This World We Live In

by Susan Beth Pfeffer

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  And I know it's dumb, but we look awful. We're thin and no matter how often we wash, our faces, our hands, our clothes are gray. A whole city of people looking like us sounds like a horror movie."Do we have enough food now?" I asked. "If we can't get any more, and we have to move, say tomorrow, do we have enough food to get there? Pittsburgh's got to be two hundred miles away."

  "Three hundred," Matt said. "But we won't have much of a choice."

  Suddenly all my dreams of living someplace civilized evaporated. "I don't want us to go," I said. "We're okay where we are. At least for now. The longer we give the world time to recover, the better off things will be when we do have to go."

  Matt laughed. I couldn't tell if that meant he thought it was funny I kept changing my mind or if he thought it was funny the world would ever recover.

  The road cleared up pretty good after that, and we got back on our bikes and rode the rest of the way into town. We didn't see anyone, but I was prepared for that. Most people in Howell had either left early on or died during the winter.

  The City Hall door was unlocked, and when we walked in, we found Mr. Danworth. I was so relieved to see him, I almost burst out crying.

  "We came to see about the food," Matt said. I could tell from his shaky voice he was near tears himself. "Is there any?"

  Mr. Danworth nodded. "We're not delivering anymore," he said. "You can take your regular amount home with you today."

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  "Do other people know?" I asked. "Or didn't you tell anybody?"Mr. Danworth looked uncomfortable. "We were instructed not to tell," he said. "Just stop the deliveries and whoever shows up gets food."

  "What about the people who can't come in?" I asked. "What if they're too weak to or it's too far away?"

  "It wasn't my decision," Mr. Danworth said. "And a few folks have come in. We're keeping City Hall open all week for anyone who makes the trip. Starting next week we'll only be open on Mondays."

  "How much longer will you be getting food in?" Matt asked. "Did they tell you?"

  "I'll tell you what I know," Mr. Danworth replied. "A lot of the big cities--New York, Philadelphia, even Washington--they've been shut down. New York, I know, was hit hard by the waves. I guess the other cities weren't safe, either. But the cities were getting food deliveries until everybody got moved out. There was some food left over, and it's being distributed to a handful of towns. It's all connections, and we were lucky that Mayor Ford has some. His wife's cousin is married to the governor. We got our share, maybe even more.

  "Only now they don't want us delivering what we get. Maybe it's to save whatever gas we have left, or maybe it's to make sure only the strong get to eat. But the letter said we could expect food for the next few weeks at least, and we'd be told when it'll stop. If anyone didn't come in for their food, we could take that amount and give it to those people who did. Next week maybe you'll get a little more than you've been used to."

  "That's awful," I said. "You're going to let people die."

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  "If it'll make you feel any better, give them your food," Mr. Danworth said. "I don't know anyone else alive on Howell Bridge Road, but there are other places around town you could go.""We'll take our food," Matt said. "There are four of us. We didn't all have to come in for it, did we?"

  "No," Mr. Danworth said. "One representative per family. Your bags are right here."

  We took them.

  "I don't like this, either," Mr. Danworth said. "It gave me pleasure to see people's faces light up when I'd bring them their food. But it's the government. It makes the rules, and we have to follow them."

  "We're lucky to have what we get," Matt said. "And we appreciate your keeping City Hall open this week."

  "Maybe things'll get better," Mr. Danworth said. "All the rain. That's got to mean something."

  "Let's hope so," Matt said. "Come on, Miranda."

  I carried out two of the bags while Matt carried the others.

  "People are going to die," I said as we loaded the bags onto the bikes. "Isn't there something we can do?"

  Matt shook his head. "I think you're worrying about nothing," he said. "The only ones left are strong enough to get to town. The sick, the elderly, they've either moved on or died. Take Mrs. Nesbitt. She was in great health before all this, but she couldn't survive."

  "So it's only people like us," I said. "Young and healthy."

  "Probably," Matt said. "Survival of the fittest. And the luckiest."

