Everything is Changed (12 page)

jake

Ten minutes into a double science class and my phone has just beeped for the fourth time. I'm trying to ignore it, but as Mr Cap is busy explaining our first experiment, I slide my phone out to read the messages. They are all from Alex. I scan them quickly, arriving at the last and feeling like I might crumple on the ground.

Call.

Now.

Ring.

He's dead.

He's dead. The man is dead. I hold the metal bench to stop myself falling. I feel like I'm going to spew.

‘Can I go to the toilet?' I say loudly, over Mr Cap.

My teacher looks annoyed but he nods, mid-sentence, and I hurry from the room. I make it to the toilet and lock the door. I flick the toilet seat closed and sit down.

Alex answers on the first ring.

‘He's dead,' he says, like I didn't get the messages.

‘How?'

‘You have to ask that?' Alex's voice is harsh.

I ignore him. ‘How'd you find out is what I meant.'

‘News.'

‘Shit.'

‘Yeah.'

I'm breathing hard. He's breathing hard. It's all just hot, noisy breath down the phone with neither of us saying anything.

Then Alex says, ‘I've been researching. Even though we're only fifteen, we'd still be tried as adults. Go to jail. There are other cases. They'd argue we knew the consequences of what we did. In other words, we're screwed, Jake.'

‘Only if they find us,' I say, realising immediately how that sounds.

‘But still …'

‘Yeah. He's dead.'

I think Alex's crying and I really don't want to hear that.

‘There's someone coming. I've got to go,' I lie, wishing a kid would bang their way into the toilets just so I didn't have to pretend.

‘Jake, you said he'd wake up,' he whispers.

‘I hoped.'

‘But you said not to worry. That it'd be okay. You made me think everything would be all right. But it's not. He's dead. He has a kid. A wife. They had to turn the machine off.'

‘I'm sorry, Alex. I thought …'

There's a wild scream down the phone and Alex has started sobbing.

‘I've got to go. I'll see you later.' I hang up before he can answer.

Thing is, I thought we were okay. I stupidly thought that if he hadn't died by now, then he'd wake up. But he was dead this whole time.

*

I Google the news. It's the lead story. Big colour photo of his shiny, smiling face. A detective is quoted as saying they're still investigating. And then they interview his friends. His wife. I turn off my phone and hear someone slam into the toilets and shut the door next to me.

I flush as I leave, just in case someone catches me coming out, and I can't believe that I can be so calm right now. I walk back to class and resume my spot at the bench between Tien and some girl called Janey. Tien pulls a face from behind the safety goggles, and I realise I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing. But I start to pour some liquids anyway because it's better than standing here replaying the sound of Alex sobbing down the phone.

‘Too much sulphur, Jake,' says Mr Cap as my concoction fizzes out of the test tube and onto the science bench. Normally I'd care what Mr Cap thinks but today it just slams into my head that a man is dead. I stare at the mess of chemicals dripping from the bench onto the white lino floor. It's a surprisingly pretty sight. The greeny-blue bubbly mixture looks a little like the potions Alex and I would make out of food colouring and random ingredients we'd snatch from his mum's pantry. I'm not actually sure, though, if the puddle's toxic enough to burn a hole right through the floor into another dimension. But that would be one option for me.

‘Clean it up, Jake. You don't want that stuff on your skin,' says Mr Cap, handing me a thick yellow sponge. As I wipe across the spillage, erasing any sign of the chemicals, I can't believe this might be my last science class. Yesterday if anyone had asked me what I wanted to do with my life, I would have said I want to study science. Especially chemistry.

‘Jake? You okay?'

I look up into the worried eyes of Mr Cap. I'm still pushing the sponge backwards and forwards across the floor, trying to clean nothing.

Mr Cap laughs. ‘You trying to see what will happen if you keep wiping? That's one way to check cause and effect.'

I shake my head, knowing tears are so close that if he says one more thing to me, they're going to drip all over this nicely cleaned floor.

‘I'll just go rinse the sponge,' I say, standing up.

But he plucks it from my fingers. ‘Just wash your hands and you can start remaking.'

And now the tears are coming. I can feel the itchy beginning as they start bubbling up behind my eyes. Desperate to mask how I feel, I wipe my eyes with my hands and Mr Cap squawks, ‘Chemicals! You'd better wash your eyes too! Where are you today, Jake? You're away with the pixies.'

