The Rain (27 page)

. What if he really was the last boy on Earth?

I felt another sob come and – I like to think I wouldn’t have gone outside if I’d have thought it was still raining, but the truth is I forgot to even think about that; I just
pushed open the door and went out. Then I looked up. The sky looked weird: half of it milky and stripy (cirrostratus fibratus!), half of it yellowy and pale and sickly-looking. The sick bit was
overhead. For a moment I thought some new and dreadful thing was happening to the sky and I panicked about where the
the sun had got to.
Dur. It was dawn; that’s all it was. Me and the sun had got up together; it was dawn and it was cold. I rescued my fleece bed from inside the polytunnel, wrapped myself in it and walked up
the track.

There was a farmhouse at the top of it; seemed like there was no one home, but I didn’t go closer, and there were cows mooing somewhere just round the corner – which was great; no
one would hear me as I howled my eyes out.

The milky stripes had burned away and the sun kept me company, kindly promising a toasty day, as I walked back down the track and opened up the boot of the car. That was the
first time I saw how mad my packing had been: there was nothing anyone would call sensible, apart from about ten thousand pairs of knickers. It was weird. Having dreamed about my mum, I felt she
was looking over my shoulder wondering why I’d packed such silly clothes.

‘Sorry, Mum,’ I whispered.

I changed – right there, on that track – into a looted dress. It was a silver sequiny thing from the evil old hag’s boutique, a thing I’d never normally have been
allowed. I felt better just putting it on – and, I swear, it was pretty much the most sensible thing I had, apart from some super-skinny skinny jeans I didn’t much fancy the effort of
squeezing into. I picked up one of the trashy magazines and went back into the tunnel to sort my make-up out.

It smelt so sweet in there (despite a whiff of Spratt). The others were still asleep. Only Whitby opened a lazy eye, but didn’t even pretend to take an interest. I climbed back up among
the pots and sat cross-legged in a sea of flowers, flicking through the gossip while I sorted out my face.

Yup, it was still orange. The post-snog pink chin was pretty much gone. I felt kind of sad about it, even. Gone. My eyes looked piggyish, in need of serious work. I slapped on some moisturiser
followed by a mega coat of foundation.

I was a blank canvas. I, me, Ruby stared back at myself in my compact mirror.

I need to get to my dad, I told myself. I just need to get to my dad.

I sighed . . . and in that sigh I became aware of a small pair of eyes watching me – I looked. The kid shut her eyes.

Right, I thought. Gotcha.

I didn’t look at her again. I went for it; I put stuff on my face – eyeshadow, mascara, blusher, lipstick – then I’d change my mind. I’d take it off again.
I’d pretend I didn’t know which colour eyeshadow I wanted, which lipstick went best . . . The kid got up and edged towards the table. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.

All the while, that place heated up. The warmth of it was delicious, like being on holiday someplace nice.

‘Hmmm,’ I sighed at the purple eyeshadow. I stripped it off.

‘If only someone could help me,’ I said.

That didn’t work.

I tried the gold eyeshadow. The glittery, gorgeous gold. I’d got one eye done when I saw something flitter . . . I looked up and saw a butterfly.

‘Oh!’ I said.

I pointed at it, for the benefit of my audience of one.

This butterfly, this white-winged destroyer of cabbages, flitted about.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see my audience of one watching it too.

And then a small thing happened.

There was a click, followed by a
DZZZZZZZZZZZ
– a soft buzzing sound from this box in the corner of the tunnel.

Darling pricked up her ears. Whitby got up from under the table and stretched, then mooched off outside to have a sniff about. Darling tried to follow, but the kid picked her up. My audience
increased to two.

OK . . . I daubed my brush in gold. I was poised, ready to sweep it across my other eyelid, when I heard a funny gurgling sound above me.

I looked up. I saw pipes. In one half of a millinanosecond I got it.

Such pretty flowers.

‘RUN!’ I screamed.

PSSSSSSSSSSSHT!

I leaped off the table, sending pots of flowers tumbling and crashing.

‘OUT!’ I yelled at the kid, grabbing her and shoving her towards the door – I turned and I yanked Darius Spratt off the table by his vest. Behind us, water showered down, a
shimmering curtain of it moving in on us as –
PSSSSHT! PSSSSSSSSSSSHT! PSSSSSSSSSSSHT!
– one sprinkler after another burst into life, cool air kissing our backs as we ran.

As we reached the door, Whitby blundered into us.

‘OUT!’ I screamed.

Know what? I didn’t hesitate. We burst out of the polytunnel and I went straight for the boot to rummage for the crowbar because it felt as if we were being attacked, as
if maybe someone could have set those sprinklers off deliberately.

‘It’s automatic,’ panted Darius, studying the sky. ‘It’ll be automatic.’

‘
You don’t know that!
’ I screamed into his face, then carried on rummaging.

‘There’s a battery.’

‘
The thing in the box?
’

‘Yeah. It’ll be on a timer, won’t it?’

My hands found the crowbar even as my brain decided the Spratt was right; those plants were perfect and, like Simon had said about the supermarket flowers, it was too hard to imagine someone
thinking, Hey, the world’s in meltdown but I think I’ll just water the plants. Every day.

‘That water’s probably OK too,’ said Darius. Satisfied that the sky was OK, he actually looked at me. ‘It’s probably from a tank.’

‘Really? Well, why don’t you go back in there, then?’ I snarled. ‘And take a shower – because YOU REALLY NEED ONE.’

