‘Get the crowbar,’ I said.
‘Ru—’
‘Just get it.’
Darius sighed and took off his seat belt.
‘Don’t crash,’ he said to me as he clambered into the back.
‘Yeah, and don’t call me Ru. Do NOT call me Ru.’ I said. ‘Not ever.’
Uh. I realised he had to be rummaging through a ton of my knickers to find that crowbar. I had no time to be mortified. That car grew larger in my rear-view. Darius clambered back, brandishing the crowbar.
‘Don’t let them see it,’ I said . . . Then, ‘No, do.’
That car, it came right up behind us. Then it split right to overtake . . . but they didn’t overtake; they came up alongside.
, I thought. !
Darius leaned across me – he squinted, then he waved. I looked over . . . There was a family in that car: a mum; a dad driving; two kids in the back, a girl, a boy . . . all of them waving like crazy – and smiling. Smiling!
‘Toot the horn!’ said Darius. ‘Toot it!’
I tooted.
‘Pull over!’ said Darius.
My heart was in my mouth, but I did it. I pulled over and I stopped.
They pulled up ahead of us and reversed.
They got out. The mum did, and then the dad. You could see the kids in the back, unbuckled and leaning over the back seats to see us.
‘Stay here,’ I said.
Me, I got out and sauntered to the front of the car like one of Dan’s car-jacker characters. A real tough guy. Was deeply annoyed that Darius got out too – and without the crowbar. The Princess got out of the back, Darling in her arms. See how much authority I had?
The mum stepped forward; the dad held her back.
‘Are you OK?’ said the dad. Accent . . . Welsh?
Are you OK? That could mean a lot of things under the circumstances – like, Are you sick? Or, What the are you doing driving a car? Or, How come you’re just a bunch of kids on your own? Basically, it was probably pretty hard to believe that we were OK.
‘Yeah, we’re fine,’ I shouted. No need to shout – we were on the world’s quietest motorway – but somehow my voice came out like that.
I have come to realise . . . that when I get stressed, I get shouty. I was like that before all this happened, a bit, but after the rain fell . . . I suppose I got a lot more like that. I do know that about myself. I do. I just can’t help it.
‘We’re going to Salisbury,’ said the Dad. Welsh, definitely Welsh.
So?! I shouted, in my head.
‘What’s at Salisbury?’ asked Darius.
‘There are big army bases there,’ explained the mum. ‘There’s help.’
She looked at the dad, who nodded.
‘Do you want to come with us?’ she asked.
This wasn’t like being invited along by King Xar’s court. I felt this pang, this serious owwwww ache for my mother. This ache to be taken care of, to not have to worry about another thing.
‘We’re fine,’ I said. Another tsunami, held back.
‘Ru . . .’ said Darius.
‘You can go with them if you want to,’ I said.
Please don’t leave me.
‘It’s OK,’ Darius told them.
Could he make it sound a little less like he was being abducted against his will?!
‘We’re going to London,’ I said.
‘To find her dad,’ Darius added.
Oh! You could see just what a good idea they thought that was. And how likely they thought it was that my dad would be alive.
The mum looked at the dad, her face full of worry.
‘If you change your mind,’ said the dad, ‘you’ll need to turn off at Swindon. It’ll be signposted.’
‘Your dad might be there already,’ said the mum. ‘It’s where everyone will go.’
‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘He’d have come for me first.’
The dad nodded. A bit sadly, maybe, but definitely like if he was my dad that was what he’d do . . . only . . . somewhere deep inside me a little voice said, But your dad didn’t come for you, did he? So what do you think that means, Ruby Morris?
‘I’m Sandra,’ said the mum.
Then she really did rush forward. I think she wanted to hug me, but I kind of stepped back, so she grabbed my hand instead and shook it. There were tears in her eyes.
‘I’m Ruby,’ I said. Her hand was warm and soft and I didn’t want to let it go. ‘This is Darius,’ I said – the dad was already shaking Darius’s hand.