  It's so hard to think that, with everything terrible that's happened, we're the lucky ones.

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  But we have food and we have shelter and we have family. So along with no broken bones and less gray skies, I guess that means we are.

  May 4

  We had four hours of electricity today, smack in the middle of the afternoon. It's the longest stretch of electricity I can remember and certainly the best timed.Mom and I threw rainwater into the washing machine and washed all the sheets, then shirts and slacks, and finally underwear. The dryer stayed on long enough to dry everything except the underwear, which we hung on the sunroom clothesline. There was a time I would have found that embarrassing, but now I'm used to it.

  We're running low on laundry detergent, though. We're running low on lots of things like that: toothpaste and tissues and shampoo. Now that I know we're going to have food a little while longer, I get to worry about not enough soap.

  Since the mattresses were stripped, Matt and Jon piled them up and Matt washed the sunroom floor. Then, to push my luck, I asked if we could take the plywood off the sunroom windows. Matt put it up when the temperature plummeted, and it may not be all that warm outside, but it isn't below zero all the time.

  Mom thought about it and then nodded. "Go for it," she said.

  Jon and I got two hammers and we pulled the nails out, and we have windows again. With the fire going, the rain in the background, and the smell of clean clothes and clean sheets, it's positively cozy.

  Usually when there's electricity, Mom turns a radio on

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  so she can listen to the news without using up batteries (we're running low on them, too). But today she went upstairs, came down with a CD player, and put on some Simon Garfunkel."I've missed music," she said.

  I can't say I've missed Simon Garfunkel, but it was nice to hear "Bridge Over Troubled Water" again. We sang it in middle school chorus about a million years ago.

  When it rains, you can forget the sky is gray all the time. If you're cold, well, that's perfectly normal on a damp, dreary day. Bad weathe r - good mood.

  Bad weather and electricity, that is.

  May 5

  "I've been thinking," Matt said at lunch. "About a couple of things."I'd been thinking, too, about nail polish. But I knew better than to mention it. "What?" I asked instead.

  "First of all, if we're going to stay here, Jon and I should start chopping firewood again."

  "I hate the idea of the two of you out there all day, hungry, doing all that work," Mom said.

  "It has to be done," Matt said. "But I think before we start on it, Jon and I should try something else."

  "What?" Jon asked.

  "We know we have food for a while," Matt said. "But we could certainly use more. And I can't remember the last time we had protein. The rain got me thinking. The shad run the Delaware River in spring."

  "They start in April," Jon said.

  "This year they might be a little late," Matt said. "But it's safe to bet the river ice has melted. I don't know if

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  there'll be a lot of fish, but it's worth going and catching what we can.""Could we go tomorrow?" Jon asked. "How long will we be gone?"

  "Wait a second," I said. "How come I can't go, too?"

  "Wait two seconds," Mom said. "I haven't agreed to any of this yet."

  Matt gave Mom a look. We've been together so much the past few months, we don't have to talk anymore. We know each other's looks to perfection.
r />   "How long would you be gone?" Mom asked.

  "A week," Matt said. "Maybe less. We're about fifteen miles from the Delaware, so Jon and I should plan on a day's travel there and back. Then it would depend on how the fish are running, how long we would stay. We'll camp out, or if there are houses we can use, we'll sleep in them. Deserted motels. We'll take some food with us, but if we're lucky, we'll catch some shad first thing, and eat that until we get home."

  "You'll need rods," I said. "And flies. And I still don't see why I can't go."

  "You hate fishing," Jon said.

  "You don't like it, either," I pointed out.

  "Yeah," Jon said. "But it'll be something to do."

  "We have one fishing rod in the attic," Matt said. "And Mr. Nesbitt used to fish. There's a pretty good chance I can find his rod. If not, we'll look for one in other houses around here. It shouldn't take too long to find everything we need. When people scavenged this fall, they were looking for food, not wading boots. We have sleeping bags, so that's no problem. Nobody'll mistake us for professionals, but there probably won't be much competition, either. If

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  we can bring back a trash bag or two of shad, we could salt them and eat off them for weeks, maybe even months.""There's so much I don't like about this," Mom said. "Including breaking into people's houses and stealing things."

