H2O (19 page)

“Ready?” I said, grabbing a lighter and testing it.

“Yeah,” he said. He closed that pervy science magazine and stuffed it down the front of his garbage bag. “Ruby,” he said, “would it be OK to put the big dog in the back? It's just…I think…maybe it'd be better if the kid sat in the front.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” I said, casually loading a bottle of vodka into my goodie bag.

Outside, there was kind of an alarming sight. The cloud army had gained on us, advancing relentlessly. A fresh battalion was sliding into position below the others, massing overhead. Until you have to pay attention (or die), you don't realize that: how scarily fast some clouds move. When it feels like it, altocumulus stratiformus is particularly quick. It's a sprinter.

“
!” I said and dragged Whitby out of the front seat.

Darius helped the GBK to take his place, getting her to climb across the gap, so she wouldn't have to get out of the car, while I attempted to bundle Whitby into the back. The Spratt climbed into the backseat.

“Come on, Ru!” he had the nerve to shout at me.

The hatchback clunked down on Whitby's big dumb head; I wished it was Nerd Boy's. By the time I'd got into the driver's seat, Whitby was already blundering his way out of the back.

“Aw! He likes you!” I sniggered, as he tried to barge his way onto Darius's lap.

I didn't laugh when Darling scrambled out of my lap to get to the GBK—and that was before the snacks came out.

I dumped my bag of goodies down (on top of Fluffysnuggles), started up, and lurched out into the road.

“Help yourself,” I told the kid.

It was no contest; she chose my selection of delights in favor of the whole-wheat things Darius had got. Fizzy drinks and chips and candy disappeared into the black plastic.

“Can't she take that stuff off?” I asked.

“We'd better wait until we're safe,” said Darius.

That was news to me: I thought we
were
safe. My passengers didn't seem to notice how skillful my driving was getting. None of them. Darling rustled about on the GBK's lap and was fed tasty junk morsels.

“That's bad for her,” I said.

“It's bad for her too,” said Darius, meaning the kid.

From the corner of my eye, I saw the GBK do what I would have done. She fed stuff to Darling anyway, pretending it was an accident when it so wasn't. Whitby refused Darius's more wholesome offerings and poked his stinky head over the gearshift, so the kid could feed him junk too. I didn't go on about it.

What with the kid being mute and Darius being Darius and the world having been destroyed, the general conversation wasn't up to much either.

“So how come you're not dead, then?” I asked, by way of an ice breaker. You know, the kind of question you ask someone when you don't know what else to say. I'd seen my mom do it a thousand times, ask people, “So how was your trip?” or “So how do you know Mr. and Mrs. Such-and-Such?” Even if the answer was totally embarrassing—like “I live next door” or “Actually, I
am
Mrs. Such-and-Such”—it was OK; people'd just laugh and have another drink and ask the same question back.

My ice breaker, it was crap. The second I asked that question, the most horrible thing happened. I felt everything that had happened and everything I felt about it come welling up inside me. It felt like…like a tsunami coming, carrying everything—EVERYTHING—with it.

I felt myself choke. I turned the choke into a cough.

“Just lucky, I guess,” he said. “You?”

“Same,” I said.

I was driving. I didn't even know him; that tsunami, it had to be stopped or I would start blubbering so hard I'd crash the car and kill us all anyway. I—HAD—TO—GET—TO—MY—DAD. I drove on, steely eyed. Steely hearted.

“I was inside, studying,” said Darius Spratt.

“
WHAT?!
” I shrieked.

I got into a gear confusion and the car swerved around a little.

“I was studying,” repeated the Spratt when I'd shoved Whitby's head out of the way and discovered where third gear was. “You know, for exams?”

Did he think I was an imbecile? Who could not know about the horror of exams? It's just that—

“It was a holiday!” I screeched.

“So?” he said.

I looked at him then in my rearview mirror. He looked kind of like he was having his own tsunami issues. He glared up at me.

I looked away—back at the road, where I suppose I should have been looking all along.

Behind me, I heard him speak.

“I was inside,” Darius Spratt said, “and my parents, my whole family, all our friends, all our neighbors, everyone, except me, was outside.”

I didn't say anything.

I didn't say anything to Darius about Exeter either. When I saw the signs for it, when I saw where I could turn off, I thought about Caspar. I made a choice: I would go find my dad. Then I would look for Caspar. After everything I had seen, after everything I knew, I still couldn't quite put it in my head that Caspar wouldn't be alive. So I would find him after.

That's how it is, isn't it? I mean, really, until you know for sure that someone is dead, there's always—isn't there?—this tiny little flickery wisplet of hope. A cirrus floccus of hope. This tiny little lone brain cell—maybe connected by weensy fairy-silk strands to a tiny lone heart cell—that will forever believe that they could still be alive. And will never, ever give up believing that. No matter how much it hurts.

Even if that person is Saskia, right? Even if you never did much like them in the first place, that's what it's like. You just hope.

I stomped on the accelerator more than I suppose you should. When we hit the highway, the driving was a lot easier. Less gear changing! Less braking! Less steering! There were cars stopped here and there; there were cars crashed, but most had pulled over, and I got really good at zooming around anything that hadn't.