‘Dar-ius,’ said the mum, shaking Darius’s hand next, while the dad, Mike, shook mine. ‘That’s unusual,’ she said. She turned towards the kid . . . who stood there, clutching Darling. ‘Hello, lovely,’ she said. ‘And what’s your name?’
The kid just stood there.
‘This is Princess,’ I said. ‘And Darling, my dog.’
My dog. That’s MY dog. That’s MY dog, I thought. And I knew it wasn’t any more. I knew that kid needed that dog more than I did. And I needed Darling a lot.
‘Princess, is it?’ said the mum, crouching down to try to coax a smile from her.
‘We don’t know her real name,’ Darius cut in. ‘We found her.’
‘She found him,’ I said. ‘She doesn’t speak.’
‘Oh! You’re a shy princess,’ crooned the mum . . . and you know what? The kid let her stroke her cheek. ‘That’s Ethan and Holly,’ the mum went on, putting her arm round Princess and waving at her own kids. Ethan and Holly waved back.
The mum gave Princess a squeeze and stood; the tears that had been in her eyes escaped down her cheeks and she wiped them away.
‘Well,’ said the dad, putting his arm round the mum, ‘we should get going . . .’
With his gaze, he pointed out why. I spy with my little eye something beginning with C. The cutesy little cumulus humilis clouds were running, chased by their bigger, meaner brothers and sisters. Fatter clouds, puffed up with death. I’m not great at telling them apart, cumulus mediocris and cumulus congestus – which is a shame, because one can suddenly chuck it down; the other just looks like it might.
‘Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?’ the mum asked. She looked at the dad.
‘We could just take the little one, if you liked,’ said the dad gently.
Aaaa-oooo!
Inside, I howled like Whitby. I howled like Whitby . . . because I felt like I was a little one. I felt like I wanted them to take ME.
‘Do you want to go with them?’ Darius asked the kid.
The kid looked at him.
‘She’s not sure,’ said Darius.
‘She should,’ I said quietly, to Darius.
I’ve got to tell you that I felt pretty awful right then. I thought it would be best if the kid went with them and I pretty much figured the kid wouldn’t want to leave Darius, and – groan – truth was I didn’t want Darius to leave me. I mean, I did and I didn’t. Mainly I didn’t. Groan. Yeurch. Groan.
‘Why don’t you think about it?’ said the dad. ‘We’ll drive with you as far as Swindon, eh? See how you feel then?’
I looked at Darius. He shrugged. He looked as cut up about it all as me.
‘OK,’ I said.
We got back into the car and we drove on. That mum and dad and kids stayed in front. Me and Darius, we didn’t speak until I turned round to just look-see how the kid was doing.
‘She’s thinking about it,’ said Darius.
And that was it; that was all anyone had to say.
I was middle lane, just following the mum and dad, when – whoa! The last car that passed, the one I didn’t see coming because I was so gloomed out, appeared from the opposite direction – fast lane, our side of the motorway. They were zooming, flashed their lights, tooted and slowed up . . . but we had already passed. I didn’t stop and back up; the mum and dad didn’t either. They slowed for a moment, as though they were thinking about it, so I did too. Then we went on.
That’s how it i
s, isn’t it? Every time you see another person you’ve got a choice: run or talk. Unless the fear decides for you. We’ll never know what those people wanted to say to us, what they might have wanted to tell us. With the next people we met, there was no choice.
I was lost in a trance of gloom when the kid – the kid! – leaned forward and jabbed me. I whipped round in shock – the car swerved – the kid was pointing. I looked. On a bridge over the motorway, there were two men in white onesie suits and masks and sunglasses. Both held massive guns – machine guns? One held a walkie-talkie.
‘Darius?’ I breathed.
Urh. Dur. He couldn’t see, could he?
‘There’s men on the bridge,’ I whispered.
One of them waved us on. We zipped beneath them.
‘What kind of men?’ asked Darius.
‘I don’t know, do I?’ I hissed – as if they could hear.
