H2O

by Virginia Bergin

  As I walked toward the barn, the cows came barging forward. When I got right to the gate, they backed up a little, jostling each other, nervous. I eyed my escape route, unbolted the gate, swung it open, and clambered up onto the fence. The cows did barge out but in a fairly orderly manner—not quite single file, but almost. They were mooing with delight and pretty darn speedy for plodders. What I hadn’t really thought about was where they would go, but they seemed to know exactly where they were headed. They all turned right and disappeared up a muddy track. Darius and the kid came to see. We walked up the side of the barn and watched the cows speed-plod into a field, fanning out to gorge on the grass.

  There was another thing I hadn’t thought about; they weren’t lady cows, milking cows, they were boy cows. Young boys. I know two (Simon) things about them: 1) a lady cow will just come get you if she thinks you’re messing with her calf, but if her calf has gone, she’s probably going to be OK; but boy cows—young boy cows—like to hassle people, for fun; and 2) boy cows are only kept for meat.

  So they’d been double saved, hadn’t they? No starving to death in a barn and no one-way trip to Burgersville either.

  The kid climbed up on the fence to get a better look.

  “Now they’re happy,” I beamed. “Lovely fresh grass!”

  Princess ignored me, but I knew she’d heard. Some random horrible thought about what it was they were chomping on bubbled up in my head: how wet the grass might be, whether…if that thing was in the rain and the grass drank up the rain and the cows ate the grass. Hey, I was veggie, what did I care? But lady cows…what about milk and—cheese?! Was there going to be no more CHEESE?! I popped the thought and carried on beaming. I even smiled nicely at the Spratt.

  “We could just stay here,” said Darius.

  Huh? Instant frown.

  “We’d have to go and get some stuff to drink, get some more food, but then we could come back and hang out here—just for a few weeks or something…until we work out what to do…”

  “I know what I’m doing!” I said.

  “No you don’t. I mean, you don’t seriously think your dad’s still going to be alive, do you?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I have only driven a truck that one time; it was old and more worn out than my dad’s beater. It rattled your bones, it crawled along, it guzzled gas, and NO WAY would it have kept the rain out, not for one second. There was moss growing in the little grooves where the windows should have slid open; now you couldn’t even slide them closed.

  Oh, and it was really noisy. That was FINE, because basically I didn’t want to speak to Darius Spratt EVER AGAIN.

  He didn’t even apologize. OK, the words “I’m sorry” came out of his mouth, but they were followed by the words “but it’s pretty unlikely he’s alive, isn’t it?”

  Kid or no kid, I went NUTS. I shouted so loud the cows got spooked and ran across the field. I said every nasty thing to him I could think of. I ranted and raved and stomped around. I think you could summarize what I had to say as “HOW DARE YOU?!” and I think you could summarize what Darius Spratt had to say as “I’m just trying to be realistic,” which apparently involves not caring ONE BIT what anyone else feels.

  It should have ended with me getting into the truck and driving off. That’s what I felt like doing. It ended with me getting into the truck and starting up and just sitting there.

  Please don’t leave me!

  Over the clatter of the engine, I couldn’t hear what Darius was saying to Princess, but I had a bad feeling it was basically going to be her decision, whether they stayed or came with me. And as far as that kid was concerned, I was Rumpelstiltskin, wasn’t I? Not my lovely made-up version, but the shouty, horrible real thing. If they decided to stay, I’d take Darling back—that’s what I thought. Hey, I could even threaten to take Darling from her unless they got in the truck. I thought that too. I think I would have done it, I was that tightly wound, when the kid suddenly made this funny little shruggy gesture and trailed toward the truck…but not toward the passenger door. Apparently, I was too awful to sit next to. Apparently, I was worse than the memory of a car crash. Apparently, I was now more revolting than death-breath Whitby, whose rear end was already letting us know that the leftover scrambled eggs didn’t really agree with him.

  We rattled on in silence for a while. Every time I accidentally glanced at the Spratt, he was frowning. Seemed as if he was deep in thought about something; how sorry he was, that’s what it should have been.

  “ZERO POINT TWENTY-SEVEN PERCENT,” shouted Darius.

