, I didn’t know you boarded with us.’

  Miles starts, ‘Sir, I –’

  ‘They’re your responsibility, Harley. They misbehave, you’re on scullery for a month.’ His eyes narrow for a sec. ‘Your parents know where you are, yes?’

  They both nod.

  ‘Then don’t embarrass yourselves.’ He smirks and moves over to the scrum. ‘Disperse! Be sociable!’

  Miles exhales.

  ‘Dude, you’re weak as piss,’ I say.

  ‘Shut up.’

  Jacs swoops into the opposite seat. ‘Took your time,’ she says. She probably recognises Thommo from photos. I don’t think their paths have ever crossed at gatherings though. She turns to Miles, intrigued. ‘You’re new.’

  ‘I am Miles.’

  ‘He has a girlfriend,’ I add, pulling the appropriate face.

  ‘Hello, Miles who has a girlfriend, I’m Jacqueline.’

  ‘That is my aunt’s name. But she is dead now.’

  I go for stunned silence. Thommo cackles. ‘Dude, you have negative people skills. Like, less than none.’

  Jacs leaps to his defence. ‘Says the guy who’s clearly here because he can’t meet girls otherwise.’

  Thommo keeps it chill. ‘I’m just here for the feed.’

  She nods slowly. ‘Gotcha.’ She isn’t a subtle operator and I can see her lining up a shot. ‘Don’t worry, I’m happy to lie about how we met.’

  Thommo lobs it back. ‘I wouldn’t admit to meeting anyone here either.’

  She shifts in her seat. It’s game on. ‘What’s our origin story then?’

  I don’t reckon Thommo can conjure some fake history from thin air. Just as I go to say something about how weird it is to be back, he conjures it.

  ‘You tried to take the last watermelon at the supermarket, but gave it to me because I was heading for it. Nothing else, not till we bumped into each other again at the check-out and you asked me out for coffee,’ he says.

  She clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth. ‘You’re smart.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Your story doesn’t hold up, though. Nobody who knows me would believe I’d willingly give away the last watermelon. I’d have a Quarter Quell over that shit.’ She makes herself laugh with that one. I smile, but she doesn’t look away from Thommo. It feels . . . off. ‘And where do you live?’

  ‘East.’

  ‘I board down the street. Why would I be at your supermarket, buying a watermelon? I get all my food from school, and if I didn’t, why would I trek to your local only to have to carry a watermelon back here?’ she asks. ‘It falls apart under basic scrutiny.’

  I swoop back into the conversation. ‘Jacs wants to be a lawyer.’

  ‘Will be a lawyer,’ she corrects. She turns to me. ‘How’s it feel to be back?’

  Everyone’s a bit slow coming down for breakfast. I have the table to myself, so I draw. Nothing special, just random shapes on my serviette, which I hide when Hughes shows up. Everyone dresses for school before breakfast. He’s in his baggy hoodlum tracksuit and his eyes are barely open. We have the morning off every second Friday. It’s timetabled as double Maths, which is double a subject we don’t take. This isn’t one of those Fridays.

  ‘Confuse your Fridays?’ I ask.

  ‘Yup.’ He pours milk into his cereal and starts eating. ‘Why’d your alarm go off so early anyway?’

  ‘Coz I didn’t confuse my Fridays.’ Coffee with Jacs, actually. ‘Ah, crap.’

  Hughes’s mouth hangs open and a little milk escapes. ‘What?’

  ‘Incoming.’

  He checks over his shoulder. Toby Caroline with a bowl of cereal. He’s in the year below, but he always tries to sit with us. We’re ‘more his level’. Someone told him he was mature for his age once. I want to slap that person.

  ‘Hey,’ he says.

  ‘Hello, Toby.’ I deadpan it, but it goes right over his head
. It always does. He slips into the seat beside Hughes.

  Usually, we’re safe at breakfast. He’s in Squad. But for some reason, the universe has decided to bless us with his presence. He’s probably sick and about to share the gastro love.

  ‘How’d you go last night?’ he asks.

  Hughes fields it. ‘All right.’

  ‘Did you . . . you know?’ Pro tip: if you call it you knowing, you’re not mature for your age.

  ‘Yeah, right on the table halfway through dinner, didn’t you see?’

  ‘Really?’

  Hughes’s eyes widen.

  ‘Oh, you’re kidding?’ Toby asks.

  ‘Yes,’ Hughes groans.

  Toby finally senses the hostility. He turns to me. ‘How about you?’

  ‘No sex for me, but my mate did hit it off with one of the girls.’