  "We're not stealing from anyone who's still here," Matt said. "Mom, let's say we leave at some point. Would you object if someone came in and took our firewood?"

  Mom sighed. Matt grinned. Jon looked positively giddy.

  "I still don't see why I can't go," I said. "I can bike fifteen miles, same as you."

  "Mom shouldn't be left alone," Matt said. "And it would be easier for me to go with Jon."

  I knew I wasn't going to win, and sulking and pouting would only make everybody mad at me. Which was a shame, because I used to be really good at sulking and pouting.

  "I want to break into people's houses, too," I said. "I bet I could find lots of stuff we can use."

  "Like what?" Jon asked in his best "I chop firewood; I bring home fish" voice.

  "Stuff you're not civilized enough to care about," I said. "Toothpaste. Deodorant. Shampoo."

  "You're right," Matt said. "We should all look around the houses nearby and see what we can find."

  "You can't go before Tuesday," Mom said. "Monday you and Jon can go into town to get our food. That'll give both of you a sense of what it's like to travel together. What's today, anyway?"

  We all counted back to Tuesday, the last day in our lives that had meaning.

  "Friday," I said, counting the fastest.

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  "All right," Mom said. "That will give you the weekend to look for everything you need. Rods and flies and wading boots. How are we on trash bags?""We still have a few," Matt said. "We haven't been throwing out much garbage lately."

  "Horton will be happy," I said. "The house will stink offish."

  "We'll solve that problem when we have to," Mom said. "Along with any others that come along."

  May 6

  I love breaking into houses. I mean, I really love it.We each took a neighborhood. Matt started at Mrs. Nesbitt's and worked his way down Howell Bridge Road. Jon biked over to the Pine Tree section, and I went to Shirley Court.

  It's easy enough to tell if a house is vacant. No smoke from the chimney, nobody home. But I knocked on doors first, pretty comfortable that no one was watching. Shirley Court has a much more suburban feeling than Howell Bridge Road, but you could tell the whole neighborhood was deserted.

  When we left the house after breakfast, Matt, Jon, and I discussed the best ways of breaking in. A lot of the houses, we figured, would be unlocked, because after the house was first left empty, the scavengers would have broken in, taken all they wanted, and not bothered locking up. But if we couldn't find enough in the houses like that, we should break a window and let ourselves in.

  This is the kind of discussion you have outside, where Mom can't hear you.

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  We each took a trash bag, which seemed optimistic to me. Then again, I expected to find some half-full detergent containers, and they're pretty bulky.We told Mom we'd be back by 4:00, but we didn't explain to her that we'd be going separately. You can never tell what's going to set Mom off. She might have thought we'd be safer together, but then again, together we might run into a guy with a semiautomatic who'd take us all out--although my guess is the guys with the semiautomatics left a long time ago.

  It's hard to say what my favorite part of breaking and entering is. I love the adrenaline rush. Will there be someone in the house? Will I get caught? I never used to shoplift, but now I understand why some kids did it. When everything else is boring, there's something to be said for risk.

  But exciting as that is, it's nothing compared to finding treasures. Bottles of shampoo, one of them almost completely full. Partly used bars of soap. Lots of detergent--so much I ended up pouring it all into an almost empty 150-ounce container. Fabric softener sheets, a luxury I'd forgotten existed.

  And the toothpaste! A half-used tube here, a quarter-used tube there. Two completely untouched containers of fluoride rinse. One linen closet I ransacked had a half dozen brand-new toothbrushes. We might starve to death, but at least we'll have good teeth.

  Of course I checked the kitchen cabinets first, but I only found one thing there: a box of rice pilaf that had been lodged in a corner and gone undiscovered until me.