He made me describe what I’d seen and insisted they had to be army. They were wearing bio-suits, he said. I knew that; I’d seen crime things on TV, on the news and on drama stuff – also on the web, when Ronnie had shown us ‘real footage’ from an alien spaceship crash. I’d just never seen people in bio-onesies carrying guns. Clipboards, maybe, but not great big machine guns. Even as I told him he couldn’t possibly know that, that they had to be the army, the cones began to herd us in.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The whole world has gone crazy and still . . . you follow a bunch of cones.
The cones said no, you can’t leave here, at every exit we came to. And we obeyed. Cones mean order. Cones mean someone is in charge. But who?
Then the cones appeared on the road too; they funnelled us in . . . in and in and in until we were squeezed into the middle of the road. The motorway that was supposed to take me to London stopped right there. Up ahead, they’d set up camp under the bridge, blocking the whole road, both sides.
They were waiting to greet us: four, five, six, seven men in those same white suits and masks, all carrying . . . machine guns.
‘Hallelujah!’ said Darius, squinting through the windscreen.
That isn’t what I was thinking. I was thinking, Oh my God . . .
Sorry, Mum . . . but this thought, this one thought, I won’t replace with a . I can’t; if I did, you might think I mean some other word. In most cases that wouldn’t matter; in this case I feel it does. I thought it not because I believe in God (I don’t, I think, not after all this), but because what was inside me was such a muddle it sort of made me wish there was something outside me that could help. So it wasn’t even swearing, really; it was for real. An instant muddle of fear and shock; that’s what I felt. Let me name the parts of it:
1. I truly had not believed that there would be anyone. I had not thought that there could be any sort of serious organisation, any real order, left. (Apart from Girl Guides.) That shocked me.
2. Though I got why those men would be wearing bio-suits, that shocked me too, and it was frightening.
3. But it wasn’t as frightening as those men having guns.
4. A bit like a teacher catching you outside the gates during school hours, I also immediately thought – and no kind-of about it – that somehow these people would not just let me go on my way.
5. So I felt, immediately, like I was in trouble.
6. And that it might be better to run.
7. But that if I did they might shoot me.
8. And, if I ran, I’d have to run alone.
There is another thing, a thing that won’t quite sit right in some kind of list. A thing that was bigger than that moment, bigger . . . and more scary and more shapeless than anything else . . . and it was something like . . . was this how things were going to be? Men, with guns, loading people on to trucks. Men, with guns, telling people what to do. Was this what the world was going to be like from now on?
The fast lane of the motorway was basically a car park. At our end of it, I saw the red sports car, ditched. I saw the silver car that had had that bloke in it, ditched. And I saw the men that had been in them sitting in the back of an army truck under the bridge. A man in a bio-onesie sat with them. His mask was off, his gun laid across his lap; he was smoking and chatting with the men in the truck.
These people – everyone – seemed relaxed. Like this was somehow normal.
The mum and dad, they’d stopped in front of us. They’d got out and were chatting with the men; they pointed at us a bit. The mum and dad got the kids out, shooed them over on to the army truck, heaved luggage out of the car, beckoned us.
I looked at Darius, realised he probably couldn’t exactly see what was going on.
‘They want us to come,’ I said. My voice ice.
‘Let’s go, then!’ said Darius.
He helped Princess out of the car.
‘C’mon!’ he called, heading straight for those men.
I got out of the car. I’d been driving barefoot since we’d escaped from the pool. I opened the boot and hunted among the ten thousand pairs of knickers for the only shoes I had left, the jewelled flip-flops I’d lent Darius. That mum, she came over to me. I know what parents look like when they’re about to go on about something, so I got in there first.
‘I have to find my dad,’ I said to her. ‘Please take care of them.’
We looked over to see Darius lifting the kid into the back of the army truck. The mum nodded slowly, like she meant it. The most shocking thing was I realised I meant it too. With all my heart.
I put the flip-flops on. Before she or my stupid heart could get another word in, I split.
The Please Don’t Leave Me Girl left. Girl Gone. Gone Girl. I didn’t stop to ask anyone anything; I didn’t take anything – not one thing. I just ran.
‘Oh! No! Wait!’ shouted the mum.
