The Big Dry

by Tony Davis

  ‘Who, Torgie? Dad?’

  ‘I don’t know. But there’s no car outside. No white trucks either.’

  From the east, a shrill pulsing picked up and dropped away with each gust of wind. It was a blaster siren.

  George looked over the windowsill again. Could he have imagined hearing the door slam? It didn’t matter. They couldn’t stay out in the open if there was a blaster coming.

  ‘I’ll check the house first, Beeps. Don’t move. I’ll call for you if everything is safe.’

  George scurried out through the doorway and across the road. The key was still in its hiding place, behind the brick by the water tank. He slid it into the front door lock with shaking hands. The door opened. If someone was in there, that person hadn’t put the security bar in place. George heard running feet behind him.

  ‘Beeper!’ he whispered. ‘I told you not to move.’

  ‘There’s going to be a blaster.’

  ‘Yes, but …’

  The siren wailed again, louder this time. The boys tiptoed down the hall. Beeper’s old room was empty. Mum and Dad’s room too. George winced as the floorboards creaked.

  She was in the day room, sitting at the table with a half-empty jar of water. ‘I was thinking you’d be back,’ she said. ‘I decided to give you one last chance.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ George tore off his dust mask. ‘Did you call Welfare?’

  She tipped her head sideways and gave her I-don’t-answer-questions look.

  George grabbed the jar from the table and passed it to Beeper. ‘There’s going to be a blaster.’

  ‘I can hear the siren, kiddo.’

  George wanted to hit her. Instead he grabbed the two white mugs from his bedroom and filled them with water. He passed one to Beeper, quickly emptied his own, then checked the front door and set the security bar. He went around the house and plugged towels under doorways. He put two full jars of water in the bathroom, called in Beeper and closed the door.

  Ten minutes later, wind slammed against the side of the house. It was nowhere near as violent as the last time; it was just a ‘guster’ and the electricity held out.

  ‘We don’t need to be in here,’ said George. Soon the boys were sitting on Beeper’s mattress, under a flickering light.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ George said aloud.

  ‘Read The Selfish Giant?’

  ‘No, I mean about everything.’

  ‘Please.’

  George huffed and shrugged his shoulders. ‘For the hundredth time?’

  ‘Yes.’

  George read Beeper’s book out loud without thinking about it. ‘“My own garden is my own garden,” said the Giant; “anyone can understand that, and I will allow no-one to play in it but myself.”’

  The Giant was punished for his selfishness, and ‘the Snow covered up the grass with her great white cloak, and the Frost painted all the trees silver’.

  ‘You can eat snow, Torgie,’ Beeper interrupted. ‘Dad said it melts in your mouth and fills it with ice-cold water.’

  ‘I know, Beeps.’ The ceiling groaned, louder than usual. ‘I’ll show you something.’ George slid his hands under his mattress and carefully pulled out a small paper folder. ‘My secret little photo collection.’

  George flicked through a stack of postcard-sized photos. ‘Here’s Mum in New York. That’s called the Statue of Liberty. You can go inside it.’

  ‘So big, Torgie.’

  ‘And here’s Mum in Rome. Dad used to take the photos so he’s never in them. It’s at the Colosseum, where they would feed people to the lions.’

  ‘Cool!’

  ‘Cool?’

  ‘If you were a lion.’

  Beeper took the photos from George and held them carefully in both hands. He shuffled through them again and again and again. George couldn’t wait any longer to eat. He prised open the lid of a tin of Ham Chunks and Vegetables. ‘We have to share this,’ he said, and emptied out the open box of biscuits.

  ‘Are those places still green?’ asked Beeper.

  ‘Dad would know. He knows all that sort of stuff.’ George wiped the plastic plates with his sleeve. ‘Maybe, because he’s been everywhere, the government needed his help.’

  ‘What, Torgie?’

  George sniffed the contents of the open tin. There were now only two unopened tins of food left, and one of them had no label. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I said what — what was it about needing Dad’s help?’

