Christos Tsiolkas - Barracuda

He wouldn't ask Martin. Dan forced himself to run faster, he dared the coming day, and fate, and sped across a street without looking, he dared and he won and he thought that was an omen: he could get her something and she would cherish it, she had to cherish it. Taylor would tease him, Taylor would wrap his arm around him, pretend to punch him; these days Taylor didn't only smell of citrus and fresh soap, he sometimes smelled of the illicit cigarettes he smoked, one before and one after school. Dan could almost sense the boy's arm around his neck, their skin touching, and then he was at the car park and he stopped. He bent over, taking in breath after racking breath. He could almost feel their skin touching.

There were already people on the platform, looking up and down the tracks. The toilets were shut so he went behind a rubbish skip and stripped off his shirt and wiped under his arms. Taylor never ponged like that, how was it that other boys always seemed to smell so sweet? Not in the change rooms, of course; there the chlorine dulled the sting, there the smell didn't belong to anyone, it belonged to all of them. But he hadn't been in a change room for months.

He had forgotten that smell; he didn't remember anymore what change rooms smelled like.

He put his shirt back on, feeling the cold again. A car horn tooted; Boon was waiting. Another toot, and people on the platform turned to stare. The sky behind them now was magenta, the sliver of moon was a vanishing translucent dash. The car looked like a cab, with the solid cube across the top, with the words in English Boon Tan's Driving School , and what he assumed was Mandarin on the other side.

'Alright, alright, I'm here.'

'You are late.'

The clock on the dashboard read 6.17. But he wouldn't argue. Boon never listened to argument, just shook his head, saying, 'I am the teacher and if I say you are wrong, you are wrong.'

'Sorry.'

Boon nodded, satisfied. He stepped out of the car and Dan got in front of the wheel. Boon was overweight and always dressed in a beige suit one size too small for him. He waddled around to the passenger side and manoeuvred himself into the seat. Then he tapped the dashboard impatiently. 'OK, OK, what you waiting for?' he hissed. 'Start the fucking car.'

No one could know that Dan was taking driving lessons. His driving test was only a month away now, just over a month till he turned eighteen and could sit the test and get his licence. He would be the only boy at school with a licence. But he couldn't tell anyone, not Luke, not Taylor, not his family. They couldn't know till he'd passed the test. Because he could fail. He could stall, he could forget to wait the requisite three seconds at a stop sign; something simple like that could mean a fail and he must not fail. All his money from working at the newsagent on High Street was going towards driving lessons.

Most of all, he couldn't wait to tell Theo. He just wanted Theo to be proud of him again; he was tempted to tell Theo just so he could see pride on the boy's face. But he wouldn't say anything until he had passed the test. He could not fail.

Everyone was up and in the kitchen when he got home. Everyone except his dad, who was on the road. The past year his father had been promising their mother, 'Wait till Regan finishes high school, let's just wait till then and then I'm off that frigging road for good. I'll be a removalist, a courier, I'll do anything to get off that fucking road.' Their mother, Regan, Theo, they had all been thrilled when they'd heard this. But not Dan. He enjoyed the space around him when his father was away. It was too small, Dan told himself, the house was too small for the both of them.

The black night had gone but the morning was all grey; low slate clouds drew a curtain across the sun and the lights were on in the corridor and the kitchen.

Dan walked in and they all looked up. Everything stopped: Theo's hand that had been raising a spoon to his mouth; Regan waiting for her toast to pop; his mother filling the bottom chamber of the espresso maker with coffee. Dan didn't know what to say, so he mumbled a good morning and mumbled again when his mum asked if he'd had a good run.

It was a relief to walk into the bathroom, to shut the door.

It was a pleasure to turn on the taps, to peel off his sweaty clothes, and to feel the warm water on him. He scrubbed hard, under his arms, scrubbed between his thighs to get rid of the stink. He soaped and he rubbed at his face and behind his ears and his neck and his nose where all the pimples were, red and ugly.

It was a pleasure to stand there, being cleansed by the clean, warm water. But what was not a pleasure was to stand there, after having dried himself, to stand there and to look.

Dan straightened his back, flattened the upright hair that had been messed by the towel. He forced his gaze to his reflection in the mirror. His skin was blotchy and red. The pimples on his brow were cracked and pink, there was a faint moustache, black bristles on his upper lip, and black down forming on his chin. He would have to shave tomorrow and probably again on Sunday night. The hair wouldn't stop growing.

He had to look, he had to look down.

He had to keep a firm watch on it, Dan's new body, he had to examine it every day, to be on guard. That was never the case with that other body, Danny's body. That body was fit, that body stayed lean; he didn't have to think about it and he didn't have to worry about it. But this new body resisted, it felt as though it was not his own. That was why he had to run every morning, why he now went to the gym three or four times a week after school, to keep the new body in order, to keep it in check. This was why he had to watch what he ate, no more sugar and no more fat. That other Danny hadn't known how lucky he'd been, scoffing down Macca's and pizza and Toblerones. The new body bloated, the new body sagged. That useless prick had had no idea how lucky he'd been.

He forced his eyes back to his reflection in the mirror. What repelled him instantly was all that hair. It disgusted him. He had heard that shaving made the hair grow back even thicker, and it had to be true. There were ugly clumps of it across his chest, down his belly, dense black thatches of it under his arms. He hated how it was crawling up to his shoulder blades, he saw it as a virus invading his body, the explosion of it from his crotch, how it crept up his legs and grew thicker and blacker on his thighs. One day he would get it all waxed, have an operation to get rid of it, the whole filthy mess of it. It sickened him.

He pinched at the flab on either side of him, lying deadened above his hips. He could see that it was receding, all that running and ab work was paying off. He pinched the fat between his fingers. The other Danny never had to worry about fucking fat .

Dan dropped his hands to his sides. He was done. He turned his back on the mirror.

At the kitchen table, dressed in his white shirt and striped tie, his fine woollen jumper and thick woollen trousers, his shoes polished, his blazer hanging neatly from the back of the chair, he ate carefully: he didn't want to stain his shirt or his tie. His mother was in her bedroom getting ready for work and Theo was watching cartoons in the next room, but Regan was still finishing her Vegemite and toast. Dan and his sister didn't talk, they just chewed their food. She was wearing black jeans, and the ugly sweatshirt that was part of her school uniform, pea-green, with the name of the school stitched in yellow thread.

Dan looked up from his plate and smiled at his sister. It made Regan beam; she was grateful for his smile. She didn't ask anything of him, she didn't quiz him like his mum, didn't demand answers like his father; unlike Theo she didn't dream of him returning to swimming. If it were just him and Regan, there would be space, there would be all the space he needed.