All This Could End Read online

  PRAISE FOR STEPH BOWE

  AND GIRL SAVES BOY

  ‘Beautiful and fresh, Girl Saves Boy is full of the absolute

  truth: life is complicated. I could not put it down.’

  Rebecca Stead

  ‘Steph Bowe’s debut is charming and quirky and

  heartfelt enough to make you catch your breath

  when you least expect it.’ Simmone Howell

  ‘The smart sometimes snarky characters are delightfully

  kooky and have a lot of heart…a welcome addition to

  Australian YA.’ Australian Bookseller & Publisher

  ‘There’s humour and sadness, silliness and wisdom

  in this amazing debut.’ Readings Monthly

  ‘A charming, touching and twinkle-toed book.’

  Fiona Wood

  ‘A cracker, tackling difficult material…with an

  assurance many writers never attain…’

  Weekend Australian

  ‘Bowe takes the teen romance genre and gives it

  an edge…a writer to watch.’ Australian Book Review

  ‘This book has one of the best “hook-you-in” starts

  I’ve read in a long time. Steph has expertly woven a

  thoroughly original crime caper into a story about

  “outsider” teenagers connecting with each other

  against all odds. Stand back, world, Steph Bowe

  is a serious talent.’ Gabrielle Williams

  Steph Bowe was born in Melbourne in 1994 and lives in Queensland. Her first novel, Girl Saves Boy, was published by Text in 2010.

  stephbowe.com

  twitter.com/stephbowe

  steph bowe

  textpublishing.com.au

  The Text Publishing Company

  Swann House

  22 William Street

  Melbourne Victoria 3000

  Australia

  Copyright © Steph Bowe 2013

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

  First published by The Text Publishing Company, 2013

  Cover design by WH Chong

  Page design by Text

  Typeset by J&M Typesetting

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

  Author: Bowe, Steph, 1994—

  Title: All this could end / by Steph Bowe.

  ISBN: 9781921758447 (pbk.)

  ISBN: 9781921834394 (ebook)

  Target Audience: For young adults.

  Dewey Number: A823.4

  For my brilliant sister, Rhiannon,

  with whom I would never rob a bank

  (unless we really needed some cash).

  PROLOGUE

  December

  Nina

  Nina Pretty holds the gun to the boy’s head, her other arm around his neck. Her balaclava itches.

  ‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ she whispers in his ear, her voice calm and reassuring like she’s not freaking out right now. ‘Just don’t move. This will all be over very soon.’

  Nina’s mother, Sophia, shoots her gun at the high ceiling and hits a fluorescent light. The glass shatters and falls like snowflakes. The sudden noise in the quiet of the bank is deafening.

  ‘Now that I have your attention,’ Sophia says to the terrified customers. ‘This is a hold-up!’ She announces it like she’s the ringmaster at a circus. Her voice booms. Nina wishes she didn’t have to be so flamboyant about this whole thing.

  The boy gulps and Nina feels him shake. Actually, she’s not sure which of them is doing the shaking.

  ‘Everyone down on the ground!’ continues Sophia. ‘If any of you makes a run for it, or tries to call our friends the police, my associate will kill him’—she nods towards the boy Nina’s holding at gunpoint—‘and then you. Just in case you don’t value your own life.’ Nina can hear the smile in her voice.

  The boy is definitely the one shaking now.

  ‘She’s just saying that to make sure everyone stays still,’ Nina whispers. ‘You’ll be fine. You’re safe.’ She loosens her hold on his neck.

  He’s the same height as Nina, and his hair is short and black. She can’t see his face at all. He was the unlucky one at the back of the line. She’s not going to hurt him, of course. They never hurt anyone.

  But Nina’s conscience purrs. Imagine the emotional trauma. The years of therapy this boy will go through! All because of you. Nina’s conscience always contributes unhelpful comments at inappropriate moments, like in the middle of a bank robbery. Nina’s conscience is a bitch.

  Her brother, Tom, is spray-painting the lenses of the security cameras. Her father, Paul, gestures with a gun for the bank tellers to get down on the ground like the customers. Then he turns to Sophia.

