CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.

Brown and-to a certain extent-I get a fair bit of attention over the next few days. Brown becomes an object of congratulations and praise instead of one of fear and dislike, and the change in him is total. He even walks differently. The aggressive strut is gone, and despite the gaping hole when he smiles, his face softens.

After he comes back from the dental clinic in Perth with new teeth, he even looks pretty good. He is never going to have anyone bashing at his door to make him the next James Bond, but now he looks like a big, hefty bloke with a face like a fairly friendly bulldog. I can't really pinpoint what flicked his switch from aggro-head to okay bloke, but I don't care. I owe him. He hangs around Archie a fair bit now, and me too, when we're in the gym. We still eat at our own tables, but the atmosphere has changed and we joke around like old friends.

The routine is pretty much the same every day. The boys in the cottage accept me as a kind of stray dog that wanders in every morning; they're nice enough to me and happy to have me around, but they make it clear I'm not meant to be there.

Maths and Science are pretty straightforward, but English is my weakest subject. I can spend ages working on an a.s.signment and sc.r.a.pe through, or I write something in a hurry that I think is a pile of rubbish and it gets a good mark. There seems no plan to it, unlike the other subjects where everything is straightforward-either wrong or right.

The term ends, and we have a short break from cla.s.ses, but study goes on. On Friday, Mr P says to me, "Give your normal work a rest for a week or so. I just want you to read and think and write about anything that comes to you. Or not." He grins crookedly. "Here, start with this. The t.i.tle might give you a laugh." He hands me a battered old red book that is leather-bound with gold inlaid letters, Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

"Very funny, sir."

"Thought you might like it," Mr P calls over his shoulder as he closes the door.

I have the choice of joining my old cla.s.s with Mrs Shiels for the break or staying in my cell for the morning and studying. I choose my cell. I've gotten used to working on my own, in silence. I sit at my desk that Monday and open the book to the first page. Someone has written in it in Polish, and though I can't read it, I imagine it might be Mr P's mother.

The thought of Mum slices through me, and I remember sitting on the kitchen table with Mum putting on my shoes for me, her soft hair bent beneath my nose, the faint smell of shampoo and, well, just Mum-fresh and clean with her endless supply of white T-shirts and dark-blue jeans. I shake my head, get rid of those thoughts and start to read.

It starts off in that old-fashioned, wordy way, but within a few pages, I'm hooked. Man, those Russians can write. They have a way of creating another world, a world that pulled me into it so that when I stopped reading, I almost felt disoriented for a while-as though I was still living in the land of the story.

Anyway, this guy Raskolnikov is a young student who owes money and is really poor. He gets it into his head that a greedy old p.a.w.nbroker who charges very high interest on the money she lends out to all the students should die. His reasoning is that this crime, wrong as it might be, would be far outweighed by the good her death would do; all those students, including himself, would be freed of their debts and able to continue their studies and do great things, contributing to society rather than feeding off it as she had done. So he kills her and steals her money. It's a bit of a b.u.mmer, but her sister turns up at the apartment while he is still there, and he has to kill her too.

The rest of the book revolves around his argument that there are two kinds of people in the world: the ordinary and the extraordinary. Raskolnikov believes the extraordinary ones have a duty to break the law under special circ.u.mstances in order to benefit humankind, so what he has done is-to him-completely justified and almost a n.o.ble, heroic thing.

I think about this. It's a bit of a jolt to think like that, although I guess if any of those plots to kill Hitler had actually worked, no one would have jumped up and down and screamed, "Murder!" It would have stopped the war, and millions of people, including the Jews, wouldn't have suffered and died. Anyone can see that would have been a good thing.

Was this book saying I had done the right thing in killing Reid? I know he was no Hitler, but how long had he been hurting Katy? How evil a thing was that? What if it hadn't been stopped? Katy might have run away and turned into a druggie or even killed herself. My head is buzzing with these thoughts, but underneath, as hard as I am arguing with myself, there is that familiar black pit inside me-that terrifying knowledge that I killed two human beings. How can I argue that away?