  “PARDON?” I shouted back.

  “SAY THE POPULATION OF DARTBRIDGE IS APPROXIMATELY TEN THOUSAND. I MEAN, IT CAN’T BE THAT MANY, BUT IF YOU INCLUDED THE CLOSEST VILLAGES IT PROBABLY IS. SAY THERE WERE TWO PRISONERS ALIVE IN EACH CELL, PLUS US… THAT’S TWENTY-SEVEN. TWENTY-SEVEN PEOPLE LEFT MEANS ZERO POINT TWENTY-SEVEN PERCENT SURVIVED.”

  I drove. I just drove. I was just a girl out for a drive on a lovely sunny day.

  “SAY THE UK POPULATION IS SIXTY-THREE MILLION,” bellowed Darius, “THAT MEANS…THERE’S APPROXIMATELY…”

  An age went by. Like I say, I was just a girl out for a drive on a lovely sunny day.

  “ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY THOUSAND AND ONE HUNDRED PEOPLE LEFT,” shouted Darius triumphantly.

  I gripped the steering wheel.

  “DOES THAT SEEM ABOUT RIGHT TO YOU?”

  “WHATEVER,” I shouted.

  “NO, BUT DOES IT?”

  “NO! ACTUALLY, NO! YOU DON’T KNOW. THERE COULD BE TONS OF PEOPLE. THEY COULD BE HIDING. THERE WAS A GUY AT THE SUPERMARKET AND THERE WAS A GUY AT THE PUB.”

  I saw Darius open his trap.

  “AND I THINK SASKIA MIGHT STILL BE ALIVE,” I shouted.

  And Caspar—and Caspar—and Caspar, I thought. I didn’t speak it. I couldn’t bear to have to tell about that, to hear what Darius thought.

  “SASKIA MILLER?” he shouted.

  “YOU KNOW HER?!”

  Like, really, was he some kind of perv? How come he knew all our names?

  “WELL, YEAH!”

  I glanced at him. He smirked. Revolting. Apparently, like every other boy in the school, Darius Spratt liked her.

  “AND THERE WAS A GUY WHO MURDERED MY STEPDAD,” I shouted, to shut him up.

  It didn’t work. There was this intense waft of stink, which could have been Whitby’s bottom or could have been Darius Spratt blowing off from the strain of calculating.

  “A HUNDRED AND NINETY-FIVE THOUSAND, THREE HUNDRED!” he shouted.

  “WHY DON’T YOU SHUT UP?”

  “I’M JUST SAYING—”

  “SHUUUUUUT UUUUUUP! ”

  Please, my heart thought, please don’t say another word I can’t bear to hear.

  I knew we needed to turn off and find another car. Though I hated the thought that this might involve speaking to Darius, it’d have to be done. No way was there enough fuel in the truck to get us much farther.

  I was so busy thinking about how awful it was going to be, having to speak to him, that I missed the first turn-off. I could have turned around and gone back, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that, to admit I’d made a mistake. I was bristling about that so much we rattled past the next turn-off. That’s when Darius spoke up.

  “RUBY,” he shouted.

  “I KNOW!” I shouted.

  He was quiet for a moment.

  “I NEED TO GO TO A PHARMACY,” he shouted.

  “WHAT?! ”

  “A PHARMACY.”

  “WHAT FOR?”

  Even as I said it, I knew. It wasn’t just Darius’s trousers that had been left in the polytunnel; it was that stash of medicine he’d had in his bag.

  “I NEED MEDICINE,” he shouted.

  “ARE YOU GONNA HAVE AN EPILEPTIC FIT?!” I shouted, panicked.
/>   “NO.”

  I glanced at him; he was crimson.

  “I JUST NEED THEM. THAT’S ALL.”

  “WHAT DO I DO IF YOU HAVE A FIT?”

  “I’M NOT GOING TO HAVE A FIT.”

  “YEAH, BUT WHAT IF YOU DO?”

  “I’M NOT. I JUST NEED MY PILLS.”

