Begin, End, Begin: A #LoveOzYA Anthology

Contents

Dear Reader: a note from the editor

One Small Step …

Amie Kaufman

I Can See the Ending

Will Kostakis

In a Heartbeat

Alice Pung

First Casualty

Michael Pryor

Sundays

Melissa Keil

Missing Persons

Ellie Marney

Oona Underground

Lili Wilkinson

The Feeling From Over Here

Gabrielle Tozer

Last Night at the Mount Solemn Observatory

Danielle Binks

Competition Entry #349

Jaclyn Moriarty

About the Authors

Copyright

Dear Reader

Books are family. Books are community.

Characters come into our lives, and we’re invited to walk beside them. An author welcomes us into the world they’ve created, a view into their mind’s eye.

Any book you hold was nurtured by many hands: early readers, agents, publishers, editors, illustrators, designers, typesetters, printers, publicists, librarians, teachers … the list goes on and on.

Books create communities — bringing together characters, ideas, writers, words and readers. This book was created by community.

In 2015, the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) surveyed public libraries to find out the list of Top Ten most borrowed books. It was disappointing to find only two Australian titles featured in the young adult category, which was overwhelmed by American books, many bolstered by blockbuster film adaptations.

Our community’s response was the creation of #LoveOzYA — a hashtag coined to harness the conversation, and talk about our love of Australian young adult literature, to champion our stories.

LoveOzYA was born from readers and writers and all who love Australia’s national youth literature. It was not born out of patriotism or a rejection of international voices — far from it. LoveOzYA has been about the inclusion of voices. And it has been a movement, as the name suggests, about love.

This was the spur to create #LoveOzYA — not only an anthology, but an entire movement devoted to the promotion of Australian creators and their stories.

This book is a love letter to that movement, and all who got behind it.

I hope you enjoy it, as much as we loved creating it.

— Danielle Binks

Before …

‘You have a letter from Harvard,’ my mum said, standing at the kitchen counter and tearing open a foil packet for lunch.

‘I didn’t know the postal service made it all the way to Mars,’ Dad chimed in, raising his hands in pre-emptive self-defence. He’s been making that joke at least since I was born, and presumably longer — so that’s a minimum seventeen years in circulation, or nine, if you’re counting in Martian.

‘Oh,’ I said, careful to keep my tone neutral. ‘Usual offer?’

‘Usual offer,’ Mum agreed. ‘They have a great medical program. And they have a really excellent student–teacher ratio. A lot of the teaching happens face-to-face, that’s very rare on Earth.’

‘That …’ I struggled for a response that didn’t sound completely unenthusiastic. I wasn’t in the mood for the usual Talk About My Future. ‘That’s good to know, I bet that’s important.’ I was already backing towards the door.

‘Zaida, this can’t wait any longer,’ she said. ‘The networks are jostling for your first interview, once you’ve made your decision. Harvard’s the best offer yet. There really isn’t much to think about.’

‘I have inspection duty.’ And I needed to get out of that conversation. We’d been dancing around this issue for months, and the walls were narrowing in on me. I was in a world of hurry up, when all I wanted to do was slow down.

Dad called after me as I grabbed my gear from the tub by the door. My pressure suit is made just for me, tight enough to stop my body wanting to explode all over the place in the lower pressure outside the habs. (I kid, I kid. I wouldn’t explode. I’d just bleed from my eyes, then die, relax.)

‘Don’t forget you need to record your diary tonight, Zaida. We have to transmit it before bedtime.’

I couldn’t help myself; I snapped back: ‘Is there any chance either of you is more interested in me than my media appointments?’

The door hummed closed on their joint protests and I bolted to the end of the hallway, getting around the corner before they could decide on who had to follow me and deal with me this time.

Ugh. The Diary. Yet another expectation to stack up alongside all the others, of which my future university choice was not the least. I hated the fact that even as I was making my escape, I was mentally slotting in the time I’d need to do my hair and makeup before I sat down for a super-casual chat with a few billion of my besties back on Earth.