Raskolnikov was having a lot of trouble with it too. He kept fainting and getting sick. His argument might be fine at an intellectual level, but it seems to be having a bad effect on him. He's afraid of being caught but acts in such a weird way that it's obvious everyone suspects him.

We still go to the gym every afternoon, and after we work out, we usually buy something from the shop and sit around and talk. My mind is still buzzing about the book, so I say-pretty hesitantly because our conversations don't usually get too deep and meaningful-"I'm reading this book at the moment."

Aaron, Archie and Neil are leaning back against the wall in the rec, knocking back c.o.ke and chips and looking pretty s.h.a.gged from the gym. I press on and tell them about it. Funnily, they sit up and listen, so I feel like a teacher at story time. When I finish, there is silence.

"Well, what do you think?"

Aaron speaks first. "No, I don't think he's right. You'd have everyone running around and killing people they saw as stopping them from getting what they want. You could kill your boss who was going to give you the sack and justify it by saying that if you lost your job, your family would suffer, you'd lose your home and car, your kids wouldn't have a good education and so on. Maybe I could rob a bank and kill someone but justify it by saying I'm going to use that money to help people." He frowns and shakes his head. "No, that's a c.r.a.p idea."

"What about you, Arch? What do you reckon?"

"Aaron's right. I didn't think of it that way, but of course if everyone thinks they're above the law-or what did that writer say? extraordinary'?-there'll just be a bloodbath. Like it was before there were any laws." He pauses and looks me straight in the eye. "It's never right to take someone's life. If they attack you, you defend yourself and maybe they get killed. That's another thing. You can't go out and cold-bloodedly knock someone off just because it suits you."

He turns to Neil, who's been listening to us. Neil looks a bit surprised and frowns, taking a few moments to work out his answer. "I don't think anyone should take anyone's life, ever, for any reason. No death penalty. What if you get it wrong? Just the chance of stuffing up and someone getting executed wrongly. Man, what a shocker. That's enough reason to never take someone's life."

There's a pause. Archie speaks quietly, almost to himself. "Big weight to carry around for the rest of your life, though-killing someone. I guess that's the real punishment."

Aaron breaks it in his usual way. "Heavy convo, bros!"

"Yeah, I know," I say defensively. "Got to use our brains sometimes, don't we?"

He nods. "True. We haven't used 'em much so far, have we?"

"Nah," says Neil. "We're all dumb to be in here when we could be out there, having a good time..."

"We'll get there," Archie breaks in, excitedly. "Only three more months, and I'm out. Home, and I'm never coming back."

Aaron opens his mouth to make a flip remark, and then, looking at the determination in Archie's face, he shuts it again. "All this talk's made me tired. I'm going back to my cell till tea." He doesn't look as good as he used to. Something has changed in him. He doesn't hold himself like that golden boy I'd seen running around the oval any more. He keeps his head down, makes no eye contact and kind of slinks away.

Archie and I watch him go. "What's wrong with him?" I ask. "He looks sick."

"He's not sick; he's just hooked on that c.r.a.p that poxy guard is bringing in for him. He's not tired, either. He just wants a fix," Archie mutters.

"How does he afford it?"

"What makes you think he pays with money?" Neil broke in darkly. "That guard's a pig. He's got Aaron hooked, so he knows he'll do anything to keep getting his stuff. Sometimes being ugly's a bonus. Pretty boys like Aaron get targeted by slime like him." He shrugs. "Maybe there are times when someone shouldn't live. Nah, not really, but he needs to be stopped for good somehow."

"You're right," says Archie, "but keep out of it. You won't win taking on a guard. I hate what's happening to Aaron, but I can't afford to get mixed up in it. Three months-that's all I have to last. The best way I can help Aaron is to be a friend when he gets out. He'll always have a home wherever I am-he knows that-but I can't risk getting caught up in this s.h.i.t. If I have to do any more time, especially in prison, I'm finished."

Neil and I glance at each other, and thankfully the siren rings, and we move off.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.