  George’s mind was still elsewhere. He couldn’t stay in a house where they might be betrayed at any moment. The question was what to do about it. ‘Perhaps they needed someone clever, Beeper, someone who knows all about the world.’ The words were just coming out: ‘… An engineer, like Dad, who can help them find a way to fix the drought.’

  He and Beeper needed an adult to help them. Right now. But George could think of only one, and that adult was crazy.

  ‘Cause Dad’s smart, isn’t he, Torgie? He can make things, and wire things up so lights work. He’s a fixer.’

  George spooned the food onto the plates. ‘Yes, he’s a fixer. And there are, er, Drought Barons, Beeper. That’s what they’re called. They need to catch them … and that’s possibly why Dad couldn’t tell us he had to go away.’

  The story was inventing itself on the spot but none of it made much sense. ‘So there, Beeper,’ George said, wrapping it up as quickly as possible, ‘maybe he’s a secret agent.’

  ‘And he’s in New York, or Rome.’

  ‘He could be, Beep. Eat up now.’

  If he went to see Mr Carey, George thought, there would be one more person who knew their father was missing. But there was always a chance Mr Carey didn’t need the reward. He might be too grumpy to talk to Welfare, anyway. All Mr Carey had to do was scare the girl with his gun. Tell her she had to leave, or else. That wasn’t a lot to ask.

  ‘And he has to arrest the Drought Barons, Torgie?’

  ‘Sorry? Oh, well yes, the Drought Barons … because they are the people who want the drought to continue forever.’

  George decided he would visit Mr Carey. Tonight.

  ‘Because they hate water. That’s why, Torgie, isn’t it?’

  ‘Well, no.’ George stopped and thought. ‘It’s because they don’t want people to grow their own food. That way they can control it all and charge lots of money.’

  ‘Yes, Torgie, so they can charge ten dollars a tin for it. Those were Drought Barons we saw in the mall yesterday, weren’t they?’

  ‘No, no, no.’ George paused again. He felt strangely relaxed, now that he had made his decision. The story took off again. ‘Those people in the mall were just the poor people who have to sell the food and give the money to the Drought Barons. The Drought Barons don’t sit in the dust selling tins. They live in the wet countries, in big clean houses with swimming pools filled with water that sparkles like diamonds. And they have grass. Green, soft grass.’

  The lights flickered and went out. George stopped talking.

  ‘I’ll find the matches,’ he said. He fumbled around the room for the wooden box. Why had he told his brother such a stupid story?

  The door opened. It was the girl, with a candle in a jar.

  She was wearing a blue dust mask that looked fresh and new. She closed the door, then pulled down the mask so it hung around her neck. ‘I’ve brought you some light.’

  ‘We don’t want it,’ George said.

  ‘Well, I’ll be using it.’ She sat on the floor and leaned against the door, holding the candle on her knees.

  George struck a match and lit his own candle.

  ‘Keep talking,’ she said. ‘Don’t mind me.’

  George put his arm around Beeper. ‘We mind you a lot.’

  ‘Well, kiddo, that’s too bad. In exchange for me being nice enough not to turn the littl’un into Welfare, George, I’ve decided you have to be including me in everything from now on. And you have to call me Emily. That’s Emily, George, not
you! So there’s the new deal. Keep talking, like I said.’

  ‘Tell her about Dad and the Drought Barons, Torgie. And about the swimming pools …’

  ‘No,’ George snapped. ‘Pass me The Selfish Giant.’

  George read from the story in as flat a tone as he could, hoping she would be so bored, she’d leave them alone. ‘“… And he took a great axe and knocked down the wall”,’ he finished.

  ‘See, he was a nice giant after all,’ Beeper announced. ‘He let the children play in his garden and it became spring again.’

  The girl shook her head. ‘The giant was only letting in the kids so he could get rid of winter. He was just looking after himself.’

  SIXTEEN

  The guster calmed down. The electricity stuttered back to life and George blew out his candle. The girl stood up and returned to the front room.

  ‘Bye,’ said Beeper.

