Chapter 12

Kendall

“Babe, is Pellegrino’s all right with you?” Alan asked, looking up from his laptop. “Oh, hey, Kendall. Are you joining us? I can ring and ask if they can squeeze an extra chair in for us.”

“Oh, no—” I started to say, looking down at my decidedly casual dress. It was fine for lounging around home but not a fancy restaurant.

“Gonna need to take a rain check,” Barbie said, moving over to kiss him.

He instantly tilted his lips up, eager for everything she had to give. He might have worked in finance (ew) and wore a suit most days (double ew), but as far as I knew, Alan wasn’t some arrogant dude with a type-A personality. He was sweet and attentive and loved my bestie, as evidenced when he pulled her down onto his lap.

“What’s going on now?” he asked, perfectly patient.

“Kendall had to move out because her flatmates are fucking, and I gotta say, seeing that boy’s junk, I woulda kept Ken and tossed him away.”

“What?” Alan blinked in confusion.

“Doesn’t matter.” She waved her hand through the air. “And we went to places, sooo many places, and one was a corridor and one was full of junkies—”

“You went to a share house full of junkies.” His grip on her tightened, and then he shot me a look filled with concern. “I should’ve come. I said I’d come and—”

“It’s fine.” Another hand wave and her lips started moving faster, the words a verbal avalanche that strove to smother his protests. “The second to last one was a bloody shed. A garden shed!” Alan shook his head, staring at Barbie. “It had old AstroTurf on the floor and a fucking portaloo for the bathroom.”

“That’s not legal!” Alan leaned forward, cradling Barbie in his arms as his fingers flew across the keyboard. “They can’t do that. It contravenes our rental laws. Bathrooms need to be permanent and in good working order, and what about the expense? How much would hiring a portable toilet be each week? That doesn’t make good financial sense as I don’t think you’d be able to write it off as a tax expense—”

“Focus.”

She grabbed his square jaw and tilted his eyes her way.

“I dragged Kendall out of there and we went to one more place.” Alan just blinked, waiting for the punchline. “It was perfect, with a real bedroom and an en suite and the rent was really reasonable.”

“Right…”

Her eyes blinked and it was weird seeing the second hand outrage there because I’d long since stopped feeling it. I’d shouted, screamed, and cried after the bakery owners left the house that day, even as Mum tried to calm me down. There’d be other chances, she said. Other apprenticeships.

But I didn’t want that.

Then Finn came sidling in through the door, eyes wide as he took in my state and after Mum explained what had happened, he told me what I needed to know. The boys had decided to swap the sugar for the salt as a joke.

Barbie told Alan just that, her voice vibrating with a barely contained fury, but when the two of them turned to face me, I didn’t know how to respond.

I knew our family dynamic was an unusual one. There was a lot of play and silliness, which I had loved growing up, right up until it went too far. In our family, if you were the one that started crying, you’d get no sympathy. Mum would try to jolly you out of your bad mood, and if that didn’t work, Dad would tell me he’d give me something to cry about if I didn’t stop.

And sometimes he did.

“You have to move in here until you find your feet,” Alan said. “You can’t live with those idiots. They ruined your life.”

“Nope.” I rejected his proposal and analysis of my situation. “You guys need your space—”

“We could rent somewhere bigger.” Alan looked at Barbie with a gleam in his eye. “There’s that new tower that’s just opened up near my work. Think you could get used to inner-city living?”

“Oh my god, that place looked amazing, with the views and the swanky lobby,” she replied. “Ken, we could be roommates! I could just walk down the hall and—”

“Want to choke the life out of me?” I replied drily. “Sharing a house is always tricky, and its way more complicated when it’s with friends. I’ve lost friends after we shared a house together.” I stepped forward. “I’m not losing you.”

“Aw, bestie…” She slipped from Alan’s lap and then walked over, arms wide, before enveloping me in a hug. “You’ll never lose me. You’re stuck with me forever, and if you ever try to get away, I’ll find you and never ever let you go.”

“My little stalker.” I made a show of patting her on the head. “So glad you’re on my side and not y’know, committing crimes.”

“So what’re you going to do?” she asked.

“First, I’m going to eat my bodyweight in pizza,” I replied.

“Duh! Alan.” She clicked her fingers like he was a waiter or something, which just made him smile and shake his head. “See if you can reschedule Pellegrino’s to tomorrow night and then put in an order at that amazing wood-fired pizza place.”

“The one that uses real truffles?” he asked, pulling out his phone.

“That’s the one.” She turned back to me. “OK, that’s sorted. So what’s next?”

“Well, after I’ve eaten dinner with you, I’ll go back.” I shrugged. “It was nearly ten years ago. Water under the bridge. Right now I’ve got free rent in a nice place where the bathroom is a permanent fixture. You were right—”

“Always,” she said with a wide grin.

“I can’t knock their offer back, not yet. I’ll keep looking for somewhere else.”

“Maybe somewhere inner city?” she said, clasping her hands under her chin.

“Somewhere affordable and safe,” I corrected.

