Everything is Changed (2 page)

jake

This is the tenth time I've tried to go in. But something always happens to stop me. My mobile rings. A car pulls up. Someone I know walks past. Basically I chicken out. That's the main reason. That's what's been happening for months. Chickening out. No, that's not true. Not just chickening out. I've been running full pelt in the opposite direction.

But not this time. This time I'm going in. I have to.

In my back pocket I have a newspaper clipping. Just in case they look at me strange. I have ID too. To prove I am who I say I am and where I live. And enough money to cover everything I might need, although I'm not sure why I'd need money in here. I even left Mum a note. Just a few lines explaining why I've been so lost, so quiet, so angry. I've been trying not to imagine how she'll feel when she reads it. How shattered her world will be. How it's just her now.

Lucky I've worn black because the sweat is pouring from both pits and any other colour t-shirt would give it away. I pick at a thread on my knee, pulling it and making the tiny hole bigger. I can hear Mum's reaction. How she'll sigh at the sight. Although by the next time she sees me, a hole in my jeans will be the last thing she'll care about.

I can't find my thoughts. They're all messed up in my head. Everything hurts. My left hand is shaking. It does that a lot now. It shakes like it wants to take it all back. But my right is calm, and still. It reaches out and takes the handle of the door. It's getting ready.

Then a cop bashes up behind me, bundling me out of the way with a sentence of words that are all gruff and action. He's in uniform and I see his gun hanging from his hip, all black and deadly, and for a second, I stop, ready to chicken out.

But my heart is pumping too fast to leave. My shoulder hits the glass and I push my body through the door, not trusting my hands to help me. Inside the light is crazy bright. Fluoro bright, like a warning of what's to come, of the interrogation that's just beginning. Like even the lights know I've done something wrong.

And they're right. I have done something wrong. And I hate myself for it.

I get to the counter and for some reason I look down at the floor and see a coin lying near my foot. My mum's voice is in my head. See a penny, pick it up and all day long you'll have good luck.

I pick it up. Just in case. I slide the twenty-cent piece into my pocket, hoping it will help, hoping that maybe luck will be on my side.

‘You right?' says a voice from behind the counter. I look up and into eyes that are already judging me. A moustache I would laugh at if I weren't in here.

‘Um,' I say, not knowing how to start.

The eyes narrow at me, hardening in their judgement, as my fingers pick at the lucky coin in my pocket.

‘Yeah?' the policeman asks, growing impatient. He sips from a pale blue cup, then wipes the back of his hand across his moustache.

‘I, um, last year, um … my mate and I …'

I try but I'm chickening out. I know it. The words aren't coming.

‘Your mate? He got a name?'

The cop isn't looking at me. He's pretending not to care about the answer but I know he does. I know he wants to know.

I hear a buzzing noise and I look up to see a fly circling the ceiling light, going around and around in the same direction. It could probably do that all day. But just then it proves me wrong by landing on the light. I wait for it to take off again. Finally it does, flying at the same speed but the opposite way.

I look back at the cop. I don't have to say. I could leave Alex out of this.

‘Alexander Cormack,' I say. The man scribbles down the name and puts it to one side.

‘And?'

I pull out the newspaper clipping from my back pocket and slide it slowly across the counter, making him reach forward and grab it. It's been folded and unfolded so many times I wonder if the creases give anything away.

I wait for the police officer to look at me, but instead he reads. His eyes skim over the clipping, and I wish I could change what he reads. But it's all there. The photo. That car. I've read it so many times I could tell him every word on the page.

‘You know something about this?' he says, fidgeting with a pen.

I nod, not trusting myself to speak yet.

‘What's your name?' he asks.

‘Jake Reynolds,' I say, my voice so small I have to repeat myself.

‘How old are you?'

‘Fifteen.'

‘You on your own?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Right. Come on through. There's a room out the back,' he says as he unlocks the door. Keeping an eye on me, he calls out, ‘Jenny, come watch the counter for a minute.'