  She didn’t respond.

  ‘Why do you keep trying to be nice to her?’ George said as they lay on their beds under the naked light bulb.

  Beeper swung his head away. George noticed that sweet lemon smell again. This time it was much stronger.

  ‘What have you got in your mouth … in your pockets?’ he asked.

  Beeper swallowed hard.

  George sat up and tried to rifle through his brother’s clothes. Beeper punched out and lifted his knees to stop him.

  But George was too strong. He pulled four bright yellow wrappers from Beeper’s shirt pocket.

  ‘Sherbet lemons! Did she give you these? When you were talking to her this morning?’

  ‘I was going to share them with you, Torgie, but they ran out.’

  ‘Why did she give you sweets?’

  ‘She said she liked my dimples. And that we could be friends.’

  ‘She doesn’t like your dimples,’ George said. ‘And you can’t be … Don’t you see that it’s you and me that are family? Not you and me and her! And she’s just trying to mess that up. She’s all about looking after herself.’

  ‘No, Torgie, she’s not like that.’

  ‘How would you know?’ George’s face burnt with frustration. ‘Just go to sleep. I don’t want to talk about this again today. From tomorrow you have to stop believing the nonsense she comes out with or … or, everything will get worse for us.’

  Beeper didn’t respond. George pulled himself to his feet and turned off the light. It wasn’t long before he heard Beeper’s ‘fast-asleep’ breaths. George needed to wait a little longer. He lit a candle stub and flicked through the photos.

  Beeps as a baby. Beeper again at Christmas. George with a red hat on. Mum pouring out drinks. Dad in a photo, putting a star on top of the plastic tree — a crooked shot that George himself remembered taking.

  George sighed and put his pictures down. Next door, Mr Carey played the piano. Above, the ceiling creaked and groaned.

  George’s stomach creaked and groaned too. Mr Carey might have already realised their father was missing. He might have already reported them. Welfare might be at the door at any moment.

  He didn’t want to go out into the dark. But by tomorrow they would have no food left. There was a girl they didn’t know living in their house. A girl who stole what little they had and who would turn Beeper in if she didn’t get exactly what she wanted.

  George slipped through the bedroom door and paused outside Beeper’s old bedroom. There was that strange, low noise. Was she sobbing again? He tried to imagine running in, swinging the sword, ending the problem once and for all. But he could never really do that. He wasn’t tough enough.

  George opened the front door and grimaced as the hinges squeaked and the lower edge scraped through the dirt. There was no movement in the street. The moon was blurred by the dust in the air. It was big and the colour of blood. It made the dead hedge, the fishpond and the front wall look like they were lit by glowing embers.

  George’s stomach burnt as he took his first step into the front yard. He pulled the door closed behind him, then went and crouched next to the crumbling edge of the fishpond.

  ‘Three, two, one …’ George counted to himself. He stood and tiptoed past the hedge, through the wall and onto the road, then into Mr Carey’s front yard.

  The sound of the piano floated in the thick air. It was another miserable tune, with pauses so long George kept thinking Mr Carey had stopped playing.

  George inspected the KEEP OUT sign above the doorway, then the drifts of sand around his feet. He gazed at the metal door, with its rivets, its vertical row of locks, and the small steel hatch in its centre. But he couldn’t build up the courage to knock.

  Eventually, he took a deep breath, and rapped gently on the steel plate next to the locks. The piano continued. He tapped harder. The same deep chords were repeated in the same long cycles. George banged on the door with both fists.

  An angry strike of the piano keys rang out, as if Mr Carey had smashed both hands down flat. A long pause followed. George could hear nothing above the sound of his own heart beating.

  A voice suddenly growled through the door. ‘Who’s there?’

  ‘George from next …’ It was all George could manage. The rest of the sentence died in the dryness of his throat.

  A bolt slid. The steel hatch opened and a pair of bloodshot eyes stared out. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘I … I … I …’

  ‘There’s a curfew,’ Mr Carey said hoarsely.