A lot of what happened is a complete blur now. I mean, it's clear to that point where I did what I did, but then I sort of shut down. There were policemen, and I just went along: "In here; sit down there; what happened? Why'd you do it?" They were actually pretty nice to me, I think. Maybe they just thought I was some sort of lunatic.

I remember getting my blood taken, I think, but I was coming down off those drugs; and everything was weird. I felt like I was a zombie, a body without a mind. Just one foot after another, sit where I'm told, tell them my name-did I know what I'd done? Yes, yes, but why? Then everything would stop, and I'd hang in that empty s.p.a.ce, somewhere far away. Eventually their voices would fade, and time would stop.

And that's how it was. I remember Mr Bloom-a lawyer who said he was trying to help me-as well as the remand centre, the hard bunk, the face of the guard, the court room, the judge, and what was being said, but I was recording it like a camera would. I was disconnected from everything, even Katy. I saw her on the stand, but she didn't look at me once. She just kept saying, "I don't know why." She wouldn't want to tell them all about him; I understand that. She couldn't be expected to tell them all about Reid and what he did.

Underneath all the horror and self-loathing, there was a tiny grain, a tiny little light deep in that darkness-Katy was safe. I had saved her! It had gone horribly wrong-I hadn't meant it to happen like that-but Katy was safe now.

You know the rest.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.

I write down my thoughts on the book for Mr P, plus what the boys had said. I actually like Raskolnikov, the hero, even if he is a bit of a wuss, fainting all over the place-but then I guess we all act differently when we're in a terrible spot. I hand it in to Mr P the first day back, and he raises his eyebrows at the amount I've written. While I work, he reads it over.

"Good comments, Luca-both yours and your friends. Let's make this one of the novels you use for the exams. You've got a good grasp on it already."

I feel relieved. I thought he just gave it to me to read over the holidays as something to do, but I feel pretty good about this book. This Russian guy was like me. He'd killed someone-two people in fact-he had a sister he was trying to look after, he had a good friend (Archie was mine), and he was pretty sure he'd done what he had for a good reason. Only not the second person. Oh, Mum. My poor mother. G.o.d. Stop.

I breathe deep. The bit I don't really get is that he's happy at the end even though he's going off to prison in Siberia for eight years. He could have gotten away with it.

But he was in worse pain before; he was suffering, staggering under the knowledge that he had caused two people's deaths and wasn't able to tell anyone about it. He's suffered so much, and all that suffering is illuminating. The Buddhists call it enlightenment' when we see the absolute truth of all things.

The next day, Mr P comes in with a couple of books for me. One's a Buddhist book, Awakening the Buddha Within, and the other one's the New Testament. "Two perceptions on suffering. The best you'll ever get."

"Trying to convert me, sir?"

"Not exactly; they'll help you to understand the book. But then," he grins at me, "I live in hope."

Believe it or not, a whole year has rolled around. Tomorrow is my birthday. Seventeen. Licence. Car. End of high school. School ball. Girls. Going to the beach. Girls. Parties.

I get the usual card from Mr Khan and another unsigned one with another photo. This one has me, Katy and Dad in it. I put it next to the first one on my desk, and then I look back to what I wrote in my journal this time last year.

Some things have changed, but other things have stayed the same. On the outside, I'm still stuck in this little cell, doing the same things every day. Why I'm in here hasn't changed, and the uncertainty of what will happen to me is still hanging over me, more and more strongly the closer I get to 18. On another level, though, I have one really good friend and quite a few others I like who seem to like me, Neil isn't the dangerous snake I was afraid of, I'm fit, I'm learning and working hard, and I have a great teacher.

Time goes by quickly, whereas every day stretched endlessly back then. I don't know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. I still crave more air, more sky, and the idea of swimming or running along a beach with the sun on my back is a distant dream, just like girls. I try not to think about Karol anymore, but it's difficult-especially late at night when I can't sleep. That skin: smooth, golden, tiny blonde hairs glinting in the sunlight. Not mine. Tim loves saying that he's off to visit Mrs Palm and her five daughters, and it always gets a laugh, but I think we all hate it. Who needs to be reminded of what else they're missing out on?