A female cop walks in from the back room. ‘Timing … was just zapping my pasta,' she says, carrying a bowl of steaming food. Then she glances across at me. She's Mum's age. Maybe a bit older. I back away, bumping into the wall.

‘Come on then, Jake,' says the first cop, and I realise he's holding the door open so I can come through, but my legs are wobbling strangely and I'm not sure I can move. I lean against the counter, letting it take my weight. I don't feel good.

‘Come on, Jake. I'll get you a Coke,' he says, his voice soft.

‘I don't like Coke.'

He laughs but it doesn't sound real. It sounds like he's trying to be friendly. Trying to make me feel okay. Maybe that's what they do to butter you up.

‘Have you rung a parent?' asks Jenny with a mouthful of pasta.

‘No. I don't want my mum here,' I say, sounding sure.

‘Let's just have a chat, hey?' says the policeman.

I nod. A chat. I can chat. I'm good at chatting. And I want this. I need it. I can't go home. Not until I tell someone. I wonder what they'll see when they type my name into the computer. Will my dad appear? Will Joseph Reynolds pop up in the system and strike a mark against my name?

I make my legs work. I step slowly towards the door, looking anywhere but at the cop's face. I wonder if he's going to frisk me. The website I read said they'd question me. Maybe charge me if they needed to. Keep me in until they got me a lawyer.

I make it through the door. The floor's brown. There are some stains under my feet. I wonder if it's blood. Or coffee. It's that in-between colour. I focus on my feet. On the shoelaces I didn't tie properly. On the rubber trim that has split at one end. On Mum's face when she gave them to me for Christmas. No. I don't want that image. Not her face. Not her. She's not here. She's got nothing to do with this.

I make it into the room. It's grey. Walls, floor, chair, table. Everything grey. The cop leaves the door open. I'm happy about that. I don't know which chair to take. He holds one out for me and I see his wedding ring. The bulge of fat on either side of it that wedges it in place. I wonder if he has kids. Boys.

‘So, Jake, what do you know about this?' he asks, tapping his hand on my newspaper clipping.

I reach for it, touching it with my little finger. His hand hovers over the clipping like he'll snatch it up if I make a move. Like it's the evidence he's been waiting for. I look up into his face. He's watching me. My heart is going to explode. Everything is ringing in my head. The sound is screaming.

‘We killed him …'

Another cop's hand is on my arm as he leads me down a hallway. His fingers are warm on my skin, but firm, like a warning. He hasn't said anything. I wish he would, because I've said everything I came here to say. Now I just feel empty and tired. Like I could lie down right here in the corridor with all the noise and the phones and the people passing and sleep for a hundred hours.

They've been strangely nice to me since I came in, but it's not helping. I feel wrong being here. Like I'm waiting for the punchline to a joke I'll never get.

We stop. Halfway down the corridor at a ledge with a phone sitting on it, attached with thick plastic-coated wire like it might go missing. He lets go of my arm but keeps an eye on me as he pulls out a phonebook from the drawer underneath and hands it to me.

‘You can make two calls. If you want,' he says, coughing at the end of his sentence.

‘I don't have anyone to call,' I say, feeling stupid.

He shrugs and it's strangely reassuring. ‘I'll give you a sec. See if you think of someone.'

The phonebook's clean and in good shape like nobody has used it before.

‘I didn't know they still made phonebooks,' I say loudly for something to say.

He shrugs again. ‘I guess they have to. Not everyone has the internet.'

He walks off a bit and leans against the wall, taking out his mobile and holding it close. I wonder if he needs glasses.

I start flicking through the phonebook, balancing it on my knee, and trying to turn the flimsy pages, while my heart races and then slows in some irregular pattern of terror. If I call Mum, then I'll have to see her. And I'm not ready yet. But I can't give the book back without calling someone. So I keep flicking, hoping a name will pop into my head. I could ring Ellie but then I'd have to tell her why I was in a police station, and she would realise I lied about who I was. I should ring Alex and warn him about what's coming. But I want him to feel the way I feel. Scared, angry and unmoored.