I understood why people were interested in the diary, and I didn’t blame them. But even though I’d have handed off that duty in a heartbeat if I could, I can’t change the way things are: I was the first person born on Mars. I’m the one they want to hear about.

Now …

Our red world spreads out before me, the smooth plain the colony’s situated on giving way to gently rising ground to the north, topped off by a faraway, craggy mountain range. To the east lie vast acres of solar arrays and the tops of the water pumps, which stand up above the fields of reflective black panels like giant scarecrows. The sky’s a pinkish orange, and I can see a dust cloud off to the west I don’t like the look of, but for now it’s far enough away that we can get to work.

I thumb the button for the communicator on my suit. ‘KK, if you could go anywhere on Earth, where would it be?’

My best friend considers the question for a long moment. ‘Arashiyama,’ she says eventually. ‘It’s a bamboo grove near Kyoto. The buildings go all the way up to the edge, but they preserved it, and my Jiji says when you’re inside, you can pretend there’s nobody else in the world. It’s fifteen metres high, twenty in some places. What about you?’

‘Where wouldn’t I go?’ I say, jumping down from my place atop the curve of the dirt mound hiding our buildings and making my way along to the next camera I need to check. ‘Ireland, because it’s the greenest, wettest place I can imagine.’

‘So, so yes,’ she agrees. ‘Green hills and mist, it doesn’t even sound real.’

‘And the Australian outback, definitely.’

‘But that’s just big and red and dry,’ she points out, laughing. ‘You haven’t seen enough of that?’

‘I bet it’s different.’ I go silent, because suddenly I’m wondering if I should have raised Earth at all, given her odds of making it there.

When I glance down at her, she’s stopped outside Airlock 742, one up from where we exited the habs, and she’s leaning in to look at it. ‘Everything okay, KK?’

‘The seal doesn’t look right,’ she says. ‘I don’t think —’

The next second the airlock blows, the door snapping open right into her face. She spins away from it and the door collides with her power and air at the back of her suit, a cord whipping free and snaking around like a living thing as it vents her precious oxygen.

Before …

I made tracks for the greenhouses, keeping the speed on. The hallway to that section was long and dimly lit, the ceiling a curved arch cut into the dirt and rock above it, the lights fixed every ten metres or so, powered by the huge solar arrays above. We’re underground here — almost the whole colony is underground, safely shielded because radiation is not your friend. Every angle is calculated, every line efficient.

I think my parents wish they could plan me just as carefully, no part of me without a purpose, no part of me wasted. Maximum return for their efforts.

There are plenty of structures aboveground, but if you just flew over the top of us you’d never guess there were a thousand and some people beneath it all — watching shows and school lessons sent from Earth in batches, tending greenhouses, running labs, living life. My parents and I are just three of them.

I was a total accident, obviously. A happy accident, my parents always correct me. I think it’s kind of hilarious, to be honest. Mum was the first colony doctor. You’d think that out of everyone available, she’d be pretty clear on how birth control works, right?

She was one of the original eight on the very first settlement mission. It was a one-way trip, and though the plan was for others to follow, whether that happened was always going to depend on what they found when they got here, and how the first mission went. My mum’s the kind of person who picks a course, then commits to it full tilt.

Dad came in the third wave, and by the time they got together and then got-together-boom-chicka-wow-wow, the colony was one hundred strong.

And baby made one hundred and one!

Congratulations, it’s a girl!

Mum ended up giving instructions to Dad (who was then the colony’s only nurse) through gritted teeth as they got me delivered between them, with ninety-eight adoptive uncles and aunts busy hand-sewing baby clothes and blankets and toys, because the colony supplies didn’t have anything baby-sized. And here, you can’t exactly order something for next-day delivery. Meanwhile, the whole of Earth held its breath as it waited for updates on a seventeen-minute time delay.

