Esther called out 'Ready?' and took her broom handle off the brakes. The Corolla rolled backward down the driveway. It was like watching a boulder come to life. Chan and I rushed to help slow it while Esther got used to the brakes. We had to get out of the way as the Corolla found momentum, rolled into the middle of the road and across the far side. We got behind, tipped our bodies 45 degrees, pushed down into the ground with our heels while shunting with our chests and shoulders. The car creaked, began rolling into West Ford Street, and we put in every bit of muscle we could. Esther screwed up the steering, went onto the sidewalk and flattened a letterbox and we laughed naturally, honestly. Anything to forget we were turtles in a terrarium.
'We must be doing 9, maybe 10 kays an hour, easy!' Chan shouted as we rolled. It was a lot of fun. It was like driving. We were heading south and I could see a glint of water in Kane's filtration ponds and canals in the reserve up ahead. The numbers of each house got smaller, counting down our progress. Number 58, 52, 42, 36, 24 –
'Boards are coming up Esther,' I shouted up toward the driver as we neared the grass of the playground.
We'd spent an hour ripping the beautiful oak doors out of a house over on Broadway and dragging them here. The thick doors served as ramps to get the Corolla off the asphalt, over the kerb and into the grass reserve. The last step would be getting enough momentum to drive over the wooden lip of the playground and settle against the fort. We had two more oak doors on the lip of the playground where grass becomes bark. I was proud of the gentle incline designed to get the vehicle up and over. It was a great piece of engineering. Kane would've been proud of me.
'Seriously, you miss the boards, we roll back! You can't screw it up!'
'I won't miss, Queen Ede.'
Anya was in our peripheral vision, leaning out of the Jeep, monitoring our progress, even making notes on her org. We tried to ignore her, tried to just be slaves. Simple. Cleansed with sweat.
The work felt good. It was naked and straightforward and pure and it passed the time and it made us feel deserving. There was chocolate to look forward to, and peanut butter, apparently. A PB and J sandwich would taste incredible. The bread crusts I used to throw away, God… if a seagull tried to take my crust now, I would fight it. I'd eat a sandwich made of 100 per cent crusts. I'd eat the gull, too.
'EDE!' Chan called, 'I can't do this by myself! Push harder!'
'Esther's braking too much,' I protested.
'I think you'll find Esther can't afford to brake,' Watson said, bent over, staring at the ground as he pushed, his wiry body lending a small amount of strength. 'More likely…ngrr.. you're not giving as much as you, ngrr, could, Eden. Just a few…more… newtons.'
Esther honked her horn. 'You heard the nerd. Gimme all your newtons. Here we go.'
The vehicle hit the boards on the edge of the playground, rolled to the apex of the small triangular hump – and began rolling back.
'EVERYBODY MOVE!'
Chan and Watson stepped out of the way. Esther pushed down on her broom to brake as the car tried to roll back down the ramps. I heard Esther swearing. It was good to hear her say anything at all. I thought about the sale of the wheelchair, Chan vomiting with greed, carrying Esther home, fat pale maggot-King Adam rolling around in his $650,000 toy, and Chan filling a house with money, then becoming sick with guilt, dumping his girl in the street, sprinting through the night to pay all the money in his universe to get the wheelchair back. King Adam's tongue laughing, brown and wet, painted with chocolate, peanut butter stains on Adam's cheeks, nut fragments flying out of his mouth, crumbs in the folds of his chins.
We sat there silently, hoping Esther wouldn't let go of the brakes and roll back on us.
'You okay, Es?'
'I want to get a move-on. Anya said if we get this truck into the playground we get instant noodles for lunch. What are you guys doing back there? Having a holiday or what?'
'We need a fourth person to push,' I called out. 'There's no way around this. Omar? OMAAAARRR? Where is that guy?'
'You could ask Anya,' Watson said, 'Try it and see what happens.'
'I'm not afraid of her. She's not even popular.'