  Most of my time I spent upstairs, going through bedrooms and bathrooms. It took me four houses before I remembered cosmetic bags, but once I began searching for

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  them, I found lots of things. Travel-sized containers of shampoo and toothpaste. Hotel bars of soap, mostly untouched. Tissue packets.I would have loved to find six-packs of toilet paper, but no such luck. Still, every house I broke into had a partly used roll in each bathroom, and I took all of them. I pulled out all the tissues from their boxes and shoved them into one of the empty cosmetic bags.

  One house had a shelf filled with paperback mysteries. Another had an unused book of crossword puzzles.

  Hidden in the back of one linen closet was a twelve-pack of batteries. A bottle of aspirin sat waiting for me in a medicine cabinet. There were two cans of shaving cream I took for Matt.

  So much stuff. It's amazing how much stuff people used to have.

  After you've looted strangers' medicine cabinets, you don't feel much guilt when you go through their chests of drawers. I only took socks. I could have taken underwear, but the idea of wearing someone else's disgusted me. Socks, though, were a whole other matter. If nothing else, Matt and Jon were going to need a lot of them.

  The Shirley Court people didn't seem to be too outdoorsy. No rods or reels or wading boots. I found a couple of ski masks, though, so I threw them in for Matt and Jon to use if they slept outdoors.

  Every house I went into had a bucket, and I took a couple of them and put one on each handlebar. I filled them with the smaller things, figuring after we emptied them, we could use them to hold rainwater.

  I know I found more stuff, but it's hard to remember. Every thing was a treasure waiting to be discovered.

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  There is nothing more beautiful than half a roll of toilet paper.The best thing about my brand-new career as a burglar was being alone. For eight glorious hours I spoke to no one. I bumped into no one. I looked at no one. And no one spoke to me or bumped into me or looked at me.

  I couldn't wait to show everybody all my loot. It was like trick-or-treating only a thousand times better. Even so, there was a part of me that was sad at the thought of giving up the quiet, unshared space.

  But after eight hours I was cold, hungry, and tired. I made sure everything was securely in place and began the bike ride home.

  Matt, Jon, and I had agreed to meet by the mailbox so Mom would think we'd stayed together. Matt was already there when I got back, and Jon showed up a couple o
f minutes later. All our bikes were loaded.

  Mom tried to look disapproving, but I could see her eyes light up as we brought in our loot. After a while she got into the whole Christmasy feel.

  "My brand of shampoo," she said. "Oh, and look at this. I haven't had a crossword puzzle to do in months!"

  Of course we oohed and aahed over the rods and reels and flies and nets and wading boots and salt containers. Matt had also found an unopened bag of cat food for Horton and a cordless power saw that still had some power to it.

  Neither one of them had thought to take the toilet paper or soap or any of the useful stuff I'd located. But I can always go back to the houses they went through.

  As far as I was concerned, though, Jon found the absolute best thing. He was positively giddy when he handed a

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  box to me. "I tried two of them," he said. "They both worked, so I bet they all do."It wasn't a big box, but I was so excited about what I'd find, my hands shook as I opened it. In the box were twenty-four flashlight pens, all neatly inscribed "Walter's Realty Your Home Is Our Business."

  I flicked one on and sure enough it worked.

  "Now you can write in your journal without using a flashlight," Jon said.

  I could have kissed him. In fact, I'm writing this entry after everyone else has gone to sleep, thanks to Walter's Realty. If I ever buy a house, I'll give them my business.

  May 6

  Mom wouldn't let us go through any more houses. "You've found enough," she said. "Stealing isn't a game.""We're not stealing," Matt said.

  "Taking things without permission," Mom said. "It's as good as stealing."

  But I didn't notice her hesitating to do one of the crossword puzzles.

  May 7

  Matt and Jon went to town to pick up our food, and I was too jumpy to stay in the house."I'm going to Mrs. Nesbitt's," I said, and I was pleased Mom didn't make a fuss about stealing.