“OK…” She tapped her finger on her bottom lip as the cogs started whirring inside her head. Always a concerning sight. Alan was talking on the phone, rescheduling their dinner reservation and ordering pizza as my bestie started cooking up her own ideas. “Well, my original assertion stands.”

“And what is that?” I asked with a smile. “You say so much, it’s hard for me to keep up.”

“Those boys ruined your life.” I winced internally at that summation. “So maybe it’s time for a little payback. You can play a few ‘pranks’ on them, get your own back.” Alan got off the phone and joined us in the lounge room. “You don’t have to do anything permanently disfiguring or anything, just… embarrassing.”

“What the hell are you planning?” he asked.

“To torment each one of these pricks for what they did to my best friend,” Barbie replied, the challenge apparent in her gaze.

“Shit, I’m in,” he said, plopping down on the couch. “I used to live in student housing when I was at uni and I’m pretty sure we spent more time pulling pranks than actually studying. So whaddya thinking? Just kinda embarrassing or soul destroying?”

I shook my head, starting to smile despite myself. My brother and his friends had terrorised me my entire childhood, so the idea of getting my own back kinda rocked.

“Soul destroying is probably going a little too far, but embarrassing…” It wasn’t hard to remember the many times the boys put me in a shitty position only for the family or the whole school to point and laugh at me. I nodded slowly. “Yeah, I could get behind that idea.”

“Peanut butter makes an excellent shit substitute,”Alan announced as we sat around their coffee table munching truly epic pizza.

“Um, ew…” Barbie went to toss her slice back in the box, but Alan redirected it back to her mouth.

“I say that because you can use it in a wide variety of ways to embarrass someone. God knows we did. It got so bad the cafeteria stopped serving peanut butter. Spread on the toilet seat. Wiped on toilet rolls. Wiped on doorknobs.” He grinned widely. “Makes it look like someone’s smeared shit everywhere.”

“Oh my god…” Barbie dropped her food, her hands flinging wide. “You could smear it on their shorts or jeans or whatever they wear to work.”

“Wouldn’t they see that?” I asked.

“Not if it’s on the bum of their shorts. Who inspects the butt of a clean pair of clothing?”

“Make it look like they shit their pants before turning up for work?” Alan chortled. “That’d be gold!” He nodded to himself, obviously reliving his glory days.

Barbie grabbed her phone and then tapped in a search query. “How about taping a harmonica to the underside of the car?”

“What the hell does that do?” I asked.

“Makes a wheezing sound each time it starts from the air travelling through it?” Alan grinned. “That’s definitely one you need to try.”

“Glad wrapping the toilet…” she read. “Nope, boys stand up to piss so they’ll see that. Oh yes! Get on their social media and change their relationship status to being in a poly relationship with each other.”

“How the hell am I going to do that?” I asked.

“Swipe one of their phones. They’re probably not even smart enough to have a screen lock on it. Jump on Insta and make an ‘announcement.’”

I didn’t want to laugh, I didn’t, but my lips twitched anyway. Probably because I could hear the sound of a million thirsty girls’ hearts breaking when they saw that post.

“Laxatives?”

“That seems potentially medically dangerous,” I said.

“Ohh, what about this!” She held out her phone for me to look at, and my eyes widened as I read the screen.

“Putting a beef stock cube in the shower head trick?”

“What?” Alan asked.

“You unscrew the head, put one of those stock cubes in there, and then when someone turns it on—” I said.

“It’s like they’re showering in bone broth!”

The glee on Barbie’s face was maniacal, right before she leapt to her feet and then went rummaging through their tiny pantry. She trotted back holding out a foil wrapped container of stock cubes. “You gotta do it, Kendall. Please, please, PLEASE. Do this for me if not for yourself.”

I just stared at the metallic red and gold wrapping, able to smell the savoury scent of the stock cubes and see clearly how it would play out. Gage or Van would step under the shower, ready to have a scrub, and then a stream of brownish liquid would hit them…

Pranks were dumb. If anyone knew that, it was me. I knew exactly what happened if things went too far, but… Part of me wanted to be the one to instigate terror rather than be on the receiving end all the time. I reached out and grabbed the package and shoved it into my pocket.

“OK, you’re on.”

“Tell me you’re gonna video it,” she said. “You have to record this for posterity…” Her eyes rolled up as she started to think. “Also, social media. You could install a spy cam and—”

“No social media,” Alan said.

“Oh my god, you are no fun!” she shot back.

“Never leave behind evidence of your crime. It can and will be used against you—”

“In a court of law,” she finished heavily. “Thanks Law and Order: Prank Squad.” Her focus shifted back to me. “But ring me, all right? Preferably when it happens. I wanna hear the screams.”

If she wasn’t my friend, I’d be low key terrified of her, but I just nodded and then collected my stuff, ready to head back home.

No, to their place.

I couldn’t think of it as home, ever. No place that contained them in it would ever be home for me, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t have some fun in the meantime.

“All right,” I said, getting to my feet. “I’ll let you know.”