I was driving! It was easy! The thing that had seemed so impossible, to get to my dad, seemed more possible with every mile. Easy: up the highway, get to Bristol, turn right onto the other highway.

The “what happens when we get to London” part was a little unclear—because it wasn't as if I'd ever actually driven to my dad's before, was it?—but I'd figure it out when we got there. Basically, it was all going swimmingly.

Ha ha ha ha. Do you think anyone will ever say that kind of thing anymore?

I felt as right as rain. I was on cloud nine. Ha ha ha ha ha.

And then the gas-indicator thingy flashed red.

I wanted to ignore it; I would have ignored it. It was not part of my plan. DUR.

“Ru,” said Darius, leaning over my shoulder. “We should turn off, huh?”

He spoke quietly; the GBK had fallen asleep—I think; it was hard to say for sure. She'd sort of slumped a little and the plastic around her mouth was sucking in and out in a steady sort of way. Darling, on her lap, had also crashed. Whitby snored on the backseat.

“No,” I said.
And
don't call me Ru
, I thought.

It was getting dark, but I wasn't going to stop. Didn't Simon always go on about how there were fifty miles left on empty?

I swerved around an abandoned car—harder to see them coming when you're zooming, and it's getting dark, and you can't work out how to switch the lights on, and you've just realized there's a bit of a major problem with your plan.

“Turn off,” he said.

No, no, no, no! I would not! I could not! It was FINE. I got the lights on—just in time to show me that there was a body in the road. I swerved. I kept going.

“If you don't turn off, we'll run out of gas.”

No!

“We'll get stuck on the highway.”

No!

“In the rain,” said Darius Spratt, leaning forward to tap on my shoulder.

Startled by this random assault upon my person, I turned to demand that he refrain from poking me and saw his finger pointing, practically in my face. I shoved it out of my face.

. From the side of us a fat blanket of gray was rolling in low, tucking the land into a lovely space-bug-infested bed. (Stratus nebulosus—creeping up from the sea, I guess. It really likes to hang out there.)

I'd only been looking straight ahead, hadn't I? We'd outrun one storm only to have another sneak up on us. The car weaved about dangerously as I peered at it. All I could think about was what the clouds had been like being trapped in that car at the supermarket. I stamped on the accelerator.

Next exit, I turned off. We zoomed up on to a roundabout. I braked; I stalled. The GBK woke up; the dogs woke up. I restarted. I was so panicked I just drove.

“Ruby, where are we going?” asked Darius.

“Weston-super-Mare,” I snapped, slamming my foot down on the accelerator.

I'd been there before, with Leonie's family. With any luck, we'd get to the pier and be able to spend the night in the video arcade. Brilliant! Except nothing would be working, I suppose…

“This is the wrong way,” said Darius.

“
WHAT?!
”

“Wrong way!”

“
!”

I searched for a place to turn—for a while there was nothing but hedgerows—then there was a track on our left. I braked—

“
What
are
you
doing?!
” squeaked Darius.

I reversed.

“I AM TUR-NING A-ROUND!” I bellowed.

We bumped backward along the track. I stalled.

The car would not restart. I did that thing I'd seen my dad do too many times in his old beater. I banged my hands on the steering wheel—but it was Simon I was thinking about. “It'll do fifty miles on empty.” Yeah, right! I knew, instantly, the only reason he ever said that was to stop my mom from panicking. Simon, it turned out, did make things up—what a great time to find that out.

“Brilliant,” said Darius. “Just brilliant.”

I took my seat belt off so I could turn around and yell at him properly—and then I saw it: looming in the gloom, there was one of those plastic greenhouse tunnel thingies they grow stuff in.

“I'm going in there,” I said.

I jumped out and slammed my door, then opened his.

“C'mon, Whitby,” I said; Whitby, who'd been sprawled on Darius, trampled all over him to get out.

“Ruby, I don't think—”

I didn't hear what the Spratt didn't think because I slammed the door on it…but I can guess. As I said before, it's really stupid to go anywhere at night, even just hardly any distance at all—and especially when you do actually know it's cloudy. I knew that already; I just didn't care. NO WAY was I spending the night in that car.

I barged into the plastic tunnel and…I'm not all into gardening and stuff (OK, I pretty much hate it), but it was gorgeous. There were long metal tables filled with pots and pots of flowers; it smelled like heaven. My mom would have loved it.
And
it was deliciously warm. Perfect—no, better than perfect. There was a bank of switches by the door. I flicked them on—LIGHT! Beautiful, beautiful elec-tric light! Flower heaven lit up in a rainbow of color.

Darius erupted from the car.

“TURN THE LIGHTS OFF!” he whisper-squealed.

He'd put his rubber gloves on; he yanked open the passenger door, picked the GBK up (and Darling and the water gun because the GBK had tight hold on them both) and dashed into the tunnel with her.

“People'll be able to see us for miles around!” he said, killing the lights.

“So?” I said, but I didn't put them back on. “I'm gonna get my stuff.”

“I'll get it,” said Darius.