  ‘Who? Ryan?’

  I nod.

  This puzzles Toby. ‘But he’s a poof, though.’

  I snort a laugh. Seriously, this kid . . . ‘No, he’s not.’

  ‘He is. He told me.’

  I nod. ‘Sure he did.’

  ‘No, seriously. Before swimming the other day. He thought I was and he told me.’

  ‘You know,’ Hughes chimes in, ‘I’d buy it.’

  ‘See?’ Toby says. ‘What? You’re saying he’s never put the moves on you?’

  ‘No. And trust me, he’s not.’

  Toby’s adamant. ‘I’m telling you, dude, he is. Not that there’s anything wrong with it. I mean, my cousin is. It’s cool.’

  Hughes twists his face a bit. ‘We had PE together years ago. I wonder if he ever stared at my junk in the change room.’

  ‘Who?’ Fuzz asks, a piece of dry toast hanging from his mouth. He sits on the other side of Hughes.

  ‘No one,’ I tell Fuzz. ‘He didn’t stare at your junk,’ I tell Hughes.

  ‘Ryan’s a poof apparently,’ Hughes explains.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with it, though,’ Toby reiterates.

  Fuzz says he isn’t surprised. He didn’t pick it, but he isn’t surprised.

  Jacs waits on the fountain. She has two cups by her side. She hands me one as I sit. ‘Last night was fun,’ she says.

  Looking back on it, it was. I nod a couple of times.

  She’s watching me closely. ‘Your friends are cool.’

  I’d tell her they’re not my friends, if it wasn’t such a Miles thing to do.

  ‘Well, maybe cool is the wrong word,’ Jacs says. ‘Interesting. They’re interesting.’

  ‘Miles has a girlfriend.’

  ‘Oh.’ Jacs covers her grin. ‘I feel bad for laughing. Poor guy.’

  ‘I don’t. It’s hilarious.’

  She lets herself laugh a bit and then looks down. ‘So . . . what’s Ryan’s deal?’

  That’s travelled fast, even by boarding-house standards. I’m about to tell her Toby’s lying when she asks, ‘Does he have a girlfriend?’

  Ah. She’s keen on him.

  It rubs me wrong. Not that I want to pash her or anything. It’s just, when Zac hung out with us, she didn’t forget I was there.

  ‘I dunno.’ I dunno if Thommo has a girlfriend. I dunno if Toby’s telling the truth. I dunno.

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘We’re not really that close.’

  ‘You were both good friends with a guy who died, how can you not be close?’ And then her eyes widen. Something suddenly makes sense to her. ‘You’ve still got the tatt, don’t you?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Knew it.’ She sips her drink.

  ‘Knew what?’

  ‘You think you’re this macho guy who doesn’t have roots and who doesn’t care, who can just drop everyone and not return texts for weeks. But you do care, you do.’

  ‘We honestly have never been that close, Jacs.’

  ‘Are you saying you don’t look at them and feel a little . . .’ She pops her chest forwards and grunts.

  I make a face that’s a question mark.

  ‘A tug,’ she elaborates. ‘You don’t feel like you’re being pulled?’

  I saw Thommo on the bench. Any other day, I would of just kept walking. But something made me go out and speak to him, even though I had nothing to say . . .

  Jacs pulls on the elastic band around her wrist. ‘My pop used to stand in our kitchen, wearing his chequered flannel shirt and pyjama bottoms with definite hip-hop swagger. He was too cool. Growing up, he’d say we spend our lives wrapping rubber bands around people. Some bands are so tight that you can feel them pulling you together. Some are loose and stretch for miles, there’s so much give you hardly notice them. But you’re still connected, and sooner or later . . .’ She releases the band and it snaps back into her wrist. ‘Ow.’ She breathes in through clenched teeth and rocks forwards. ‘That hurt more than I thought it would.’

  ‘I bet. You right?’

  ‘Yeah, I just won’t explain it visually next time.’

  ‘Probably for the best.’

  She rocks back upright and exhales. ‘When he died, I didn’t feel bad. You know why?’

  ‘You’re dead inside?’

  She looks daggers at me. ‘When I asked which band he felt pulling him the hardest, he pointed from his heart to the earth. Nan.’

  I picture an old man acting it out with world-worn fingers. The image scratches at the base of my spine.

  ‘We all have rubber bands, they don’t make you any less you,’ Jacs says. ‘I mean, I texted and you crossed the country –’

  ‘That’s overstating it a bit.’

