All This Could End by Steph Bowe Read Free Book Online

better. Maybe it’s just the fact that his hot jam doughnut from the canteen wasn’t still frozen on the inside like it usually is when they get the microwave setting wrong (nor was it tongue-burning hot); or the fact that Nina actually spoke to him and he doesn’t feel like he made a total fool of himself. He is actually feeling lucky today. Like everything is and will be okay.
    Then he gets a text from Bridie: Hold up the bus! There in two minutes, must discuss Maths with you! Which means Bridie is coming to his house to copy his Maths homework, despite the fact that he’s barely any better than her at it.
    He asks the bus driver to wait two minutes for his friend, and the bus driver raises his eyebrows. But when Spencer says it’s Bridie McGregor they’re waiting for, he agrees to wait for one minute. Spencer realises that Bridie’s supposed ‘influence’, which she speaks of so often, can actually come in handy.
    Exactly seventy-seven seconds later (not that he was counting while the other students on the bus groaned), Bridie bounds onto the bus, throws everyone a beaming smile, dives into the seat beside Nina and immediately launches into a very animated conversation. Spencer sits down across the aisle from them and sighs.
    It’s still a good day , he tells himself.

Nina
    When Nina was fourteen and Tom was ten, when they were living in yet another town, in an apartment with bamboo floors and bad seventies wallpaper, Sophia had taken them out during the school holidays for a day of sightseeing and theft.
    ‘We could have a show,’ said Sophia, as they sat at a table in the window of a crowded cafe. She shuffled a deck of cards. ‘We could be magicians. Sleight of hand stuff. You always see street performers involving their kids, don’t you? Probably earns them more money.’
    ‘I think it’s called child slavery,’ Nina said. She was used to her mother’s moods and knew that going along with things was always easier than fighting back against her irrational behaviour. Tom’s education in petty theft was her focus that day.
    ‘I don’t think you know what child slavery is, Nina. Helping out your parents doesn’t really count. We could put you in a sparkly dress. And Tom in a tuxedo, wouldn’t that be adorable? You’re getting a bit old now, but he’s still young and cute.’ She drank the last of her coffee, glancing out the window.
    ‘I don’t like dresses.’
    ‘We could always put Tom in the dress.’ She paused, frowned. She spread three cards on the table in front of Nina. ‘You know I’m kidding, don’t you?’
    Nina nodded.
    ‘I don’t remember being half as difficult as you when I was a teenager. I dread what Tom will be like in a few years. I’ve spoiled you kids. I think it’s important you have struggles when you’re growing up, to develop character.’
    ‘I’m just tired. Why this , Mum?’ She nodded towards the crowd intent on a busker near the intersection outside the cafe window. She couldn’t see Tom, but he was there, somewhere. ‘Why don’t we nick DVDs from JB Hi-Fi or something? That stuff’s insured.’
    ‘Personally, I think shoplifting lacks finesse. We might as well take up ram-raids while we’re at it.’
    An hour earlier they had been dancing around the living room practising finagling wallets out of pockets. Tom thought it was a great game, but was incredulous that, even in a crowd, someone wouldn’t notice their pocket being picked. Nina had been taken along to busy events and taught the tricks of the trade years earlier, but was no longer as quick nor as slight.
    She knew that petty theft wasn’t consistent with the ideology that her mother used to rationalise bank-robbing. The money in the wallets of individual people was certainly not insured and would be missed. But her mother had a bad habit of burning through their money quickly, and making exceptions to their rules when it suited her. This was a lot easier to organise than a bank robbery and