Relativity (9 page)

He looked at the empty seat. Everyone's eyes were on him; he could feel the burn of their stares.

Will's mother crossed her legs impatiently one way and then the other. Ethan used to want a mother more like Helen, who volunteered at school, made cakes for the bake sales, worked at the cafeteria. But Will's mum never looked very happy. She fidgeted all the time like she couldn't stay warm.

“Can't we get started, Mrs. Doyle?” Helen asked. “It's not our fault that Ms. Forsythe is running late.”

Mrs. Doyle turned to Ethan. “Are you okay to begin without your mum here?”

He shook his head, then nodded. He didn't have much choice.

Mr. Thompson took out his notepad. “Thanks everyone for coming to this meeting. Obviously, we're here to discuss the incident in the playground that occurred at around one p.m. last Wednesday afternoon. The two parties involved were William Fraser and Ethan Forsythe.”

Helen cut the teacher off. “That wording sounds wrong, Duncan. Two parties? You really should say William was the victim and Ethan was the perpetrator.”

Mum opened the door. “I'm so sorry I'm late.”

She stood in the frame for a moment. Her cheeks were pink and she stammered, as if she were about to give a speech but had forgotten where to start. She smiled stiffly at the teachers and took the empty seat. Ethan relaxed back into his chair. Mum put a hand on his knee and gave a gentle squeeze. Her touch heartened him; if Ethan had had a tail he would've wagged it.

“Chaos on public transport. Sorry to keep you all waiting.”

Helen tapped her foot. “Like I was saying before, we need to be clear about culpability. We have to get the wording right and my son was an innocent bystander. He didn't do anything wrong. Just minding his own business when that boy punched him in the face.”

Mr. Thompson and the school counselor shared a funny look. Ethan wasn't sure what it meant; adults often spoke another language with their eyes. He wanted to interject and say, Excuse me, that's not true. But he kept his mouth closed.

“Ethan wouldn't do that for no reason. He was provoked,” Mum said.

Mr. Thompson read from his notepad again. “Neither boy gave us an indication of how one thing led to the next. But other children reported a verbal fight.”

“Verbal!” Helen snorted. “Will needed stitches. Lost a tooth. You should pay our dental bill.”

“Of course I'm really sorry this happened to Will. I know Ethan is sorry too,” Mum said. “And I'm not saying Ethan is innocent. But you know him.” She looked at Will's dad, Simon. “The boys have been best friends for years. He usually wouldn't hurt a fly.”

“We know,” said Simon. “Ethan's a lovely boy—”

Helen looked at her husband with a pinched expression. “I read a recent study that said children from single-parent families are responsible for the epidemic of violence in schools. He's wild. He's clearly not getting enough discipline at home.”

Ethan wound a loose thread around his finger. His hands felt heavy and hot. On the opposite side of the circle, Will didn't know where to look. He played with the elastic of his eye patch and pursed his lips. Without his gang of allies, Will seemed more like himself. Just as scared and uncertain as Ethan. He felt sick looking at Will's swollen jaw and wanted to apologize but now it felt too late. Fighting parents, official statements, and reports—this had escalated beyond the boys' control.

“Not to mention,” Helen continued, “that it's a well-known fact kids raised by single mothers are twice as likely to have behavioral issues than those born into traditional two-parent families.”

The school counselor intervened. “Hold on, Mrs. Fraser. A single mother raised me and I've never heard anything about these studies you're quoting. There's not enough evidence to support any link between violence and single-parent homes.”

Helen scowled. “Ethan should be expelled.”

“Student welfare is our top priority,” Mrs. Doyle said. “But this doesn't meet our criteria for expulsion. The boy doesn't have a record of persistent or serious misbehavior. It was a one-off incident.”

“Maybe for now,” Helen said, flapping a hand dismissively in the air. “But scientists have found genetic links to violence and delinquency too. He's a ticking time bomb. It won't be long before Ethan attacks someone again.”