The very first Martian. That’s me. Hi.

They held vigils while Mum was in labour, presidents and prime ministers made official statements, the heads of pretty much every religion prayed. Humanity didn’t mean to get pregnant, but once it happened, they were all in. It wasn’t your average entrance into the world — any world — is what I’m saying.

No pressure.

Everyone was so invested, after all that caring. So it turned out I didn’t just have ninety-eight uncles and aunts. I had nearly nine billion. And they all still want to know what I’m doing all of the time. I took my first steps on camera, spoke my first words on camera, and I still make video diaries to camera, which apparently rate through the roof back on good old Earth.

My parents never meant to have a kid who was a celebrity, any more than they meant to be celebrities themselves. And I don’t know if they keep it up out of some weird sense of duty, or they like it, or what it’s about, really.

Just that nobody’s ever asked me if I’d like to get off the ride, and my parents make sure I keep on sending back those diaries, inviting everyone out there into our lives. It’s just habit now — whatever happens throughout my day, there’s always a tiny part of my mind tracking whether I should snap a selfie, figuring out how I’ll caption or describe this bit of news. My updates are followed by a few billion people, which is even weirder, because in all my life, I haven’t met much more than a thousand.

I waved to a couple of those people with my free hand as I made my way along the hallway — Josh Ribar and Thanh Lê — and Josh made finger guns, kapowing me as we passed. Thanh was talking at top speed as usual, bouncing along beside Josh — Earth has three times our gravity, so it’s much easier to bounce here — and Josh was looking at me instead of listening.

Mum’s worried Josh is trying to spend too much time around me. I haven’t told her she has nothing to worry about. If I do, she’ll just find something else to fixate on, right?

Now …

Keiko huddles on the ground as I race towards her, dropping to my knees to skid in beside her. Her lips are moving, but I can’t hear anything over my headset — her power cord’s severed and nothing’s getting through. Her eyes are huge, mouth open as if she’s already struggling for air, though I know she has a few minutes sealed inside her suit with her.

I grab at the cord, my gloved fingers fumbling as I yank it in close to my helmet, trying to see if the auto shut-off has worked. It’s stopped wriggling, so I think it has — I can only hope there’s enough air left in there to keep her going until we get inside. But we have more problems than the air. Without power, the heating coils in her suit will already be cooling.

I reach for her elbow to help her to her feet, and she shakes off my hand, big eyes trying silently to communicate something to me. She flicks her gaze down, and when I follow it, I realise she has her right hand clapped over her left forearm in a death grip. The door must have torn the suit.

Which means she probably doesn’t have a couple of minutes worth of air at all.

And then, because we’re not already having a bad enough day, the first eddies of dust start swirling in around us. The storm must have been moving a lot faster than I figured.

This is really, really bad.

Before …

Thanh’s already accepted a scholarship to Oxford, and Josh wants to study somewhere in Europe as well. All the first-gen Mars kids are getting sweet offers, and now it’s time for us to decide whether we’ll stick here or see the homeworld.

They all talk about it, but none of them has asked me what I’ll be doing. I’m always slightly set apart — and I’m not even sure I realised it until recently. I have a unique place, even here on Mars, and I just felt like it was normal to be slightly on the outer. But even here, among my friends, there’s a special shape I’m meant to fit into, trimming off any parts of me that might stray outside the lines.

University’s the decision that’s causing all the most fun discussions at our hab lately. Mum and Dad say it’s a huge opportunity for me, and we have to make the most of it.

Hear that? It’s an opportunity for me, but we have a decision to make.

Only a few people have ever returned from Mars to Earth, but it’s possible, just very expensive. The gravity’s a problem too, of course, but my parents have had me exercising on resistance machines literally since I was a baby, building the muscle and bone density I’d need for full gravity. Theirs has long since gone, and they’ll never make the return trip. For me, it would be a slightly uncomfortable transition, but an achievable one.

