Storm (11 page)

“I missed you,” he says.

In the morning, the Spratt wakes me up with breakfast. I'd have been pretty grumpy about that because I was sound asleep, but he brought a spectacular selection of items. I couldn't have stacked up that tray better myself: as well as
Les Pastries Française
there's
Le Full English Breakfast:
fried everything and a pile of baked beans.

He sits and watches me cramming food into my face like a cavewoman. Part of me wants to ask about where, precisely, all this stuff comes from, but mainly I just feel like I don't want to hear it—haven't I seen enough already to know that while I have suffered Apocalypse Max, these people have been living in Apocalypse Lite?

I was wrong; survival is a competition, and these people are winning—which reminds me, about twelve hours later than a nicer (nice?) person would have thought of it:

“Hey, what happened to the Princess?” I manage to ask between glorious great mouthfuls of eggs and bacon.

I may need to remind you that the Princess was this mute kid the Spratt found—or rather she found him—after the rain fell. An Asian kid, maybe Indian, I'd guessed. Age unknown, name unknown. Tiny, beautiful, heart-woundingly sad. Mute with fright (we reckoned), but never silent…least of all on the subject of me. The Princess didn't like me, not one bit. I tried to be kind; I did try. I just shouted a lot. It was a stressful time.

“That Welsh family took her. They had to. What do I know about looking after a kid?”

“You did OK,” I say, cramming in fried bread. And then I think the thought that goes with that thought. “What happened to my dog?” I ask, stabbing a sausage. I mean Saskia's dog, the Darling Chihuahua.

“They don't let animals in here, Ru,” says Darius.

There is this awful silence during which I can no longer face eating that sausage. Not that I think Darling got turned into one. These people are spoiled, but they are surely not monsters. Just coldhearted abandoners of small, innocent dogs and…

“Or people like me.”

“Ru…” says Darius.

I amaze myself that I am the one to say it, but the thought comes to me, cutting through the snuggly hug of food and sleepiness as sharp as a surgeon's knife: “I'm not going to be able to stay here, am I?”

“We can talk about that later,” he says.

While seeming not to be an answer to my question, that is an answer. It isn't a very specific one though, because it's not clear to me who's going to kick me out first: the British Army, the Spratt—or me. Am I capable of doing that? Am I capable of trying to walk out of this place with bravery and dignity? (Once I have finished breakfast, obviously.) (Or maybe tomorrow, if I lie low and the Spratt doesn't get too pushy.)

“I think, if you leave—” says Darius.

“When. It's ‘when,' isn't it? Not ‘if.'”

“I want to come too. I mean—if that's OK with you.”

I do sort of feel I could faint or something, so massive is the storm of conflicting
stuff
in my head. This is a conversation I never ever thought I'd be having in a place I never ever thought I'd be—physically, emotionally, mentally, you-name-it-ly. (Have I told you before how much I hate apocalypses?) There is only one way to deal with this, and that is to push it all back onto the Spratt.

I amaze myself for a second time—and I haven't even finished breakfast.

“Yeah,” I say, “and what about your job, Darius? What about working twenty-four/seven to save the planet?”

He's quiet for a moment, then, “Maybe they can manage without me?” he says.

Uh. I shake my head. The truth is harsh. “It's me they can manage without.”

“But maybe I can't, Ru,” he says.

I feel like I want to cry. “Yeah, you can,” I tell him. “Just pretend we're back at school.”

I get that in quick—so quick. To him, I was a clueless snob. To me, he was the subnerd of subnerds. If the rain hadn't fallen, I don't suppose we would ever have even spoken.

It'd be very wrong if you thought I was in any way being noble at this point. I am saying what I am saying, but my heart is running about like a headless chicken. And what solution there is to this, I do not know. I don't even know what to say next. Nor, it seems, does the Spratt.

“I'd better go to work,” he says.

I stare up at him, blinking. I don't want him to go. But I can't say it.

“Will you be OK?” he asks.

“Sure,” I say, taking a slurp of tea. “Happy number crunching.”

“I'll see if I can check on Saskia at lunchtime,” he says. “Then I'll come back here. You sure you'll be OK?”

“Sure I'm sure.”

“Well, there's always the TV if you get bored.”

Oh yes, they've got TV.

I'd pull myself together enough to be enraged about that too, but I've got other things on my mind. The second the Spratt shoves off, I spring into action. The temptation of all my friends' unlocked phones, which has been quietly gnawing away at the weaker parts of my brain all night, instantly gets the better of me, and then the consequences of the temptation of the unlocked phones gets the better of me too.

Much gasping and weeping takes place. I find out a number of unpleasant and alarming things (e.g., just how many people knew Andrew Difford had gone around saying I was a lousy kisser). (Seriously, if I ever have the misfortune to clap eyes on him again, he's gonna wish the rain had got him first.) Most hideous and heartbreaking of all, I find out that it could, incredibly, be possible that Saskia was right about Caspar. On my friends' phones I find texts from him and about him that are not exactly reassuring. But it cannot be true. To console myself, I press the beautiful earphones that had once been pressed into his beautiful ears (ears that I had nibbled, and not like a hamster would) into my own ears and crank up Caspar's MP3. I don't stop to question why anyone would have bothered to keep it charged.

My misery is complete. That moron Spratt has deleted my true love's achingly gorgeous acoustic demo tracks (surely written for me and surely all about me) and has replaced them with a ghastly medley of eighties hits from the car journey we had taken together, when we'd laughed.

I am not laughing now.