  ‘We need your help … Our father has gone … We don’t know where … A girl has moved in … She can open locked doors.’

  There was a short silence. ‘She hasn’t opened my locked doors.’

  George had blurted out everything. Stupidly. Carelessly. He had to give Mr Carey a reason to help. ‘You used to be friends with my parents,’ he said. ‘You were …’

  ‘Different world back then.’ A candle lit Mr Carey’s face from one side, making it look heavily lined. There was a smell of something sharp, almost like petrol, coming from his mouth. ‘I cared then. I don’t now. There’s no point.’

  George didn’t want this conversation. He just wanted Mr Carey to scare the girl away. ‘Don’t say that. Dad always tells us the drought can’t last forever. It will get better. It’s not all gloom.’

  ‘He’s right in one way,’ Mr Carey said. His words were unclear and running together. ‘It’s not all gloom. It’s total darkness.’

  ‘You once bought fruit for us … You once …’

  ‘That was a long, long time ago,’ Mr Carey snorted. He half-closed the hatch.

  George’s fear shifted to anger. ‘You could help. You could get rid of her with your gun. You could make sure no-one takes away Beeper. He’s only six. You could come with us to find our father.’

  Mr Carey snorted again. ‘Sorry, lad, one person can’t make a difference these days.’ He closed the hatch.

  George thumped on the steel door. ‘It’s people like the Careys who hold everything together,’ he shouted. ‘That’s what Mum and Dad used to say.’ George bashed on the door one more time. ‘Did you hear me?’ He didn’t care if his words carried across the fence and into the room where the girl was. ‘Nobody can make a difference if they’re keeping to themselves … if everyone is just looking after their own little world.’

  George placed both hands against the door, then rested his forehead against its grimy metal.

  The hatch creaked back open a few centimetres. George could hear breathing, could again smell that burning breath. Mr Carey seemed about to say something. Then he closed the hatch and bolted it.

  George waited a few moments, then kicked the ground hard enough to surround himself in a cloud of dust. He slowly turned and went home.

  George stared up into the blackness of his bedroom. His visit next door had only made things worse. Stupid George. Weak George. What was Dad going to think of him?

  George waited for Mr Carey to start playing the piano again. But no sound came from next door. Instead, George listened to Beep
er’s struggling breath, and to the groaning from the roof.

  SEVENTEEN

  George was awoken from an erratic sleep by the sound of a truck grinding its way up the hill from the mall. He looked out the window. It was light outside.

  There was another sound. A recorded voice, like the one they had heard in the mall. ‘Civic authorities … on their guard … report wanderers … public safety issue.’

  The truck slowed as it neared the crest. ‘There is now an extended curfew …’ The driver slammed back through the gears; the engine faltered. ‘Legally required … unattended children.’

  George clenched his fists. He willed the truck to keep moving. But it came to a stop right outside the house. ‘Our children are our future …’

  The engine juddered to a halt. The announcements stopped. Doors opened. George held his breath. His chest was bursting. He wanted to find the hammer but was too scared to move even his hand.

  Beeper was fast asleep, wheezing. Two men were talking outside, too quietly for George to hear what they were saying. One of them raised his voice briefly. It sounded like, ‘That’s the one!’ George couldn’t be sure. Not above the noise of Beeper’s rasping breath.

  A truck door slammed. Then another. The engine started again, the recorded messages resumed. ‘… Rewards are paid …’ The truck was urged into gear and its noise trailed off down the other side of the hill as it headed towards the stadium.

  Beeper stirred. ‘Torgie, is everything all right?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s too risky to go out and too dangerous to stay at home.’

  George leaned towards Beeper and spoke in a low voice, in case the girl could hear through the walls. ‘We need somewhere to hide. Somewhere safe from Welfare and wanderers. Somewhere inside the house.’

  George stared at the ceiling. Could they climb into the roof? Too high, too scary. The wardrobe? Too small, too obvious. Under the floor? Maybe, but how would they get in there? And there might be as many spiders under the floorboards as there were in the ceiling. Or, worse still, snakes.