Will's dad repositioned himself in his chair. “We're here to resolve the conflict between the boys,” said Simon. He looked uncomfortable, like his clothes were the wrong size. “Let's not forget that's what this meeting is all about.”

Mum rearranged her face. She had a tigerish look about her, watchful and fierce. She turned to Helen. “What are you saying?”

“What I'm saying, Claire, is that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.”

Ethan chewed on a fingernail and looked at his mum. He hated when adults spoke in riddles; he didn't have a feel for them. That didn't make sense—was he an apple, was his mum the tree?

“We were thinking detention,” Mr. Thompson cut in. “For both boys.”

Helen ignored the teacher and kept her eyes on Claire. “Like father, like son,” she said slowly. “Shouldn't Ethan know what sort of genes he has before it's too late? Don't you think we should tell him?”

“This is completely inappropriate,” Simon muttered to his wife. “You promised you wouldn't do this.”

Mum's face went pale; she'd lost her ferocity. “Helen, please don't. You're angry with me. And you have every reason to be. I take full responsibility. Blame me. Don't take it out on Ethan. He's just a child.”

“I don't understand,” Ethan said, turning to his mum. “What's going on?”

Mum squeezed his knee again. “Don't worry. This hasn't got anything to do with you, sweetheart.”

“Yes, it does,” Helen shot back. She swooped and put a protective arm around Will. “Your son attacked my son. Ethan is a dangerous child. Will doesn't feel safe around him. I don't want my son at a school with wild and unruly kids like him. Kids with fathers who went to jail.”

“Claire, I'm so sorry.” Simon looked at her with a strange expression, like an astronaut who'd just discovered his helmet was leaking in space. Ethan had never seen anyone look at his mum like that before. “I didn't think. This wasn't what . . .”

Ethan fixed his eyes on the shiny fabric of Will's mother's dress. A geometric pattern of pink and blue diamonds—fluttering colors and contours—danced across the material like the pattern was alive. Something inside him twitched.

“Kids with fathers who what?” Ethan asked.

“Jail. Your father went to jail,” Helen said quickly. “And as I said before, like father, like son. That's why you're violent. Your father is a criminal.”

Heat filled the room suddenly—hot wind buffeted by hot bodies—before Ethan saw air molecules surge across the office in thick convection swirls. Criminal, jail, violent: those words gnawed at him. He wanted to unhear them, to pull them out of his ears. He felt sick. Everybody was watching his face. The clock ticked forward, the walls wobbled, the air expanded. Nothing was reversible. Ethan blinked at the staring faces, stood up, and rushed out the office door.

He ran outside to the playground, dodging some aftercare kids playing by the tennis courts. There was a sour taste in his mouth, like acid on his tongue. Maybe he was going to vomit. He pushed the school gate open and dashed onto the street.

“Ethan!” Mum yelled. “Stop!” She was behind him, pulling off her high heels and chasing him barefoot along the concrete. “Please stop.”

But he couldn't stop; he had to run. He had to get away. Ethan didn't look back. He ran fast and he ran hard; his mouth was dry, he gasped for breath. He turned around the corner and ran block after block. Cars beeped their horns as he sprinted across the street. He felt hot, feverish. Ethan ripped off his school sweater and threw it to the ground. His feet pounded on the pavement; his hamstrings stretched and tendons extended. His hips flexed, driving his knees forward. Ethan's body moved faster than ever until his legs tingled and his chest heaved.

Tears obscured his vision until his surroundings were opaque. The farther he ran, the more fragmented everything looked. Buildings didn't look like buildings; trees stopped being trees. Boundaries blurred. Patterns of patterns inside patterns. The one thing Ethan saw clearly was a spectrum of light: red into orange, yellow into green, blue into violet. Panting, with sweat rolling down his face, the inside of his stomach hardened. He thought he might suffocate in the shallow air. Then his body froze—locked muscles, eyes rolling back into the hollows of his head. Ethan fell, hard, on the pavement.