The pain over what I've done is always there, but even that's changed. Sometimes I don't even think about it for a whole day! It must be a bit like Gary's eye. He probably doesn't think about it, and then he catches sight of himself in a mirror or someone-a girl he's talking to, maybe-stares at it or, just as bad, looks away. Then he remembers it, and he must think for the millionth time, like me, if only. He can't kid himself any more than I can. It's what he is now- Gary, the kid with one eye. And I'm Luca, the boy who killed his own mother and stepfather.

Owen wishes me happy birthday, and I find five dollars on my desk later. The unexpectedness of it brings tears to my eyes. The boys slap me on the back and talk about the cars we'll buy one day.

"I want a big Land Rover," Archie says. "Black and shiny and beautiful."

"Like you!" Neil laughs.

"Dunno about the beautiful part, Neil," I say. "You've been in here way too long if Archie's starting to look hot."

"I'll go anywhere I want to," Archie continues. "On my own sometimes, but there's plenty of room for other people too. Just get up and drive whenever I feel like it."

"I want something loud and proud," Neil says. "A chick magnet. Mag wheels. Great sound system. I'll drive down the road, and everyone will turn and look. What about you, Luca?"

"A motorbike. A big one, like a Harley. Wind in my face, sun on my back, long, straight road in front of me."

We sit in silence for a moment, imagining how good it would be. The only one sitting there saying nothing is Aaron. He just stares into s.p.a.ce, his eyes blank. All the life seems to have drained out of him. His skin, once so smooth and golden, is pasty and pimply. His eyes are no longer twinkling and ready for a joke. He often doesn't even answer at the table when we talk to him-just picks at his food and then goes back to his cell.

As we walk out after breakfast, Archie slips me a piece of paper in an envelope that he must have had in his tracksuit pocket. It's a painting, only it's the size of a birthday card. He's got the blue sky, the red earth, a few scrubby bushes dotted here and there, and three white parrots heading towards the haze of purplish hills. It's all tiny but perfect. I put it carefully on my desk, propping it up next to my birthday card, and then it's time for cla.s.s.

Mr P has bought a cake, a sponge with jam and cream, and it tastes amazing with my Milo that Norbert has made extra-large. But it's back to work pretty quick for all of us. Exams are creeping up.

Funny how life is. Just when you feel almost happy, rising above some of the c.r.a.p, something comes to chuck you right back down into it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.

The next Sunday, I walk back towards the rec, past all the guys lined up for visiting day. Owen sees me and beckons me over. "You've got a visitor. Better get in line."

My chest thumps, like a big kick in my chest. "I don't think so." My voice sounds quivery.

"In line, mate." He smiles and moves off. I step behind Johnno, his usually morose face almost happy. "Dad's coming today," he says, looking away from me after he says it, acting real casual. "Mum's here every week, but I haven't seen Dad for six months. They're not together." He stops.

h.e.l.l, I've sat at a table opposite this guy for over a year, and that's the most I've ever heard him say.

"Who's here for you?"

My heart clicks its heels a couple of times. "No idea."

He nods, and the line starts to move. I check myself over quickly. I look okay for a jailbird-my hair's cut, my nails are clean, my clothes are fine. Suddenly, I'm getting shoved through the door as the boys make a beeline for different tables.

Then I see her. She's thinner and her hair is different, but it's her. Katy. She's sitting at a table, her hands clasped tightly together on top of it and her eyes down, but the second I'm through that doorway, she looks straight at me, with an expression on her face like she doesn't know whether to smile or cry or both. I get to the table and reach for her hands, but she pulls them back, and her face is set and grim, just like Mum's used to be. I sit down opposite her, confused.

"Hi, Luca," she says at last. "Happy birthday for last week."

"You too." I grasp for something to say-anything-but she speaks first.

"Dad asked me to come and see you."

I blink. "You've seen Dad?"

She looks at me, frowning a little. "Of course. So have you. He was in the court, sitting at the back."

"I never saw him."

She shrugs. "Well, he was there. I can understand that you don't remember seeing him..."