  ‘I’m heading out the back. I’ll get the manager to open the safe.’

  She nods as he disappears and continues to smile at the backs of the bodies on the floor. ‘Good, everyone,’ she says soothingly to the people whose faces are still pressed into the carpet. ‘We’ll be really quick. You’re doing great.’

  Nina closes her eyes and imagines herself somewhere else.

  Spencer

  Spencer Jack was born without a pinkie toe on his left foot.

  It’s a widely known fact that human beings have evolved to the point where they can stand upright and walk without their pinkie toes, which serve no purpose other than being decorative. But for Spencer Jack (his mother used to call him this when she was especially pissed off; he’s plain Spencer or Spence to everyone else), the lack of a pinkie toe on his left foot is a deformity.

  When Spencer was born, the doctor told his parents that the absence of a toe was of no concern. But whenever his mother showed him off to her friends or took him to family barbecues, Spencer’s little feet were always wrapped in baby booties his mother knitted herself. She didn’t want anyone to think there was anything wrong with her Spencer. Not that there was, of course.

  The lack of a toe became more of an issue for Spencer as he grew up. And became self-conscious. He didn’t go anywhere where he would have to take off his shoes—sandals and thongs were totally ruled out—and when he had to change in the locker room after P.E. he was very quick with his socks. Spencer was so careful, so afraid of being taunted by his peers, that no one had ever seen his left foot.

  Fear of being revealed as having only nine toes is what’s in his mind when the cold barrel of the gun is pressed against his temple and the arm of the girl is tight around his neck. He only knows she’s a girl when he hears her muffled voice, and he wonders why a girl’s robbing a bank. Not that he wants to be sexist or anything. He tries to avoid thinking about his brains splattered on the dark-blue carpet of the bank branch his father manages, but now he can’t push the image from his mind. His payslip from McDonald’s is shaking in his left hand. He always knew McDonald’s would be the death of him.

  Death, yes. Most of all, he thinks about being laid out naked on a slab in a morgue, like a piece of meat. A coroner remarking on his deformity. His body in rigor mortis, like his grey cat when it died the year before. He thinks of himself lying in a giant silver drawer, in a refrigerator, then in a black box underground.

  Sweat trickles down the back of his neck even though the air conditioner is on too high and the air in the bank is frigid.

  I’m too young to die! He’s thinking it, but he can’t say a thing like that. Seventeen-year-olds die all the time. Death isn’t an age-appropriate thing. Yo
u don’t turn eighty and declare ‘I’m just the right age to die’. Or do you? He doesn’t know a lot of eighty-year-olds.

  How are these situations usually resolved in movies? He flashes through a catalogue of Law and Order episodes, tries not to think about Quentin Tarantino movies. He can’t seem to remember anything. A mental blank. It strikes him every time he has an exam.

  The girl whispers, ‘You’ll be fine, you’re safe.’ Until now, he’s been frozen with fear. But when he hears her voice—really listens to it now—he forgets about his fear for a second. The gun is still up against his head and her arm is still around his neck, but something else takes precedence.

  He recognises the voice. It’s a voice he knows well. It’s a voice he hasn’t heard in four months, but it’s definitely hers.

  ‘Good, everyone,’ the woman says. Her voice sounds kinder. ‘We’ll be really quick. You’re doing great.’

  He isn’t paying attention to the woman’s voice, but his fear returns. He’s too afraid to turn around and look at the girl, afraid she’ll shoot him, or that the woman will. Or one of the other two—there’s a tall, wide man disappearing out the back, and a shorter, slighter person spray-painting. Spencer is sure he recognises the voice of the girl, but it’s too preposterous. Why would she be here? Why would she be doing this? He decides to risk speaking.

  ‘Nina?’ he whispers, so quietly he’s not even sure whether he’s said it or not.

  She moves her arm from his neck—the gun still against his head—and turns his face towards her. She’s wearing a balaclava. Her eyes are brown. That’s not right, he thinks. Her eyes aren’t brown. It isn’t her.