I know he's still watching after me as I bang through the chemistry lab door on the way to the bathroom. I wash my hands in the metal basin and try to avoid looking in the mirror. But I can't. I just have to see what I look like. Nothing's different from yesterday except that I haven't shaved again so I'm a bit hairier. But the pimple on my cheek is still there. My eyes are still dark brown. And my hair is still floppy and in need of a wash. It's the same face.

I splash water on my face, relieved my teary eyes can be put down to too much sulphur, and walk back towards class. This time I'm going to use the right amount of chemicals and Mr Cap will be impressed.

Alex is skating in circles in the bowl. He's just going around and around like somehow that will make things better. He's in his new school uniform and that surprises me. I didn't think he'd want me to see him like that. Not today anyway.

I skate towards the edge and then drop down into the bowl, narrowly missing him as he skates another circle.

‘You took ages,' he says.

‘Yeah. Sorry.'

‘Thought you weren't coming.'

I stop skating and wait for him to come around near me. As he does, I grab his arm and pull him to a halt beside me. He looks awful. Red eyes. Blotchy.

‘Can't believe it, Jake.'

‘You haven't told anyone?'

He pulls his arm away and skates off, towards the world of graffiti down the end of the bowl. There's rubbish there too. Chip packets. Burger boxes. Soft drink cans.

‘Take that as a no.'

‘What do you reckon?'

He skates past me. I follow him, slow enough so I won't catch him. Then he stops suddenly, jumping off his board and letting it keep rolling. He stops me as I reach him. I can see the strain on his face.

‘I don't want go to jail, Jake.'

‘I don't either.'

Alex grabs my arm so tight I feel like he might break it. ‘Jake, you don't understand. I can't go to jail. I just can't.'

I try for lightness. I even smile like he's worrying about something he shouldn't. ‘We're only fifteen. We aren't going to jail.'

‘I told you on the phone. There's a precedent. We could be tried as adults. We knew what we were doing. It's our fault. It's not like we didn't know what could happen. We did.'

He lets go of my arm, but it feels like his fingers are still curled around it. Agitated, he starts pacing. His usual coolness has disappeared completely. I hate seeing my best friend like this. So I make a snap decision. I have to make this okay.

‘Alex, we won't go to jail.' My voice is so sure.

He spins around. His eyes are wild. ‘We will if anyone finds out.' His body is shaking. I'm worried that he'd tell anyone he saw right now. I need to get him to understand.

He's so intense that I skate off, carving higher, up the edge, where it's harder to stay up, leaving Alex down in the grubby bit of the bowl.

‘Come on, let's go skate up top,' I say, running for the side and stretching up to grab the metal lip to pull myself out. My legs scrape across the edge but I sit waiting for Alex to join me. He seems lost down in the bowl, just standing with his board nearby, like the ground is going to suck him under.

‘No one's going to find out,' I say loudly, like I'm talking about cheating on a maths exam, not about killing someone. He looks up at me and seems to snap back to earth. I watch him run for the side, tossing his board at me so he can pull himself out. But he must misjudge it because his board shoots out and makes it, but he's left hanging onto the dirty concrete by his fingers, struggling to pull himself up. The sight is all wrong. My mate Alex doesn't misjudge a simple run-up out of a concrete bowl we've skated in our whole lives.

I reach out for his hand as he runs up for a second try. I see his blazer smudged with dust where it brushed against the filthy concrete. The words in Latin on his pocket. I grab his hand and for a second we just stay there, like counter-weights. Me up the top and him down the bottom, waiting. And then, just like that, I pull. And he's next to me again.

‘It's just like when Lottie was run over,' he says quietly.

I haven't heard him mention his dog for ages. ‘Yeah, and it was an accident, just like that.'

‘They weren't accidents, Jake. Both times we did something that caused them to die.'

I look at him sharply. ‘What happened with Lottie?'

Alex turns away. ‘Left the gate open. She got out.'

‘That's got nothing to do with me.'

‘Yeah. Thanks.'

I think back to Mr Cap's science class. I want to show him that it's not that simple. ‘But you didn't kill her. She might have got out anyway. And the man might have died anyway. You can't prove causality.'

Alex laughs but the sound is ugly and mean. ‘You trying to make me feel better or you?'