Whitby bounded around like a puppy, cranked up from all the running about, thinking some brilliant new game was being played. Darling wriggled to join him but the kid wouldn’t let her go.
For the humans, the trauma wasn’t quite over. Everything in Darius’s wholewheat survival kit was getting rained on in that tunnel. Everything we had to eat and drink (apart from vodka!)
was being watered with the flowers. The bag of phones was still in the car, but I’d lost my make-up – that was totally disastrous – and now the kid only had that mangy sweatshirt
to wear . . . but the biggest calamity of all had fallen on Darius Spratt, who had lost his trousers. Dig the underpants, Grandpa.

‘I got too hot,’ he said, going bright red.

I couldn’t help myself; I snorted with mocking laughter.

‘Shut up,’ said Darius, hiding his modesty.

I tried to control myself as I offered what I had. The skinny jeans were a non-starter, so it was down to fancy frocks and floaty tops . . . or a silver sequiny stretchy miniskirt from the same
range as my dress.

I cracked up completely when he put it on. How that kid managed not to laugh I do not know – you could see she wanted to.

‘I am NOT walking about like this,’ said Darius.

Then I realised we sort of matched. I stopped laughing. I didn’t want to walk around like that either.

I didn’t want to walk around full stop; we needed petrol, or we needed a new car.

‘There’s a farm,’ I said.

And Darius and the kid
couldn’t
walk around, full stop. I had on brilliant killer-heel boots from the old hag’s place; their feet were naked. The track looked damp. Drying,
but scarily damp. (How much water do you need to touch your body before it’ll kill you? Really, how much?) I rummaged around in my bags and plunked down the only spare footwear I had:
jewelled flip-flops. The kid seemed to like hers (even though she wouldn’t take them off me and had to have them replunked to her by Darius and even though they were a hundred sizes too big);
Darius Spratt’s hairy-toed feet squashed into the pair I gave him like monster’s feet, oozing over the front, the sides and the back. He looked at me helplessly.

‘I am not going to carry you,’ I said. ‘I am SO not going to carry you.’

‘Hn,’ said Darius Spratt.

I wrestled a belt-lead on to Whitby – he so was giddy from trying to fathom out the new game of running and flip-flop chucking I could just see him taking it into his doggy head to have a
little fun with a herd of cows – and we started up the track.

Remember that game you played when you were a kid? When you were only allowed to step on the light bits on the pavement, the bits that were dry, and you weren’t allowed to step on the dark
bits that were still wet from rain? And you’d have a race with your mum and before you knew it you’d be at the place – the library, or school – that seemed so far away?
Monster-feet Spratt lurched from one light patch to another, then got stuck.

I had to hoist him on to my back. His arms wrapped tight around me. His hairy legs dangled. Donkey Ruby. In killer heels. Trudging along in a fug of
Parfum de Spratt
.

Whitby did go nuts when he saw the cows, and the cows went nuts when they saw us. I had to dump the Spratt in the farmyard because Whitby wanted to say hello to those cows so much he was going
to pull me over – and they would have had no choice about the meet and greet because they were shut up in the barn. You could pretty much take that as a sign that there was no one home (or
certainly not home and alive), but what proved that was the dogs: two collies chained up right outside the front door, dead. Those collies, by the door, there wasn’t even a water bowl for
them. I guess whoever had left them there hadn’t thought it would be forever.

A better sight was that there was an old clapped-out farm truck: open, keys in it. Great. I shut Whitby inside; the kid clutched Darling so I couldn’t do the same with her.

The Spratt picked his way across the farmyard and tried the front door: locked.

‘Knock first!’ I told him. ‘You’ve got to knock first and shout. Tell them we just want help.’

‘I don’t think there’s anyone home,’ said the Spratt.

I shoved him out of the way and I knocked and shouted how we just wanted help – ‘And we’re just kids!’ I yelled – though the cows were making so much noise it was
probably pretty much pointless.

We stalked round the house and found that even the farmers had been having a barbecue. In this little yard at the back it was still there: half-cooked meat, rained on; bowls of salad swimming in
water; pecked-at soggy bread and crisps.
BBQ Britain Sizzles.

We had to go in through a window then let the kid in through the back door. Inside, it smelt bad. Sweet, spicy bad. The fridge was a no-go area with nothing to drink in it
anyway, but they had a larder with tins of stuff in it. Darius sat the kid at the kitchen table with a spoon and a can of peaches and the kid sat Darling down on the kitchen table to sniff at a tin
of sardines I’d opened.

‘You get scared, you bang your spoon on the table,’ Darius told her, and we went to see what we could get.

We’d not got halfway up the stairs before the spoon banged on the table. We rushed back in expecting some sort of horror, and instead found an enormous ginger bruiser of a cat sitting on
the table, eyeballing Darling.

‘Kitty just wants to see what there is to eat,’ I said, and, as Darling hadn’t touched the sardines, I lured the cat off the table with them and shut it in the front room. The
kid watched, tight-lipped.

‘Dogs don’t like fish,’ said Darius, plonking a handful of dog biscuits that were way too big for Darling on the table.

I got a rolling pin and gave them a battering – the kid and Darling flinched.

‘So she can eat them,’ I said softly, wondering how come everything I did somehow ended up with me seeming like an ogre when all I was ever trying to do was HELP.

Darling crunched delicately; the kid relaxed and spooned herself another peach.

Ever worn second-hand clothes? Ever worn them and wondered who they had belonged to? We didn’t have to wonder; there was a couple dead on the bed. I decided I’d
rather stick with sequins than the clothes of a dead Mrs Farmer, but Darius didn’t exactly have much choice.