  But then, almost inaudibly, she whispers, ‘Spence.’

  PART ONE

  April, nine months earlier

  Nina

  Sophia is in the passenger seat, her bare feet up on the dash. Paul is driving. They’re heading north along an inland highway. The sun is glaring—summer doesn’t want to let go—and the windows are down. The family is relocating. Again.

  ‘Have I mentioned,’ Tom says loudly, ‘how much I hate road trips?’

  ‘Once or twice,’ Nina mumbles.

  Sophia is reading a worn self-help book that should have been returned to a distant library a while back. Occasionally, she reads out a passage to the family, who really could not care less about affirmations or positive thinking, especially not in this heat. Nina has perfected selective hearing.

  ‘Tom,’ Sophia says, turning to face him. ‘Road trips were a highlight of my childhood. You have no idea how fortunate you are to be able to share this wonderful experience with your family.’ She gestures out the window, towards an expanse of nothingness. The scrub and dry grass are not exactly spectacular.

  Tom looks across at Nina and rolls his eyes. Their mother doesn’t catch this. She never stops telling stories about her wonderful childhood. ‘Mum. It’s hot and I’m tired and I haven’t eaten since breakfast.’

  ‘That was two hours ago.’

  ‘Why can’t Dad get jobs that aren’t way across the country?’ asks Tom. He knows why, but he’s being difficult. ‘Every time I change schools I have to figure out what is and isn’t cool all over again. What if I show up in Converse and everyone hates Converse? It’ll be a disaster.’

  ‘Oh, Tom,’ says Paul, his voice thick with sarcasm. ‘I would’ve thought you’d be terribly concerned with the changing curriculum and keeping up your marks. But here you are, worried about being cool.’

  ‘Curriculum is such a teacher word.’ Tom sighs.

  Two weeks ago, between houses, they had been staying in a motel further south. After a childhood that was a never-ending road trip with her father, Sophia has a fondness for crappy motels—the last one they’d stayed at still had VCR players. Nina doesn’t understand her nostalgia.

  ‘Got a gig at a nice private school. Teaching Australian History,’ Paul had told them one evening while the news was on. They always watched the news, wherever they were. Sophia was waiting for them to appear on Crime Stoppers; they never did. They only robbed banks every six months or so anyway.

  ‘Where is it?’ Nina asked.

  ‘Up the east coast. Town with a lot of old folks. Nice pace. Friendly.’ Nina knew this was code for never-ending retirement village. Not much more than a place people go to die. A nice place to die all the same—good climate, a plethora of shopping centres, suburbia extending as far as the eye can see.

  ‘You hate Australian history. Convicts building huts and spreading disease and British wankers being British wankers.’ Tom always cut to the chase.

  ‘Don’t use that word, Tom,’ Sophia called out from the dingy bathroom.

  ‘That’s what Dad says! I’m just quoting him!’

  ‘I only have to teach it for four months, thank God, while the usual History teacher is on maternity leave,’ Paul smiled. ‘And I’m teaching ten-year-olds, which means I can stick with reenactments. Burke and Wills, those sorts of things.’

  ‘Didn’t Burke and Wills die in the end? Sounds like a depressing reenactment.’ Tom never gave up.

  ‘Better than having to mark thirty essays on it.’

  This is how it works: Paul has his teaching jobs, Sophia cases her banks. They never stay in one place longer than six months. Nina usually rationalises it as an exciting way to live—travel, varied experiences, meeting new people. But, more than anything, she feels homeless. Even if they weren’t doing the casual bank robbery on the side, she’d feel disconnected.

  ‘Did I tell you about the apartment? It’s on a river, on the fourth floor, really nice,’ Sophia says. She tucks her dark hair behind her ear and smiles at Nina in the rear-view mirror. Nina pretends not to see her.