In despair, I am forced to turn to the TV. It is actually fairly totally excellent—they've even got more channels than we ever had at home, so I pass a jolly/miserable morning scarfing down pastries and channel hopping and feeling sorry for myself—when I remember to. TV is so distracting, right? You don't even have to skip commercials anymore because there aren't any. This isn't live TV I realize, just streamed reruns of every kind of program…and that would have been OK by me for the rest of the day, but I stumbled across
that
talent show.

I watch again, jaw wobbling, as that poor girl loses. That poor girl who was actually very talented indeed, but just not
as
talented—and certainly not as
boringly gorgeous
—as that other girl, the one that
won
(even though I'd voted for Miss Loser with all my might and have a colossal phone bill to prove it hidden under my bed at home).

It makes me thoroughly depressed. Because…basically…I
am
Miss Loser, aren't I? The kind of girl who'd lose even with a head start.

I don't want to feel like I am useless like the army/government has said…but maybe—URGH! IT HURTS MY HEAD TO EVEN THINK IT!—maybe I am. I never meant to be useless. I only ever meant to be me. And it's not fair—it's SO not fair—that I never got to find out who that “me” was. I was just getting around to it, don't you see? I was going to be fantastic. My life was going to be fantastic.

I feel that room and the hypnotically animally scent of boy-pong that fills it closing around me. As my own looted packing was useless (OK, so those super-skinny jeans? I only need to look at them to know it's a no), and I couldn't squeeze into Saskia's stuff even if I wanted to, I put some of the Spratt's clothes on. I go to find the bathroom. What's inside the toilet is already fizzing with bleach—and I discover why: in a most un-luxury way, the toilet doesn't flush. Maybe you need a swipe-card for that too? Swipe and wipe?

This
apocalypse. It's really getting on my nerves. It's REALLY getting on my nerves.

I come out of the bathroom. I walk to the end of the corridor. I look out of the window in the door. My recollection of the night before is so hazy and jumbled, I wouldn't have known I was even looking at “the hospital,” but I see the ice-cream van parked outside, under a canopy, alongside an ambulance.

I think about Saskia.

I block out the hideous memory of her screaming.

I feel pretty sorry for myself right now, but the stuff that's in my head is a mess of ugly choices that exist in reality—and not in fear. Sask has not had the benefit of a calming anti-freak-out chat from the Spratt. As far as I know, no one is offering to go anywhere with her—and if, before the rain fell, my life was
surely
going to be fantastic (I was convinced it was heading that way), Sask's already was.

When you look at it like that, taking dead families out of the equation, she's lost things she actually had (including, specifically, a foot). I've lost things I never had (a hot boyfriend, a life).

So maybe that means I can't have lost them?

Hn.

It just feels like it.

It also feels like…the least I can do is to go and see her. Maybe, if she hasn't started screaming again, I'll be able to give her a calming anti-freak-out chat. And I'll just see if there's anything she wants. Like flowers and fruit! That's what people take people who are in the hospital, isn't it? Flowers and fruit! Ha! And if there is any fresh fruit to be had anywhere, Monsieur le Chef would have it. And I'll ask Sask about him too—whether he really is that guy off the TV.

Yes. I'll go see Sask.

I step out of the building.

From the door I leave by, there is no polytunnel walkway; there is just open space—and clear sky. Clear September sky. A school sky: clear and blue and warm—only the odd dunce of a congestus cloud skulking about. They are my weak point, those clouds: cumulus mediocris, cumulus congestus. One rains, one doesn't. In my opinion, no one but a total nerd could tell them apart.

In any case, I am not worried—not in the least. The sky above me, the only sky that counts, is blue as blue can be, which explains why there are kids out. I catch a glimpse of one wandering up to the ice-cream-van ambulance. Makes me smile, seeing that; he's studying the menu of delights—poor thing. Half an arm missing, bandaged.

You're probably thinking things already. I wasn't. I just saw a hurt kid.

And as I get closer, I hear other kids—laughing, shouting…one crying…and I…I detour, around the back of the building, figuring, if I am thinking anything at all, that this might be an easier way in. No tricky nurse station/desk/explanation/camera situation. Just slip in, right?

I round the corner.

Kids out playing in the yard. Emergency exit door to ward open.

I don't really think about what this is. I don't think about it until I walk into the ward.

I don't want them to make a film out of this story anymore. I do not want this picture—ever—to be seen in another person's mind.

Except…maybe you should know it. Maybe you should know.

The ward. What would I say, Darius Spratt? How much time, really, does it take to understand what you are seeing if you look? In 0.1 MICROMETERS OF A SECOND I get it:

The ward is full of kids—KIDS. Some are out of their beds, walking or limping about…kids with hands and arms and feet and legs chopped off. And fingers. I'm guessing those are the lucky ones in the ward. The ward of bandaged
stumps.

They look with wide eyes at me, at the scary crazy lady—yeah, I guess that's what I am to them, even though I am only fifteen years old. Shaved head, black eyes, wearing a boy's clothes, tooth missing in a mouth that is open in a silent scream.

I can hardly breathe.

A nurse strides past me to tell the kids off, to shut the door and come inside. Then she comes bustling up to me. “There is no public access here,” she says.

“I've come to see my friend,” I tell her.

There is no feeling in my voice. I breathe—I try to breathe.

“There is no public access.” She takes hold of my elbow and leads me out of that place.

She shuts the door. I see that ward name again:

Sunnyside

So we're back where I was last night. At the nurses' station, in a corridor, surrounded by a maze of doors. The nurse behind the desk—who is not the same one who was there last night—does this WT
?! thing at the sight of me and looks in panic at the other one.