Fuse - Sally Partridge

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her head at her sons. “Oh dear. Why do you boys always have to upset him so?”

      Justin looked at his mother incredulously. “You wanna go to my room?” he asked his brother.

      Kendall nodded.

      They left their mother in the dining room wringing her hands as she looked up the stairs, wondering what it was of hers that her husband had just broken.

      Justin’s room

      Justin’s room was the polar opposite to his brother’s. While Kendall’s room was his dark sanctuary where everything had a special significance, Justin’s room was glorious in its chaos.

      It resembled an ordinary teenager’s room with a small television set (borrowed from an ex-girlfriend who in all likelihood would never get it back), a PlayStation console for which he had saved up and various other electronic gadgets he had to have, but hardly ever used.

      Kendall picked a pair of his brother’s jeans off the bed and put it over a chair so he could sit down.

      Justin was looking at his reflection in a mirror on the wall between numerous band posters. Various photographs of friends and party pamphlets had been stuck to the glass at odd angles to create a colourful collage.

      “Do you think my fringe is getting too long?” he asked, turning his face back and forth.

      “Don’t listen to Dad,” Kendall replied, switching on the PlayStation console.

      The sound of Gregory Mullins’s raised voice could still be heard echoing from the next room. “Lock that door, Kenny, before he comes in here.”

      Kendall got up to turn the key in the lock just as the all too familiar sound of his father’s fist hitting a cupboard door reverberated through the house.

      “He’s really angry tonight. Maybe we should just sit and wait it out and not make a noise,” Kendall said, staring at the locked door with a worried expression.

      “No way, screw him. Let’s play something. Come and sit down, before you stare a hole in that door.”

      Justin flopped down in front of the console and rifled through the games on the floor. Kendall took a seat behind him on the bed. His expression became glassy as he stared into the air in front of him, twisting his ponytail nervously.

      “You okay, Kenny?” his brother asked, tapping him on the leg.

      Kendall blinked and managed a smile to cover up his embarrassment. “I was quite scared when Dad asked for the scissors,” he admitted, “I don’t know what I’d do if he cut my hair, you know?”

      “Don’t think about it. As long as I’m under this roof, I will make sure Dad doesn’t touch our hair. I mean seriously, have you seen his? It’s practically a mullet and not the cool kind either. The man is still living in the eighties. Here, take this.” Justin pushed a game controller into Kendall’s hand and took a seat on the floor at the foot of the bed. “Need for Speed will take your mind off it.”

      The game interface flashed on the screen and the brothers pushed their long hair out of their faces simultaneously.

      “You know what gets me, though?” Justin said as their cars pulled onto the track.

      “What?”

      “Our mother. I don’t understand how she can take his abuse. She just stands there like a zombie while he treats us like crap.”

      “It’s her way of coping, I guess.”

      “She’s supposed to protect us, but she’s just as bad. ‘Will you still be needing the scissors, dear?’ ”

      Kendall didn’t have an answer to that. He had his brother to protect him. His mother had no one to protect her.

      “Do you hate her?” he asked.

      “Don’t you?” Justin replied, surprised.

      “I honestly don’t know. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t have met you. I might still have been in that home. The kids at school are nothing compared to that lot.”

      “I hate them both,” Justin said through his teeth as his fingers squeezed the controls.

      Craig

      Kendall had always been a loner, but he had his brother to keep him company when he got home. Besides, he found the rest of the students at Percy Fitzpatrick poor company anyway. Why would he want to hang out with someone who teased him about the way he acted or looked?

      So Kendall spent every break in the library reading books or listening to his brother’s iPod. He kept out of the way of other students, and it suited him fine.

      That’s why it came as a surprise when a boy he didn’t know asked if he could sit down next to him one afternoon during break as he was listening to music in the library. Kendall was instantly suspicious.

      “What do you want?” he asked, giving the new arrival the once-over.

      The boy had black hair tucked behind his ears. He wore a spiked dog collar underneath his shirt and black nail polish on his bitten fingernails. Bad idea in this place, Kendall thought to himself. I give him a week.

      “Was just wondering what you were listening to,” the boy said in what he probably thought was a nonchalant way.

      “Why?” Kendall asked bluntly, not caring if he sounded rude.

      “Trying to make friends,” the boy shrugged.

      “Well, if you’re trying to make friends in this place, you’re getting off to a bad start talking to me.” And wearing that collar, thought Kendall.

      The boy laughed.

      “I’m Craig,” he said. He didn’t extend his hand to shake, but shoved both hands in his pants pockets instead.

      Nicely done, thought Kendall, I would have done the same.

      “I’m Kendall. I’m listening to Hellfire. It’s a black metal band from Norway.”

      “Yeah, I know, I just downloaded their latest album. I was hoping you’d like the same bands as me, actually.”

      Kendall’s eyes lit up. “Really?” He took another look at the boy and wondered if maybe, just maybe, there was a kindred spirit standing before him. He lowered his defensive walls a fraction and smiled.

      Craig took the smile as an invitation and sat down.

      “You in grade eleven?”

      “Yeah.”

      “Awesome, me too. What other bands do you like?”

      “Well,” Kendall began …

      And the child who had never had a friend in his life found that it was easy to talk to someone after all. Later that day while Justin and Kendall were walking, Justin asked, “Who was that weirdo I saw you talking to today? The guy with the collar.”

      Kendall’s cheeks flushed. “Craig. He’s new in school.”

      “Be careful of that guy, he looks a bit odd.”

      Kendall stopped walking and glared at his brother. “Why, because he wears a collar? You can be such a jerk sometimes. I think he’s pretty cool.”

      Justin stared at Kendall with his mouth open. “What’s wrong with you?”

      “Nothing. What’s wrong with me wanting to have a friend?”

      Justin irritably swept his fringe out of his face and pulled his brother aside as a couple of girls walked past. “I just don’t think he’s the right person for you, that’s all.”

      Kendall looked at his brother in disbelief. He couldn’t work out whether Justin was trying to be protective or mean. “Why?”

      Justin

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