So now I’m seventeen, it’s the question on everyone’s lips. We have the money, from all the press. But I have my own money, as well — my gran left it to me. For whatever you want, she said in the vid.

But I’ve never known what that was.

I shoved university, Earth and my parents out of my mind as I turned the corner towards the greenhouse and saw Keiko waiting for me. She flashed me a quick grin, we bumped knuckles, and headed inside. Her long braid swayed as she held the door open for me with her hip, and I squeezed past her.

Keiko is my best friend. We’ve been that way since the second day we met.

Once I was born, the timetable on sending families to Mars changed, and Keiko was the first one up with her parents. We were both four, and apparently I screamed my head off when I saw her. I’d never seen anyone my own size before, and I didn’t know what she was.

So the first day was kind of a write-off, but we’ve been inseparable since that second day. Keiko’s the only one who doesn’t care who or what I am, apart from just being me. She’s been around way too long to be impressed. You’d think things would be simple around Keiko, right? They’re not.

Mum worries about keeping me away from Josh, but truth be told … she’d be better off worrying about Keiko.

Problem is, Keiko has no more idea of this fact than Mum does. I’ve never mustered the guts to tell her.

We made our way into the long, narrow greenhouse in companionable silence, breathing in the damp air. I love the greenhouse, so different to anywhere else. Lamps hang from the ceiling, plants burst from their shelves, filling every available inch, leaving you wet where you brush past them. It’s the only place inside the settlement where you can find even a little bit of chaos. You can’t plan for exactly how plants will grow, after all. This place manages to break the rules, when nothing else does.

The greenhouse is underground just like the rest of the complex, but it never takes much to imagine it’s a jungle somewhere on Earth. The plants aren’t just for eating — they also play a part in the O2 recyc program, and a lot of people come here simply to see some green. Turns out that’s important to humans, even on the red planet.

We stopped without needing to consult, to check on a plant we’ve dubbed Horace. He’s really a small tree now, spindly clumps of moss clinging to his trunk. In years past he served as a secret mailbox, where we’d leave each other little bits and pieces hidden among his roots. Buried treasure, we called it, because that was as close as two kids on Mars came to X marking the spot.

Now …

I flick my communicator to the broadcast channel as I wrap my arms around Keiko’s waist, helping her to her feet. The airlock shouldn’t have hurt her — it’s a movie myth that those things blow with incredible force, usually before some poor astronaut’s sucked out into space. But I can see its jagged edge where the seal broke, and that’s what did the damage.

‘Central, this is Zaida, we have a breach.’ I can hear the high, sharp note of fear in my voice. I ignore all the formalities, don’t bother hailing properly. I just want another voice down the line. I want to know I’m not alone, facing this. Forget chaos, forget colouring outside the lines. I want order and rules, a procedure to follow, a way to fix this.

Marguerite Syvertson’s voice is in my ear a moment later. ‘Zaida, go ahead.’

I can’t see Airlock 741 through the dust cloud that’s blown in — the world is red, and Keiko’s shaking in my arms as I walk us slowly forward. My heart is pounding. If that rip gets any bigger, if her suit loses integrity — I push the thought out of my mind.

‘Airlock 742 blew during inspection. Inner doors looked like they held. Keiko’s suit’s damaged. I’m walking us back to 741 right now.’

‘Okay, keep breathing, Zaida,’ Marguerite says, soothing and calm in my ear, though she and I both know the appropriate reaction is to freak right out. ‘Remember your training. I’m mobilising a medical crew.’

But the airlock’s taking forever to show up. Am I definitely walking in the right direction?

I think so.

I have to be, 742 was to my right.

But which way was I facing when I started to walk? Towards the habs, or away?

Before …

‘You have a line right between your eyebrows,’ Keiko said, giving Horace a pat with one hand, and looking across at me.