‘I'm not. It's just that Mr Cap …'

‘Don't give me that science crap, Jake. They both died because of something we did. End of story.'

He's right. I know it. But he's drowning in it and I can't let him go under.

‘You've got to stop thinking about it.'

He glares at me and I look down.

‘Yeah, great idea,' he says sarcastically.

‘What do you suggest?'

‘I don't know.'

‘How's school going?' I only ask him because I'm desperate.

‘Really? That's your idea of a subject changer. Fabulous.'

He clambers to his feet and grabs his board, like I'm the reason everything is bad. I don't know what he expects me to do, but talking about it isn't going to change anything.

I get up to follow him but as I turn around, I see him ollie up onto the rail and then crouch down and slide it all the way. My heart is pounding fast in my chest and I'm holding my breath because I know this is new for him. I know this isn't about skating or doing a trick or showing off; it's about something else. He hits the bottom and jumps. His board lands and he lands perfectly, two feet spread on the top.

I erupt with a cheer. He looks over and I see the relief on his face.

‘Your turn,' he yells to me.

‘Sure thing. But I'll do it faster.'

‘Go on then.'

As I skate over to him, I can feel my heart starting to settle and my body relaxing. This is just us pulling tricks and hanging out like the old days. I ignore his uniform as I skate up, concentrating on the smile still plastered on his face.

‘Time me,' I shout.

‘Righto. Go,' he shouts back and I take off as fast as I can. But as I ollie up onto the rail, I see him walking away, his board tucked under his arm. I forget what I'm doing and I start to wobble and instead of riding the rail down, my board tips and I go sprawling off onto the hard grey concrete.

‘Alex!' I yell from the ground, my heart beating like it's going to explode from my chest.

I see him turn. I see him see me. I see him think for a second too long before he drops his board and skates back.

I check my knee. It's cut but not as bad as it could've been. My wrist hurts too but it works okay so it's not broken. I sit up, stretch out my legs and watch the blood run in a long thin line down into my sock.

‘You okay?'

I look up at him, his face shadowy, the sun shining behind him like a giant halo. ‘Where you going?'

‘Home. It doesn't feel right to be here. To be pretending everything's okay when he's dead.'

‘What choice do we have?'

‘I don't know. But this is weird.'

I don't want to talk up at him so I stand, my knee crunching as it bends. ‘You don't want to hang out anymore?'

‘It's not like it was, Jake.'

I can feel the anger rising up my chest and burning in my throat.

‘Yeah, I know that. I get that he's dead. I get you don't want to go to jail, but if that's the case, don't we just go on like we always do?'

And then instead of saying something, Alex shrugs like he has no answer for me, like I'm the problem, like it's all on me. And I want to punch him, right there in his perfect pretty face, and give him some reason to remember I'm still here.

‘I've gotta go. I'll catch ya,' he says.

‘Great. Good to see ya,' I say back, because I want to have the last word for once.

alex

Mum woke me really early this morning and then made me stand with Sass while she photographed both of us in our new school uniforms. She's waited a long time to have her kids in real school clothes and she wasn't going to let it go undocumented for anything. I feel so strange in a blazer. Like I'm an impostor. And it's 38 degrees already, which isn't helping because looking comfortable in this many layers in this sort of heat is pretty near impossible.

‘I'm taking your sister. Do you want a lift?'

‘Nah, it's okay. I'll walk,' I say.

She hovers in my doorway and I wait for her to say whatever it is she needs to say.

‘You're not skating,' she finally says.

‘Um, why?'

‘Because it's Camberwell. You're not skating.'

I hear Sass laugh from her room. If it weren't so ridiculous and such a sign of Mum's newfound snobbery, I'd laugh too.

Instead I decide to argue. ‘I'm sure kids skate in Camberwell, Mum. It's not just a mode of transport for the outer suburbs.'

‘Not in your uniform, you're not. Didn't you read the code of conduct? I left the book on your desk.'

I resist the urge to look over at the piles of crap mounting on my desk. I have no idea what's under there.

‘To and from campus you are expected to uphold the values of your school. And that means not skating in uniform.'

‘Okay. I'll walk.'

Satisfied, she nods. ‘You look smart. I'm sure you'll enjoy it.'

I smile at her, wondering when it became so awkward for us to talk normally.

‘I'd better get going, Mum. Don't want to be late on my first day.'

