H2O (25 page)

“Honk the horn!” said Darius. “Honk it!”

I honked.

“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 mom did, and then the dad. You could see the kids in the back, unbuckled and leaning over the backseat to see us.

“Stay here,” I said.

Me, I got out and sauntered to the front of the car like one of Dan's carjacker 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 mom 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 highway—but somehow my voice came out like that.

I have come to realize…that when I get stressed, I get shouty. I was like that before all this happened, a little, 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 in Salisbury?” asked Darius.

“There are big army bases there,” explained the mom. “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 mom 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. There'll be a sign.”

“Your dad might be there already,” said the mom. “It's where everyone will go.”

“I don't think so,” I said. “He'd have come for me first.”

The dad nodded. Kind of 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 mom.

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 mom, shaking Darius's hand next, while the dad, Mike, shook mine. “That's unusual,” she said. She turned toward 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 anymore. I knew that kid needed that dog more than I did. And I needed Darling a lot.

“
Princess
, is it?” said the mom, 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 mom, and you know what? The kid let her stroke her cheek. “That's Ethan and Holly,” the mom went on, putting her arm round Princess and waving at her own kids. Ethan and Holly waved back.

The mom 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 mom, “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 pour down; the other just looks like it might.

“Are you sure you don't want to come with us?” the mom 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 mom and dad and kids stayed in front. Me and Darius, we didn't speak until I turned around 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 mom 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 highway. They were zooming, flashed their lights, tooted and slowed down…but we had already passed. I didn't stop and back up; the mom 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 is, 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 around in shock—the car swerved—the kid was pointing. I looked. On a bridge over the highway, 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're 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-suits 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.

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 funneled us in…in and in and in until we were squeezed into the middle of the road. The highway 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 windshield.

That isn't what I was thinking. I was thinking,
Oh
my
God
…

Sorry, Mom…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 jumble, 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 jumble 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 organization, 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 little 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 onto 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 highway was basically a parking lot. At our end of it, I saw the red sports car, ditched. I saw the silver car that had had that guy 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 mom and dad, they'd stopped in front of us. They'd gotten out and were chatting with the men; they pointed at us a little. The mom 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, realized 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 trunk and hunted amongst the ten thousand pairs of underwear for the only shoes I had left, the jeweled flip-flops I'd lent Darius. That mom, 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 mom nodded slowly, like she meant it. The most shocking thing was I realized 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 mom.

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 highway 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 around 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 mom, who'd obviously blabbed to him, stood clutching his arm.

I sprinted 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 around 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 have 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 a stitch in her side, 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 little, 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 rock. 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 that looked like they meant business. I looked up and cursed them too and ran, skirting around the lake, hating the entire world.

Across a golf course, there were houses—fancy houses—so that's where I headed, sprinting across fancy, clipped, golf grass toward 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 fancy housing development, 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 around, 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.

A smarter girl than me—a girl like Saskia, for example—would have gone straight into the house, I expect. I went for the garage.

Thank you, mister, I thought, when I saw the keys in his cool little sports car. I started it up; I saw there was nearly a whole tank of gas…and I would have taken off, but now that I knew I had an escape route, the urge to run eased off the tiniest, tiniest bit—which let the urge to drink grab hold. Grab hold and choke me, screaming in my face that I needed to drink and drink NOW.

I paced at the garage door. From the looks of MG man, he'd died the way Simon had died; he hadn't been rained on, but there was a mess round his lips that the flies liked.

The thirst thing, which had gotten seriously angry, was killing me so badly I did it. Like a psyched-up Dan gaming warrior launching into mortal combat, I roared something terrible at the world and sprinted for the front door.

It was the first time I went in somewhere without knocking or shouting. I couldn't have cared less whether the whole fancy neighborhood was hiding in there, drinking sherry and discussing how
simply
awful
everything was. (They weren't.) I just barged in, went straight to the kitchen, and ransacked.

It was all junk, but it was brilliant—because there was something, at least there was something. I grabbed a bottle of cordial. I swigged it—disgusting—and kept looking. The fridge was cleaned out, but there was an unopened carton of melted chicken stock left in the freezer and an orange in the fruit bowl that looked just fine. I didn't even peel it. I just ripped it apart with my teeth and gored it dry while I rooted in the cupboards for something, anything else, to drink, the chicken stock churning in my stomach. Too much salt. And too dark now. Silly Christmas candle on the table; I'd seen that, hadn't I? Silly Christmas Santa candle and matches—I lit matches. Santa burned; nothing else left to drink…apart from…I had a pharmacy flashback and sped up to the bathroom.

You
wear
contact
lenses, don't you? I know you wear them
, I thought, pulling everything out of the bathroom cabinet.

MG man didn't wear contact lenses. I looked at the toilet. I thought about the water sitting there in that cistern. I thought about all the poisoned water sitting all over the house, locked in pipes.
Drink
me.

Santa, his head burned off, crackled.

I looked at the toilet again. I considered the advice of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. “The RSPB does not recommend…”

And nor do I. But I will say that drinking your own pee is probably not anything like as bad as you might think. I mean, it is bad, but…

Refreshed—as much as I was going to be in that house—I had a burst of sensibleness. I looked out the window. I studied the sky…only I couldn't see the sky—could I?—because it was dark. Cloud dark. That's what clouds do; they cunningly make the night even darker than it should be, so you can't see what they're up to.