I immediately pressed a finger between my brows, trying to smooth it out. ‘Just Mum,’ I said. ‘Apparently Earth’s calling again, still wants its Martian back.’

‘Who this time?’

‘Harvard.’

‘Is that in North America?’

‘I think so. Good med school, I hear.’

She didn’t reply, and we fell silent. I never know how to discuss this problem with Keiko. My parents are deadset on trying to choose my future back on Earth, convinced they know what university and course will suit their idea of who I’m going to be.

But Keiko’s father’s pushing just as hard for her to stay on Mars with him. He says she has a family duty. Neither of us is getting what we want, and neither of us looks like we’ll be getting a vote anytime soon.

We reached the small, dry platform at the end of the greenhouse where we’d change before letting ourselves into the pressurisation section. Keiko made herself smile, reaching for the good mood we’d abruptly lost. ‘Did your dad make the joke about the postal service coming out all this way?’

‘He’d have given that up years ago if you didn’t keep on laughing at it,’ I pointed out.

‘Then you’re stuck with it,’ she informed me cheerily, peeling off her shirt over her head. I forced my eyes down and away, though I knew exactly what Keiko looked like in her underwear. I’ve seen her change thousands of times. Her skin’s a lighter brown than mine, smooth and perfect, and she’s more straight lines than curves, narrow hips and long legs. Her underwear’s identical to mine, simple and grey, because it’s colony issue. But since I figured out that I’d like to see her in it as often as possible, it feels kind of squicky, looking at her without her knowing that.

Once or twice I’ve wondered if she does know — she said the other day that Katie Telgar looked cute with her hair cut short, and I turned that single comment over for hours, searching for clues in it. But I don’t know whether Keiko plays for my team, and I’m terrified to ask, because it’s a small world up here, and she’s my very best friend.

It’s not like she’d care which variety of human I’d most prefer to see in their underwear, but I’m pretty sure it’d be weird around anyone once you’d told them you like them, and they’d told you they don’t like you back, not that way.

I don’t have a lot of experience with this kind of thing, but I think that’s how it goes.

Now …

Keiko’s shuffling in front of me, all her concentration on keeping her suit intact. This is her personal nightmare. I have the money to get to Earth because my grandmother left it to me. Keiko has it — not that she can use it — because her mother died of a suit breach on a mining expedition, and the colony paid compensation. And I can’t even comfort her, not without a working radio. She’s hyperventilating — I can feel her ribs heaving against my arms — and I’m not far behind her. My heart’s drumming in my ears, and I try to make my movements smooth, where they want to be panicked and jerky.

Keiko’s legs suddenly start to give, and she sags in my arms, head swaying from side to side. Her right hand begins to peel away from her left arm, and I clap my own left hand over it, holding her ripped suit in place like a vice. That means I have to keep her moving with just one arm wrapped around her ribs.

A moment later her foot catches on a rock, and we both stumble and fall together, landing in a tangled heap on the ground that drives the air from my lungs, sending up more dust to join the cloud all around us. My arm lands under her and pain shoots up into my shoulder, but I force myself to hold on.

I have to hold on.

I wouldn’t know which way was up now, without the ground beneath me, pressing into my sore shoulder. Red dirt’s scattered across it, red dust hanging in the air as the cloud moves through, every possible landmark invisible. I wriggle to get my arm out from under Keiko, keeping hold of the rip in her suit as she lolls onto her back. Her lashes are fluttering, and now she’s the one with a line between her brows, looking up at me in confusion.

She pushes onto her elbows, trying to get free of me.

‘Keiko, no! Hold still!’ I’m shouting — as she keeps trying to wriggle free, I’m screaming — but her comms are out and she can’t hear me. I’m screaming inside my own private little world, stuck inside my suit. I’m screaming on the broadcast channel, I think, but Marguerite doesn’t say anything, doesn’t risk my concentration.

I have my helmet pressed against Keiko’s, as close as I can get. Begging her with my eyes to understand me.

She stares up at me for a