And then I get it. The only person I'm supposed to call.

Her. The girl whose life I ruined four months ago.

It takes a minute, but I find it: the number for the large brick house in Hawthorn with the balcony and the little path through all the trees. I can't imagine she'll actually answer because she'll be at school. But I'm still going to ring. Let her know I'm here, just so she can get some sleep tonight, and stop looking like she's one of the walking dead.

The phone smells like other people's fear. It has that warm plastic feel to it that makes me not want to put my mouth too close. I start dialling, looking over at the officer to see if he's watching. But he's not. Perhaps in my skinny jeans, Alex's old Vans and black t-shirt, I don't look very threatening. I'm much too small to try anything physical, and they've already checked my pockets for weapons.

I hold the receiver gently and press the numbers. When I get to the last one, I close my eyes, hoping she won't answer, hoping she will. She doesn't. It clicks to message bank pretty much straightaway and I wonder if anyone answers at this house anymore, or if since that night they're terrified every ring will bring more bad news.

‘Um, hi, hello,' my voice crackles down the phone line. I don't sound like me. At least not the me I like sounding like. I sound more like the one I've become since that night. All tentative and jumpy.

‘This is Jake Reynolds …'

And that's it. That's all I manage to say before the beep cuts me off and I hang up. I wonder if it counts as one of my calls if the person I was ringing wasn't home. I drop the receiver back and it misses the cradle and clunks against the wall. I fumble to pick it up.

‘You finished already?' says the officer as he half looks up from his phone.

‘I don't have a lawyer,' I say.

‘Who does?' he says as he pockets his phone and starts to walk over.

He has that wide-legged walk that big men often have. And he's slow, like he couldn't do much if he had to chase someone. But his gun is right there on his hip and maybe that's why he doesn't feel like he has to make much of an effort in the speed stakes.

‘We just call Legal Aid and they send someone down,' he says, almost gently, almost like I'm not the person I said I was.

‘Okay, thanks.'

‘You hungry?'

‘Yeah, kinda,' I say, pretending I'm not starving.

He nods and starts leading me down the white corridor to where the cells are. I wish he'd hold my arm again.

I don't know what I expected but it wasn't this. This is more like a row of hospital rooms, tiny but shut off. I thought it would be bars, lots of bars, where people stared out at you, threatening, spitting, a bit like in that film, The Silence of the Lambs. But I have no idea if there's anyone else even in them. Or if the cells are all empty, and I'm supposed to pick my favourite like I'm in a hotel instead of a police station.

‘You'll get a tray with some dinner later. Not long now,' he says, stopping outside number five. He pulls a wad of keys out and unlocks the cell. My heart is racing along, skipping beats and threatening to burst out of my chest. What if I have a cellmate? I hadn't thought of that before. What if it's someone huge and violent who hates kids? Perhaps I should remind the cop I'm only fifteen and eleven-twelfths. I'm still underage.

But as he opens the door, I'm relieved to see that it's empty. Except for a low bed down one wall and a toilet and washbasin in the corner. Patches of the walls have been painted to try and hide the graffiti but it still peeps through, like it's behind a screen. I wonder how anyone managed to smuggle a pen in here. But the cell isn't so bad. There's even a window. High up so the light comes in but you can't see out. And that's okay. I don't want to see out.

‘You right? I'll make sure someone calls Legal Aid now. Get you that lawyer,' he says as he walks me part of the way into the cell.

I really want to hug him. He's about the size my dad was, big around the middle with thin arms, once muscly but gone to seed. I used to love hugging my dad. Before.

Instead, I sit down right on the edge of the bed, wondering how many other bums have perched here, and what became of them. I hope they wash the sheets well between each visitor.

‘What happens next?' I say, suddenly sounding like the minor I am.

‘Just wait for the lawyer. They'll explain. It's not really my department,' he tells me, like I'm in a bank waiting for a loan, not in a cell waiting to be charged. But I nod. I don't want to be difficult.

‘But do I stay here?'