'Her family were poor as shit before they came here. Imagine starving for the first 16 years of your life. You don't stop being hungry just because you finally get a feed.'
'Hungry for what?'
'Revenge, maybe? She won't be happy til comfortable people are uncomfortable, I guess. Comfortable people like our families or whatever.
Chan rested against the car, panting. 'We need sugar. Carbs. You've – you've gotta help me.'
God you're getting pathetic, I wanted to say. You used to be James Bond to me. I walked across the grass where the Jeep was idling.
'We can't do this,' I said. 'We need morning tea. You have to feed us.'
Anya looked like she wanted to say something vicious. Instead she leaned over toward the passenger seat, conferred with her boss then reached behind her, where Maeve, Eli or KT handed up some small silver bricks.
'Liquid breakfast,' she said, pushing three Up & Go drinks into my hands, milkshakes which supposedly had most of your daily vitamins and minerals in them, plus tonnes of sugar. They were all strawberry flavoured and incredibly sweet. My mouth became wet just at the sight of them. My tongue swelled with thirst. 'Now you return to work.'
'Or consequences,' Maeve piped up from the back.
'Lashes!' KT squeaked, 'I can't wait.'
I didn't stick around to argue. I scampered back to my people. Before I was close enough that they could see what I was holding, I stopped and some part of me said, Your baby needs this. Your baby trumps everything.
I tore the straw off a 400 millilitre brick of Up & Go, jabbed the straw into it and sucked the nectar for six seconds, seven, eight –
Then it was gone, and I followed the voice that instructed me to feed my child. Standing on the grass, watched by the Jeepload of haters, watched by my dwindling group of friends, I swallowed the second drink just as quickly. Afterward, I was still thirsty and I couldn't let go of the pointless empty box just in case more sweet milk somehow formed in it.
I approached my friends and handed the one remaining drink to Watson, tilting my head low with shame.
'I'm real sorry,' I said. I would have run, but it was pointless. 'I drank yours. I don't know what else to say. It's done. I needed it for my bae – for my… for me.'
Chan got up, wheezing, his skeleton swaying and stumbling slightly, as if he was drunk. Pushing the car must have drained him. 'You. Just. Stole. Mine.'
'Now, now.' Watson turned and handed his drink to Chan. 'I'm sure she had her reasons. When ketosis occurs, the stomach releases the hormones ghrelin and leptin, which take over the decision-making centres of the brain.'
'You-you-you gave away my MILKSHAKE?'
Esther had seen what I had done. She opened her door but couldn't get out. Instead she fell and Chan caught her and urged her back behind the driver wheel. We hadn't even finished moving one single car.
Chan stroked Esther as she settled back into place, kissed his milkshake then handed the drink to Esther, although he almost didn't let it go. Es needed to keep herself alive too badly to share it with her man. She glugged her Up & Go even more quickly than me. I watched her suck the drink dry in just five seconds. Chan licked his lips. Bent over now like a ravenous wolf about to pounce, and almost growling, Chan gave me a murderous look through his eyebrows. 'What you just did… I'd choke you out right now if I had the energy.'
'It was just a stupid milkshake,' I said, but my words sounded lame. The taste of the drink lingered in my mouth. I didn't feel sated at all. My baby was telling me now that it wanted ten Up & Gos, or 20. More.
Chan got back behind the vehicle, shaking with anger. 'I hate you, Eden. What you've done? Making us trust you? I HATE you. And this is not over.'
'Don't you think the real issue is where those guys are getting this food? I mean, come on – you really think that miniscule BP has unlimited supplies of all this stuff?'
'The real issue is YOU'RE A GREEDY PIG, EDEN.'
'Jeez you guys, crying over spilt milkshakes?' said Omar, bounding over the seesaw and walking up behind the car. He must have witnessed everything. He knocked on the car. 'Quit bitching. Let's get pushing. Arbeit macht frei, you guys.'