She walks into my room like she's entering a war zone, and takes out a twenty-dollar note from her purse. ‘For lunch,' she says.

‘Thanks.'

I watch her walk out and I pocket the money. Then I snap a quick selfie on my phone. I manage to get a bit of the blazer into frame and I look okay in it, so I text the pic to Ellie.

Two seconds later she texts back.

2 cute.

I text back.

Ha.

Then another message comes through and it's a pic of her grinning at the camera with her fake glasses on. She loves wearing them when she's studying because she says it makes her feel smarter. I message her.

Miss u.

And I do. I wish I was out in the borough with her, holding her hand and pulling her along on my skateboard, listening to her laugh, and not here, about to face a new world.

She sends me back three kisses. It's not enough. Not today on my first day at a new school when I have no friends and no idea what is expected of me.

‘See ya, Sass,' I call to my sister as I go down the stairs.

‘Good luck,' she calls after me.

‘You too.'

But she'll be fine. She's always fine. She can rock up anywhere and fit in. I'm not sure that I can. I've always had Jake there behind me, as my wingman, but now it's just me and my blazer.

The air is already thick with summer as I head down our street. It's actually not far from my house to school. But it's crazy busy. There are kids everywhere in different uniforms, walking or waiting for the tram on Riversdale Road to take them further in or out. I don't know any of the uniforms so I have no idea what schools they are from. But the kids all seem to know each other. It's like one big walk-to-school party that I wasn't invited to.

The traffic is so busy on Riversdale Road that I don't wait for the lights. I just run across while the cars are trapped. And as I reach the other side, some guy skates past me on a board, wearing the same school uniform as me. I'm tempted to snap a photo and send it to Mum but she probably wouldn't be amused.

It's shady on this side of the road because of the high brick walls. I walk as close to the wall as I can because already my shirt is sticking to me under the blazer. But Mum's right. Everywhere I look students have their blazers on. Nobody is walking without one.

I reach the gates. They are huge. Like everything else in this school. Even the cars that drive in to drop off kids are huge. It's a sort of supersized world.

I head to the office building, because I figure that's where I have to start. I have no idea where my classes are. I just can't believe the size of everything. The ovals that run alongside the path seem to go on forever. Even the sprinkler turning on the oval seems to be casting water much further than any sprinkler I've seen before. My old school was a bunch of portables and one brick building. It was dated, crowded and often vandalised. This is like a display school, like a model made to show people the possibilities.

I walk into the administration building and am hit with freezing cold air. No ageing ceiling fans in these buildings. I walk up to the counter, where there are three women about Mum's age. I stand for a second until one of them looks up.

‘Yes? Can I help you?'

‘I'm Alexander Cormack.'

She immediately smiles at me.

‘Year ten. Yes. I've arranged for someone to come and show you around. Just take a seat.'

I manage a nod and walk over to the row of leather chairs along the wall. Above them are cabinets of trophies and photographs. I start looking at some of the names, when I hear, ‘You Alexander?'

I turn around and see a kid walking towards me, without a blazer on. He's sizing me up, and scans to my face and stops. I deliberately don't smile. He doesn't either. I'm going to play it cool.

‘Yeah. Alex.'

Now he smiles and I see the lines of braces across his teeth.

‘I'm going to call you Zander. Everyone's called Alex.'

He's pretty confident for someone so short and skinny. But he's wily looking too, like he knows what's what.

‘Zander?'

‘Yeah. It's cool.'

I resist the urge to laugh, but I'm also pissed. Clearly I have no choice in my own nickname.

‘I'm Anthony Rundle,' he says, like I should know who he is.

But the name means nothing to me.

‘Your dad knows my dad,' he says like it's a boring fact, and then I get it. I've heard about this guy. Or rather, I've heard about his dad. Fraser Rundle.

‘So how come you don't have a blazer on?'

‘Eczema,' he says, smiling like it's funny.

‘Right,' I say, not envying him the idea of peeling skin.

He laughs at my expression. ‘I don't actually have it. Just a doctor's letter saying I might get it if I overheat.' He sticks his hand out for me to shake. ‘Anthony. Definitely Dad's idea. Who calls their kid Anthony these days? Seriously. So I'm Tone. Okay?'

I nod. ‘Sure.'