  ‘You crossed the country to come back to me,’ she says regardless. ‘You care.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  At recess, I get to the bench first. I trace my finger over the corner where Zac scratched his initials until Thommo arrives.

  ‘Hey,’ he says. I look up and this morning distracts me. Toby’s flicked a switch in my brain, and now I don’t just see Thommo, I see a collection of hints and suggestions, a guy who may or may not be gay.

  He pulls himself up onto the bench and his thigh brushes against mine. I jerk my knee in. It’s sudden, but I don’t think he notices. He unwraps his tuna sandwich, I put down my empty cup. It’s all very exciting.

  ‘You haven’t brought Miles with you. What gives?’

  ‘He does his own thing at recess.’

  ‘Good. He’s a piece of work.’

  ‘He’s . . .’ Thommo chews on it. ‘Isaac was right. Everyone has a Hate Miles phase. You meet him and everything he does irks you. But you see something one day, and it all makes sense. I think I get him.’

  ‘Well, I hate him.’

  ‘It’s just a phase.’

  ‘It’s been a pretty long phase.’

  ‘He’s fine. Yesterday was fine.’ He reconsiders. ‘It was fun, actually. Jacs is pretty cool.’

  Well, that’s our coffee ritual ruined. I can see it now, me sitting on the fountain’s edge beside an octopus fighting itself – Jacs and Thommo attached at the head, arms and legs flapping everywhere. I struggle to get a word in. An arm slaps my cup into the water.

  Unless Toby’s right.

  ‘You keen?’ I ask.

  He laughs. ‘Yeah. Who wouldn’t be?’

  Shit. I mean, good on him. Jacs is awesome. You can’t do much better than Jacs.

  Toby’s a knob. I shouldn’t of let him get in my head.

  My legs splay out a bit and I sink back onto my elbows.

  ‘I could chuck her your number, if you want?’ I toss it out like a no-obligation, free trial of Scott Harley’s friendship.

  ‘Nah, you don’t have to.’

  I fish my phone out of my pocket. ‘Seriously, it’s no drama.’

  ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘It’ll take one second.’

  He laughs. He sounds more nervous than last time. ‘Dude!’

  ‘What?’

  I watch him. He’s still smiling, but I don’t believe it. Like he’s st
raining. ‘No, I . . .’ His eyebrows rise in the middle and his eyes go soft. He swallows hard and his face resets. ‘I just think she seems more like friend material though.’

  And I feel bad for pushing. ‘Yeah, you’re right. I completely get it.’

  Three-thirty hits and Buchannan’s authority evaporates. It’s the weekend. We fake the sound of sirens and there’s a mad rush for the door. I loosen my tie as soon as I’m on the street. When I get to my dorm, my shirt and shoes are off. I fall onto my bed and trap myself in a loop of skateboard videos on my phone.

  Jones pops his head in. ‘Collins says you’ve got a visitor.’

  This guy does an eighteen-foot ollie between two water towers. It plays back in slow-mo.

  ‘Harley.’

  I look up. ‘Who, me?’

  Jones curls his top lip. ‘Who else?’

  Hughes isn’t on his bed.

  ‘But I don’t know anyone.’

  ‘Well, there’s some lady downstairs and she says she knows you,’ Jones says. He stomps off to his room.

  Some lady? Honestly, I’m drawing blanks.

  I leave my phone and hide the yoghurt labelled Toby underneath my bed. I pop on a shirt and head down. Sue’s standing in the doorway to the study.

  Seeing her makes my chest hurt. Whatever elastic band I looped around her the first time we met, it had so much slack I never would of known it was there. She was Zac’s mum. She let me crash some weekends. We waited for her to leave the room before we said anything important. Now, I feel the elastic band.

  ‘I know, I should have called,’ Sue says, ‘but I was nearby.’

  ‘No, it’s cool,’ I say. ‘Hi.’

  ‘Hi.’ She checks around. ‘Can we talk?’ She sounds severe.

  Shit. She knows something. Why else would she come?

  ‘Sure.’ I check the study. It’s free. She follows me in and sits on the lounge. I lean against the opposite wall.

  ‘I hope I’m not interrupting anything,’ Sue says.

  ‘Well, it is chicken tandoori night.’

  ‘Oh, I can –’

  ‘Kidding. It was a joke.’

  She laughs a little. ‘Well, in the interests of not wasting your time, I’ll cut to the chase.’

  I want to delay it. ‘You don’t have to.’

  She looks at me like it’s a strange thing to say. ‘I can waffle on about something if you prefer?’