  Nina takes after her father, with her fair skin, dark-blonde hair and grey eyes. Tom takes after their mum—olive-skinned, with dark-brown hair and eyes. People comment that Nina is pretty (actually they constantly and annoyingly say it to remind her of her ridiculous surname) and in photos her father looked handsome when he was younger (perhaps he’s still considered handsome?), but Sophia and Tom are striking. You could easily pick Tom as Sophia’s child, and Nina as Paul’s, but you wouldn’t guess they were all one family.

  It isn’t just the way they look. Nina has always been closer to her father than to Sophia, and often she feels bad about thinking that she loves her dad more than her mother, the one who gave birth to her. But Nina and Paul are alike in personality, too: shy, introverted and nervous. She wonders whether teaching helps her father overcome this somehow. Sophia is fearless and outgoing. And Tom is only twelve, but already he is so much like their mother it scares Nina.

  Paul is older by a decade than Sophia—she was only eighteen when Nina was born, sixteen years ago. Nina doesn’t like to dwell on the fact that she’s almost as old as Sophia was when she had her.

  When she was little, Nina used to think her parents spoke in code. Surely people who robbed banks for a living didn’t have such inane conversations. But as she grew older she realised that only on TV were criminals glamorous, almost a higher life form than ordinary people. In reality, outside of a bank, Sophia and Paul are average, ordinary people. Well, perhaps not Sophia all the time. Maybe life would be glitzier, maybe they’d have flashy cars and a mansion with a moat around it, if they were mob people.

  The apartment building is a huge, horrible, yellow thing, with an aquamarine roof she is sure could be seen from outer space. Inside, the apartment has beige carpets and white walls and the rented furniture is very minimalist. Nina doesn’t like it. It feels cold, despite the climate here being warmer than anywhere else she has ever lived. She’s lived in a lot of different places and she wishes that Sophia would at least consult the rest of the family about where they’ll live and how they’ll furnish the place before they move in. She certainly doesn’t consult them about whether or not they want to break the law. Nina should get a say in something, shouldn’t she? Even if it’s just the upholstery on the couch.

>   She dumps her bag in the bedroom she is to share with Tom, and kicks off her shoes. All of her possessions, every single thing she owns, fit into a suitcase small enough to carry on a plane. She doesn’t mind that, not much. She’s persuaded herself that she doesn’t need material possessions. Nevertheless, she can’t help feeling that she’d love a real home, a place to live in for years, not months. Somewhere she knows she’ll always be safe, that she won’t be leaving at a moment’s notice.

  ‘Do you like it?’ yells Sophia from the shiny, stainless-steel-andmarble kitchen, a smile in her voice.

  Nina wants to yell back, ‘No. It’s soulless. Just like you!’ She doesn’t, obviously. She could never be so harsh to her mother, so ungrateful. ‘Sure. It’s great,’ she manages to say, with practised false enthusiasm.

  ‘I hate sharing a room,’ moans Tom. They’d had rooms of their own in other houses, but sharing in motels had always been a nightmare. He chucks his bag on his bed. The zip is long broken, the bag held together with gaffa tape. Clothes spill out and a hoodie lands by Nina’s foot. It’s a tiny room, in a tiny apartment.

  ‘Your mother reckons it’ll make you closer,’ says their father, leaning against the doorway. It doesn’t sound as if he shares her opinion. ‘Besides, you’ve got that park across the street, the beach a stone’s throw away, shops within walking distance, you’ll barely spend any time at home.’ He winks.

  ‘You sound like a real estate agent, Dad,’ says Tom.

  Nina glances out through the venetian blinds, down into the backyard of the house behind them. Two young girls are sitting cross-legged on a trampoline, talking. She looks away. These sorts of things, these normal things, make her feel so sad. So separate. As if she can never really get to know anyone, never relax and be comfortable, never stop having that constant loop in her head of Do they suspect anything? Don’t tell them anything about yourself.

  This is her life, this is her lot in it, and she needs to accept it, she knows that. Build a bridge, Nina, she tells herself. She’s been trying to build a bridge for about five years now. She’s not making much progress.

  ‘So are we going to the school across the road, or your flashy one?’ Tom calls out to Paul. He leaps on his bed, already getting comfortable, making sure his stink permeates everything.