  So the epilepsy thing was a total no-go sore spot, discussion-wise. Hello, Darius Spratt! Just like my dad’s chances of being alive! I felt like pointing that out. Only thing that stopped me was that if I pointed that out, he’d probably end up saying again that my dad was DEAD. So I shut up…but I was boiling mad—and pretty scared that Nerd Boy would have some kind of fit on me.

  Great, eh? But wait! It gets even better!

  When we got to the suspension bridge in Bristol, the barrier was down. Being smart like I am, I backed up and drove across in the other lane. Not so smart; the barrier at the other end was down and I guess someone else had tried to leave through the incoming lane because they were still stuck there. Lovely choice: I could either reverse right back across the bridge or attempt to turn around.

  Do you know how high that bridge is? Do you know what that drop is like? Do you know how, out of the corner of your eye, you can see seagulls swoop through the air and down UNDER the road?

  Want to know something about me?

  I DON’T DO HEIGHTS. I DO NOT DO HEIGHTS.

  I revved up a little—OK, a lot—and—

  “RUUU-BY!” screamed Darius as I jammed my foot down on to the accelerator.

  Too late. That barrier just snapped right off. Easy.

  (Probably a lot of people got panicky on that bridge, so they didn’t even bother replacing the barrier with a decent one every time.)

  You think that’s the good part? Nuh-uh!

  The pharmacy was already smashed open, the pills raided—but no one wanted the drugs Darius was after. He took what they had: two boxes.

  “How long will those last you?” I asked, rooting through their (poor) selection of makeup for emergency items.

  Darius shrugged. “A while,” he said and swallowed down two big purple tablets with some babies’ rosehip syrup.

  I dabbed on some brand-you’ve-never-heard-of eye shadow, while Darius hunted for something, anything, to drink and found precisely nothing but more yucky baby drinks.

  “Do you think you can drink this stuff?” asked Darius, examining a bottle of contact-lens potion. “It says it’s mainly water…”

  “Of course you can’t!” I said, deciding against a plum-colored lipstick (that reminded me too much of the fingernails on a certain lady’s hand).

  Thing is, I was really thirsty. I almost would have at least tried that contact-lens stuff. Hadn’t I told Darius not to put so much salt in the scrambled eggs?

  We’re nearly at the good part.

  • • •

  We’d left the kid, clutching Darling, just outside on the street, instructed to bang the crowbar on the side of the truck if she got scared. You couldn’t blame her for not wanting to stay in there, even with all the windows open; Whitby’s bottom was out of control. So the kid banged on the truck…and she banged on it pretty hard because you could hear it above the noise of an engine, above the blare of music, above Whitby’s big boomy bark.

  But it was that, Whitby’s bark, I heard first. Dumb, smart, big, stinky dog. Gentle smelly-bummed giant. He heard that car coming long before we did. He warned us.

  Me and Darius looked at each other; I hate that, when you see your own in fear in the face of another person—how it had been with my friends at Zak’s, how it had been with Simon. People just shouldn’t look at each other when they’re scared.

  What could we do? We couldn’t just leave the kid, could we? We had to go outside—and nothing to defend ourselves with if a someone, anyone nasty was there…unless what? We threw sponges and baby bath toys at them? Pelted them with plum-colored lipsticks? The fear wasn’t just crackling in my bones—it was jumping about in every cell of my body.

  Parked next to our truck—and blocking us in—was a pink stretch limo. Oh yes. One of those party cars that are kind of tacky in some ways and in other ways you just want to get in. Music thumped away inside it, but you couldn’t see a thing through the blacked-out windows. You could only see this boy driver (who looked about ten!) in a peaked cap that was way too big for him sitting in the front of the car and staring straight ahead, a bunch of wild-eyed kids packed into the passenger seat next to him.

  Then the rear passenger doors cracked open like it was a spaceship—might as well have been!—and smoke and music and people piled out of it…but not just any people: super-cool people. Most seemed twenty-something—two fashionista-type trendy girls, a skater dude, some punky-looking characters, and an ultra-preppy boy, and even the oldest one—who looked as old as Grandma Hollis, but was wearing some kind of skintight leopard-print Lycra catsuit and a feather boa—looked desperately cool.

