Nowhere Boys by Elise Mccredie

surface. His diaphragm was contracting but no air was getting in.
    He looked up. There on the wall was a studio portrait of his family: Mum, Dad, Pete, Vince and, dead in the centre, a smug, grinning Sammy.
    Sam sucked air deep into his lungs and his throat opened up, releasing a desperate, ragged-sounding cry. He slumped down on the floor, trying to breathe.
    Outside, there was the sound of a car door slamming.
    Sam got up and went to the window. His mum was in the driveway. His beautiful mum. He watched her getting her easel and paints out of the boot. He’d got his love of drawing from her. She’d taught him how to make a situation better by looking at it a different way: by painting it or drawing it. She’d shown him how drawing could change things. She always understood everything. He had to talk to her, make her see.
    He ran out of the house and down to the driveway. ‘Mum!’
    She turned sharply. ‘Oh, you gave me a fright. Are you looking for Sammy? He should be home soon.’
    ‘I’m not looking for Sammy. It’s me, Sam!’ He grabbed her arm and almost instantly she started to breathe raggedly. ‘Mum, that boy Sammy, he’s not your son. I am!’
    His mum looked up at him, her breathing laboured. ‘Sweetie, I’m not your mum.’
    ‘You are. I promise you.’ Sam racked his brain. He had to convince her. ‘Every birthday you make us a cheesecake. It’s black cherry. The same cake that your mum used to make for you …’
    She looked confused. ‘What?’
    ‘When you were my age you lived at the beach and were a junior surf champ. Uncle Noel still calls you Gidget …’
    His mum bent over double, her breath rasping.
    Sam kept going desperately. ‘That’s why I started skating. To be like you.’ He grabbed her arm harder. ‘I miss you, Mum. Please, remember me!’
    He took his hand away and in its place, a creeping bright-red rash made its way up his mum’s forearm. She clutched at it and collapsed unconscious on the pavers.
    Oh God. What had he done? Had he killed her? Was it all too big a shock? He should have kept his big fat mouth shut.
    He turned and sprinted back inside. He grabbed the phone and punched in 000. The impersonal voice of the operator came on the line. ‘What’s your emergency, please?’
    Sam looked out the window and saw Sammy running up the path. He ran straight to Sam’s mum. Sam watched as she slowly stood up. Sammy put his arms around her and helped her to sit in the front seat of the car.
    ‘What’s your emergency, please?’
    Sam watched his mum smile and reassure Sammy. She tousled his hair affectionately.
    Sam hung up the phone and stared at them through the glass. He’d been absolutely, unquestionably replaced.

andy: a very hungry ghost
    ‘So, if by chance we stumbled across a wormhole, then we could have slipped through space and time into an alternate universe.’ Andy was sitting on a Bob the Builder sleeping bag, trying to convince Felix and Jake of his latest theory.
    Andy took a bite of pigweed and chewed it thoughtfully. He’d been going over and over this in his head. The only explanation that really made sense was that they were in a parallel universe. ‘It’s possible that large bodies of mass can move between dimensional planes –’
    Andy’s stomach made a terrible gurgling sound.
    Felix looked up from his black journal.
    ‘You’re talking out your arse, man,’ said Jake, cracking himself up.
    Andy ignored him. He needed to concentrate. ‘An Einstein-Rosen bridge is basically a tunnel with two points in different space-time continuums.’ His stomach gurgled again. Andy stopped talking. Maybe Jake was right. ‘Have we got any toilet paper?’
    Jake laughed. ‘Dude, we don’t even have a toilet.’
    Andy made a run for the door.
    He crouched behind a tree, feeling the effects of a twenty-four-hour diet of weeds. It wasn’t good. Even worse was only having a handful of gum leaves to finish the job. Bear Grylls must have the constitution of