Above him, an electric arch of refracted color scattered the wavering light of the afternoon sky. One side of his body jerked—his limbs flailed, his eyelids fluttered. As Ethan lay on his back and stared upward, his spine bent and he began to shake. He was powerless to resist it; things fell apart. His lungs went rigid and his joints got stuck. Although Ethan saw all the colors of the rainbow, he couldn't feel a thing.

B
EFORE ETHAN OPENED HIS EYES,
bright light made them sting. He woke up in a haze, blinded by a flood of white. Slowly it morphed into shapes—vague square panels lit by fluorescent bulbs. His body was stiff; his muscles were sore. Ethan shifted his arm and tried to cover his eyes, but his hand trembled and a plastic tube scratched his face.

Things came into focus. Tubes were strapped onto the back of his hand, a sack of liquid dangled over his head, clear fluid pumped straight into his veins. Ethan looked down at his feet and wiggled his toes. His body was covered with a thin white blanket, trapped inside some strange metal barricade. Various pieces of electronic equipment made regular, high-pitched sounds. Ethan craned his neck up to look around the room. Where was he? Where was his mum? Nobody else was here.

Beside his bed, a curtain was drawn closed. Ethan noticed the reflection of colored beams shifting across the ceiling. A muted television. Someone else was in the room, on the other side of the curtain. He tried to talk but his tongue felt furry and his lips were locked; he'd forgotten how to speak. Ethan didn't know the day or date, his memory was stuck behind a layer of fog. He stared at the rippled TV light—flashes of blue, green, and yellow.

A burst of laughter filled the room.

Ethan coughed. “Hello?” he called out. It didn't sound like his voice; the back of his mouth felt full of gravel. He heard a rustling, a creaking bed, dampened footsteps. The curtain rings screeched against the metal rod.

“Hi,” said a girl, taking a step forward into Ethan's cubicle.

She wore a bright yellow jumper that was far too big—it looked like a dress—with long sleeves that hid her hands. Ethan peeked under his sheets, surprised to find he was only wearing a pale mint robe. The girl's head was covered with a brightly colored swimming cap, an interlocking grid of red and gold, but it wasn't for swimming. It was different. Her long hair plunged out from underneath the cap, a flood of brown waves. She made Ethan think of a lifeguard—standing there, alert with perfect posture, waiting to rescue the drowning.

“Hi.” Ethan tried to sit up. Flashes of sharp pain shot up his neck and he closed his eyes again for a moment.

“I was wondering when you were going to wake up. You've been asleep forever. And you were snoring, you know.”

“Where are we?”

“Ward C1 North.” The girl feigned a zombie voice and raised her arms like the undead. “Brains!”

He touched his forehead. “Sorry?”

“Pediatric neurology unit. Where they give children lobotomies.”

Ethan gave the girl a blank look.

“Seems you've already had yours,” she said with a grin. “I'm Alison.”

“I'm—”

“Ethan Francis Forsythe, born August twelfth, lives in Glebe. I've already read the clipboard at the end of your bed.”

“This is maybe a dumb question,” he began. “But are we in a hospital?”

“It's not a five-star hotel,” Alison said, pushing down the side rail and lifting herself onto Ethan's bed. “And yes, that was a dumb question.” She lifted his hand. “You have a plastic bracelet on your wrist, you're plugged into a drip, and you're probably not wearing underpants. Dead giveaways. Are you sure they didn't give you a lobotomy?”

Ethan looked at Alison, who'd made herself comfortable on the edge of his bed. A scatter of freckles dusted her nose; her eyes were the same color as her hair. They were exceptionally big eyes. Her iris looked like a small island surrounded by a sea of white. Alison wouldn't have been any older than Ethan—her feet didn't even touch the floor. She let them swing from the end of the bed. Her toenails were painted bright pink.

“So, what's wrong with you?” she asked. “What's your diagnosis, as they say here?”