  “Hello, sweetie!” one of the fashionistas cooed at Princess, trying to offer her some water from a bottle.

  I sort of squared myself up—but not for a fight. It was weird, meeting that bunch of people, but I didn’t feel afraid of them. I tried to come over all dignified and like I’d never been scared at all, not even for one second…while at the same time: 1) relieved I had a superb outfit on, because—no matter how weird my hair and makeup were, they would surely see I was cool too and 2) wondering how come the world goes mental and some people end up with people straight out of some mega-stylish style magazine, whereas other people end up with Darius Spratt and a dog with a stinky bottom.

  They swarmed around Princess. It didn’t even seem to matter to them that Darius barged through them to put his arm around the kid, and it didn’t seem to matter to them that the kid wanted nothing to do with them and just stood there looking (impressively) hostile: a small, fierce thing in gigantic rain boots.

  “Look at her little dog!” cooed the other fashionista, reaching out to pet Darling (who didn’t even snarl).

  The kid (even more impressively) actually raised the crowbar to stop the dog petter. Darius took the crowbar from her and held it down by his side, but I could see his hand all tense on it—and his eyes were as angry as the kid’s.

  “Do you wanna come with us?” the preppy boy asked Princess, and the others laughed as if that was a brilliant idea.

  “Hey,” I said, sort of starting to think that they were actually being pretty rude in some ways; it was like me and Darius Spratt weren’t even there.

  I glanced at Darius; he glanced at me. He was frowning—boy, was he frowning.

  Then this…other guy got out of the limo. Unfolded himself from it. The guy was seriously tall. Looked like a Dartbridge tree-hugging crusty type, but cleaner and paler: skinny and scruffy and ratty blond dreadlocks poking out from under this country gent’s flat-cap hat, the sort of wintery, tweedy, what-are-you-wearing-that-for-when-it’s-boiling thing that made you feel hot (and thirsty) just looking at it (and wonder whether he sucked head sweat out of it, like I’d thought about licking pit sweat out of my raincoat). And I wouldn’t have looked at the hat or at him at all except 1) he was actually pretty good-looking and 2) although he didn’t speak a word, not to begin with, the way the others all acted around him it seemed like he was their king or something.

  “Xar! Look! Can we keep her?” asked a fashionista.

  “You picked the last one!” said a punky-looking boy.

  “But she’s so cute!” said the fashionista. “Xar! Please?” she whined.

  “ off!” shouted Darius.

  Whoa. The Spratt swore!

  It basically had as much impact as Whitby’s barking. It was embarrassing. Not the way the kid was behaving, because she was just a kid and so you couldn’t blame her, but the way Darius was acting…because it was really obvious—to me—that these
people weren’t about to hurt anyone. They weren’t just going to take Princess. If I had any worry at all, it was that they might—they just might—try to take MY dog…even though MY dog didn’t seem to be MY dog anymore.

  King Xar sighed. He flicked his gaze over us: the Princess, the Spratt, and me.

  “The girls can come,” he said quietly. “Just the girls.”

  “And the little dog!” squealed a fashionista.

  “You’ll be safe with us,” cooed Granny Lycra.

  “You really will,” the skater dude said to me, nodding calmly. “It’s all cool.”

  I nodded back—in a deadpan but pouty way. He was hot.

  “We’re going to London,” the Spratt said.

  The nerve of it! I was going to London.

  “Awwww!” King Xar’s court groaned.

  “But we’ve got such an amazing house! Just come and see!” said a punky girl. She pointed up the road and I admired her excellent silver skeleton hand bracelet.

  “Ruby!” said Darius. As in, Snap out of it!

  More nerve!

  Being as how I wasn’t ever allowed to go to festivals, I think I can honestly say that—apart from me and my friends, obviously—they were the most interesting and exciting bunch of people I’d ever been up close to, even if they were behaving a tad badly and had a giant tree-hugging dread-head for their king. If I’d just happened to bump into them on any day prior to the global meltdown situation, and if—say—I was with Leonie…you know what? I think I would have gone with them. Just to see. But it wasn’t any day prior to. It was Day Six of.

  “I’m going to London,” I said.