This Is Not the End by Molly Morris

Author:Molly Morris
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicken House
Published: 2022-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Olivia was right. Nobody cared about two teenagers sneaking into Mr Monkey’s World-Famous Club & Casino. In fact, I wasn’t even sure anybody registered our presence, much less our age.

‘What if there’s puke everywhere?’ I hissed to Olivia as we entered through the door to the kitchen, which was literally wide open. I was already having second thoughts. ‘Or all the cover band plays are Barbra Streisand and Maroon 5 songs?’

Olivia ignored me as she walked calmly down the busy lanes past chefs and waitresses and waiters who were mostly too preoccupied with cramming cold French fries into their faces to care we were there.

The swinging door to the kitchen emptied us out on to the main casino floor, which immediately assaulted us with neon lights, dinging bells, loud drunken laughter and playing cards hissing between hands. Reflected in Olivia’s eyes were pools of rainbows, transforming them into twin disco balls. It was sensory overload, so loud that any worried thoughts I might’ve had were instantly drowned out by a steamroller of noise.

‘See,’ Olivia said. She pointed toward the stage in the far-right corner of the room, where five guys with matching hair down to their butts were pogo-stick jumping to a screechy guitar. ‘They’re a Guns N’ Roses cover band, not Barbra Streisand or Maroon 5.’

Sure enough, the sounds of ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ – the song Dan played on his phone every time he won at Pictionary – were starting to play, swirling up and reaching the casino’s ceiling, where there was a recreation of Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam painting, except Adam was Bon Jovi and God was Bruce Springsteen.

Olivia slung her arm around my shoulder. ‘Is it everything you dreamt of?’ she asked.

I swallowed, the lump in my throat hard and golf-ball sized. ‘And more.’

‘Two hours,’ Olivia said, holding up two fingers as she began moving toward the maze of slot machines. ‘Maybe two and a half.’ She held up both hands, palms out. ‘Three hours max.’

‘You said one hour,’ I shouted, chasing after her.

Sprawling out on either side of us were endless rows of slot machines. They were eventually cut off for card tables whose fuzzy green surfaces made them look like lily pads against the casino’s ocean-blue carpet. The place was crammed, packed with guys in tank tops slapping down cards and one, sometimes two or even three people hovering over the same slot machine. All the while waiters and waitresses dressed in matching suits with little black bow ties weaved in, out and around them, balancing trays of cocktails and chicken wings on their shoulders. It was a struggle not to knock them over as I darted through the crowd, following the airbrushed edges of Olivia’s shirt as it billowed behind her.

She finally slowed down at the rim of the dance floor, waiting for me to catch up before grabbing me by the wrist and tugging me into the tangle of people.

Once we made it to the middle of the floor, I shouted, ‘What’re

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