Animal Kingdom by Stephen Sewell

that if they wanted to be tough they could be; why would they want to be soft on him, a Cody who knew more than he was letting on? There was enough there to get him locked up for a year at least, if they felt like it, but that didn’t really feel like trouble. That was just a threat, something they could use against him. That’s not what people mean when they say trouble .
    Trouble is when the shit’s really flying and you might wind up dead. That’s real trouble, and this didn’t feel anything like that, not yet. Not unless the cops decided to take things into their own hands the way they had with Baz.
    True, his mother was dead and there was no-one there he could count on, but it wasn’t like he’d ever really been able to count on her. He was seventeen years old, almost a man. Someday soon he’d be looking after himself; he was practically doing that now, making his own breakfast and things. There were lots of things he didn’t know about, didn’t understand—how to get a job, that sort of thing—but he figured when the time came there’d be people who’d tell him, if only just to make sure he did it.
    He was smart, or smart enough. He could drive a car. And he was strong, he knew that. He’d had to put up with a lot of shit in his life, and somehow he’d always pulled through. Things hadn’t always been easy. But they’d never been as hard as they were now.
    Nicky wasn’t home yet, but somehow that made it easier. Gus was watching TV with Nicky’s little brother and Alicia was cooking.
    â€˜So how was your day today?’ she asked J, like it was the most normal thing to ask. And, in this family, it was.
    His day? What was he going to say? I got interrogated by the police for a cop murder my three uncles committed last night in a car I stole for them.
    â€˜It was okay,’ he said, adding a polite ‘How was yours?’
    â€˜It was good,’ she said, and it sounded real, like it was really true, and she wasn’t worried she was about to be killed or tortured or have her whole life turned inside out by a bunch of maniacs.
    â€˜Do you want to stay for dinner?’ Gus asked.
    That was the nicest thing anyone had said to him for a while.
    Setting the table was just about the best thing he could imagine doing. This was what normal people did. They watched TV with the kids and cooked dinner and set the table. It wasn’t crappy takeaway that was going to make you fat and give you a heart attack in twenty years. No-one was yelling; the only drama was on the TV: it felt good.
    He watched Alicia bustling around the kitchen for a while, and Gus and the kid. He wondered what it would be like to have a father. He’d thought about it sometimes, when he was younger—had asked his mother, but she’d been evasive, like she was about a lot of things. And not for any reason that he could work out; just because that’s what she was like, even with him. What was the big secret? Your father is the King of England , some shit like that.
    He guessed now that he’d been an accident. She’d never said that, and always said he was the best thing that ever happened to her, but it didn’t feel like he was the result of the greatest love story ever told. If you believed that sort of thing. J didn’t. Not really. That only happened on telly. Not here.
    â€˜Dinner’s ready,’ Nicky’s mum said at last.
    Nicky still wasn’t home, but J was feeling okay sitting with her family.
    â€˜How was your friend’s … funeral?’ Alicia offered, curious but respectful.
    â€˜It was okay,’ J answered, putting his knife and fork down. He didn’t really want to talk about it, but she’d asked. ‘Sad and everything,’ he added.
    â€˜Yes, we saw it on the news,’ she said.
    He supposed that meant she saw everything, about him, his family, the types of people Nicky was hanging