I guess she hadn’t expected that I would just take off. That’s the way it’s got to be with parents sometimes: strike first. Otherwise they’re just going to bombard you with should-dos and shouldn’t-dos and before you know it you’ll be not-doing.
I crashed through the jungle of weeds at the side of the motorway and scrambled over a wooden fence – ‘RUBY!’ shouted Darius as I busted through trees and bushes. I sort of expected Swindon to be right there, but it wasn’t; what was there was a small field, then more trees.
‘RUBY!’
SHUT UP, DARIUS! I thought. I glanced round to death-ray him, but it was pointless. Mr I-Spy was just shouting my name into space, not even looking in the right direction. Princess, in the back of the army truck, rose to her feet, staring at me. That mum, who’d obviously blabbed to him, stood clutching his arm.
I pelted across the field. I thought I was going to get shot at, that at any second bullets would whizz. Instead, what came was:
‘STOP!’ blared a soldier’s voice on a megaphone. ‘COME BACK . . . WE ADVISE YOU TO COME BACK . . . RUBY, WE ADVISE YOU TO COME BACK.’
Great. Now I was being nagged by the British Army – AND they knew my name. I blamed Darius instantly. If I ever saw him again, I would be forced to punch him.
I hit the next band of trees and pushed on into it . . . another field on the other side – but bigger – too big to run across, too exposed. I stayed in the trees. I’d follow them round the field.
‘THIS COLLECTION POINT WILL OPERATE FOR THE NEXT TWENTY-FOUR HOURS.’
And I’d still be there too, the way things were going. The trees got shrubbier and tanglier; brambles grabbed and scratched at my legs.
‘I REPEAT: THIS COLLECTION POINT WILL OPERATE FOR THE NEXT TWENTY-FOUR HOURS.’
I hit the corner of another field; a short run and I’d get to another bunch of trees. I made a break for it. Harder to hear the megaphone shout now, but, still, I caught it:
‘THERE IS ANOTHER COLLECTION POINT IN HYDE PARK, LONDON.’
They knew my name; they knew where I was going. Probably the Spratt had blurted out everything he knew about me, kissing incidents included.
‘I REPEAT: HYDE PARK.’
In my mind, my fist collided with Darius Spratt’s nose.
It took me longer than it should do to find a car. For a start, Swindon wasn’t where it was supposed to be. If they’re going to put a sign up for a place, it should at least be there. After that field was another field, and after that field was a lake.
Let’s just pause for a second here, because I did. Imagine it: sweaty girl with the stitch, all out of breath and scratched and frightened and angry and thirsty.
I mean, I don’t know whether I would have drunk from a lake even before everything got poisoned and I certainly wasn’t going to now, but . . . it looked so cool and sparkly and inviting, as if you could just dive on in. OK, or at least dangle your legs in it a bit, just to cool off.
See how this world is ruined? How the things that were so beautiful are hateful and wrecked? Shimmering blue dragonflies dancing over a pool of death. A pair of swans a-swimming on it.
I paused for a second to curse it all.
I bent down to pick up a Sioux stone. I wiped it, but it still looked dirty. (Little tentacly bugs waving, ‘Hello, Ruby! Eat us!’) I flung it in the lake – and watched it trash the reflection . . . of big fat clouds, looked like they meant business. I looked up and cursed them too and ran, skirting round the lake, hating the entire world.
Across a golf course, there were houses – posh houses – so that’s where I headed, pelting across fancy clipped golf grass towards the sunset. The beautiful sunset, running at it as if I was running to catch up with the sun itself.
That’s all you ever want, isn’t it? If you’re not snuggled up somewhere safe and dry with plenty to drink and eat, you just want the sun to stay, for night not to come, for all clouds – even sweet and innocent ones – to clear off.
That posh estate, it was a very locked-up place: cars, doors, windows – even sheds – were locked. I had no tools with me, saw no handy-sized rocks lying about, couldn’t even see any Greek ladies to smash windows with. I got more and more angry and frustrated – and desperate . . . and thirsty – I was so thirsty! – until I came across MG man’s house: front door open, garage doors open, car inside, him lying dead in front of it.
The Rain Page 23