Yeah, right. He dashed out and then came back in with the food and the drink and ONE random bag of MY things: makeup, when what I really wanted was a change of clothes.

“Don't!” said Darius, grabbing me by the arm to stop me from going back to the car.

Nerd Boy actually manhandled ME. I looked up at him with a snarl; his glasses had misted up.

“Please, Ruby. It's not safe.”

The GBK rustled. He let go of my arm.

“OK,” I said quietly. “OK.”

It didn't rain ten seconds later, so it's not like Darius Spratt saved my life or anything…but it did rain. Such a soft and gentle rain you wouldn't even have heard it, probably, if you'd been inside a house, but in the polytunnel you could hear it: the tiniest pitter-patter. That would have been a lovely sound if it weren't for…well, you know: what was
in
it. The Spratt's whole-wheat survival kit also contained (cheap) flashlights, and we got paranoid for a while, checking and rechecking the roof; it didn't seem like it leaked anywhere, but it was so freaky, having just this thin skin of plastic between us and
it
. In the beams of the flashlights, you could see the tiniest slight shadows of rain, blurry through the plastic. Bloblets pooling with other bloblets, sliding sneakily down the sides of the tunnel, looking for a way in. The darker it got, the harder it was not to get spooked just thinking about it. It didn't help that there were weird crackly noises inside the tunnel; the GBK was following Darius around like a little rustly ghost.

“Can she take that stuff off now?” I asked him.

“Do you want to take it off now?” he asked her.

The GBK just stood there.

“Maybe if you take yours off first?” I suggested to Darius.

Honestly, I half expected him to have his school uniform on under the waterproof gear. It might have been better than what he was wearing. (Red corduroy trousers and a
Star
Wars
sweatshirt that would have looked cool and retro—on someone else.) Next time we went anywhere near some kind of clothing stores, I was gonna have to force him to sort that look out—but the priority would be locating some deodorant: Darius Spratt stank. I caught a severe waft of it and—

WHOA! It was TOO weird! Hadn't Lee read an article about exactly this kind of thing to me? How you could take some boy who was HOT—really, totally undeniably HOT
to
look
at
—and a boy who was NOT HOT—really, totally undeniably NOT HOT
to
look
at
—and you could waft their sweat under the nose of a blindfolded girl and ask her to pick which one she liked, and it was scientifically proven that there is some crazy animaly sweat thing that meant if the girl couldn't SEE the boy the sweat came off, she wouldn't necessarily choose the hot boy. Her nose could actually force her to choose…

WHOA!

I forced myself to get a grip.

“You stink,” I told Darius Spratt.

“Sorry,” he said. “
Personal
grooming
hasn't exactly been a priority.”

“Well, maybe it should have been,” I pointed out, because I was pretty sure that personal grooming comment had to be some kind of sneaky dig at me.

He peeled off his sweatshirt and offered it to the kid. His arms weren't feeble; they were wiry. He was wiry and gangly—but luckily there was no danger WHATSOEVER that I would have another random freaky animaly attraction attack because he was wearing a tank top. Like, really! And not some kind of a cool T-shirt tank top, but an underwear tank top, the kind your mother makes you wear when you're about FIVE.

It did the trick, though. The GBK sidled up to Darius, apparently immune to the
hideous
smell. I'd seen already how they'd worked out this communication thing, this little private language where Darius would say stuff and the GBK would move in a certain way, and Darius would interpret that…and he seemed always to get it right—though as the GBK didn't speak, it'd be hard to say for sure.

“OK,” said Darius, like the kid had spoken. He cut (with his whole-wheat multifunction penknife) and tore the plastic off her.

In a weird way, I wished he hadn't. For as long as you couldn't see that silent kid, she was just a thing. What was under the plastic…it broke my heart.

Tearstains on her cheeks. I'd imagined a mini female Darius Spratt, but she was beautiful. A solemn-faced, sad kid. An Asian kid, maybe Indian? And beautiful, so beautiful. A skinny kid in leggings and a sun dress, with a mop-top of matted curls, a little bow on a clip half buried in them. Her face—it was studded with tiny scars, tiny scabby scratches.

“I think she was in a car crash,” said Darius.

The car. My driving. She must have been terrified.

The kid shuffled closer to him.

“There was glass, little slivers of it, in her hair,” he said, “but I think we got it all out.”

Really? It didn't look like her hair had been brushed for a week.

The kid was looking up at Darius. Seemed like maybe she was older than I thought too—not six or seven, but eight or maybe even nine? Maybe. Maybe not. She scratched at her face, little fingers scab hunting.

“Don't,” I said. “You'll get scars.”

She wouldn't look at me. (But she did stop scratching.)

“I think she's a little bit scared of you,” said Darius.

Huh?!
Kids LOVED me.

“I mean, you sort of shout a lot,” he said.

I felt so terrible I could have burst into tears on the spot…and that kid, she'd wet herself. You could see it on her leggings.

“She needs a change of clothes,” I said.

I heard my own voice… It sounded dead and cold—when what was in my heart so wasn't. What was in my heart, it was red and hot and alive, and it hurt so bad for that little kid.