‘Come on. I'll show you around our grand establishment …'

I follow him down the corridor, noticing more ways this school's nothing like my old one. It's like a ‘spot the differences' page in a kid's activity book, but here it's spot 990 differences, not ten. Let's start with the Latin. Everywhere. Trophy cabinets. What can I say? Pool. Olympic sized. Tennis courts. Seven. Ovals. Three. Basketball courts. Four. Kids. Eighteen hundred.

Tone offers me his running commentary as we walk through building after building. ‘I always volunteer for these things. Means I get to sniff out the new kids and skip a morning of classes. Teachers think I'm being thorough if it takes me a couple of hours.'

‘Best thing about the school?' I say, expecting his answer to be sport. Even though he's small, I bet he's a closet jock, just by the way he walks and moves. And because of the fact that so far all he's talked about are the sporting facilities.

‘Mates,' he says, surprising me.

‘Worst?'

He looks up at me. ‘You really need to ask?'

‘Yeah?'

‘The lack of girls,' he says like I'm an idiot.

‘Oh. That's new to me.'

‘It sucks,' he says as we walk past one of the ovals where guys are doing footy training. ‘Got a girlfriend?'

‘Yep,' I say, wondering what Ellie's doing right at this minute. Probably running late for school like usual and either riding her unicycle crazy fast, or maybe her bike.

‘She hot?'

I give him a look. He shrugs like he doesn't care. ‘She got friends?'

I feel like I'm talking to a prison inmate about how he can score when he gets out. ‘Yeah, she's got friends,' I say, slightly irritated.

‘They hot?' The way he says it makes it clear he's winding me up and I try to laugh, but it just makes me want to be with Ellie even more.

‘Hey, Tone,' a guy says as he walks past.

‘Whassup, Maxy?' Tone yells back.

‘You coming Saturday?' is the reply.

‘Surely am,' says Tone. Then he turns to me. ‘Max Whitehouse. Rich as fuck. You should come. Big party. Everyone's going.'

‘Can't. I'm going out with my girlfriend,' I say.

He shrugs like it's no big deal. ‘Bring her. And her hot friends.' Then he starts walking again. ‘Come on, the pool's this way.'

The thing is I'm actually really impressed by the size of the place. I'm super impressed by the facilities and the fact that I can do anything I want here. And as much as I don't like him, I'm even impressed by Tone, who seems to know everyone in the whole school by name and who everyone knows. He's fine. Friendly. Loose. Funny. Arrogant. And maybe in another lifetime, I could have genuinely chosen to be friends with him, not cling to the idea of friendship with him just because I have no choice. But I'm getting ahead of myself. One school tour and I'm already assuming Tone will want to hang out with me. He might want nothing to do with me and then where will I be?

I wonder how Sass is doing down the road. If she's settling in, finding her friends, finding her way. I hope so. She was so excited about it all this morning. Got up super early just to put her uniform on and braid her hair the way she imagined it should look. I offered to walk her, but Mum said she'd rather drive her in. I think Mum's trying to trade up too. I certainly never remember her making such an effort in the outfit stakes as she did this morning.

‘Gym's over there … and the senior's basketball courts. Junior ones are further down,' says Tone, sounding slightly bored. ‘You going to row?'

I laugh at the idea, thinking of what Jake would say.

‘You should. About the only way you get to see girls on a regular basis …' says Tone seriously. ‘Even if you do have a girlfriend, it gets real boring looking at us guys all day every day.'

Despite myself, I laugh. I also like the fact he hasn't asked me what school I've come from, or where I used to live. All he talks about is sport and girls.

‘Do you have a girlfriend?' I ask.

‘I prefer to have many than only one,' he says, joking around. ‘After school we skate most nights. You skate?'

‘Boards?'

‘Yeah. Not ice,' he says, smirking.

‘Yep.'

‘Then you should come one arvo, Zander,' he says as if I'm almost approved of.

I nod, playing down the fact that I know I need to fit in. This is my new life. And the only way I can ride it out is if I can blend in as quickly as possible.

‘Come on, I'll show you all the school cafes … you need to know which one to avoid and which one to go to for lunch and which one for snacks,' he says, like it's totally normal to have more than one. As we walk out into the sun, I wonder how hard it is to get a doctor's letter saying I have eczema too. Because if it gets much hotter than this and I have to wear this blazer every day, then no matter how many friends I make, nothing will stop me from dropping dead.