The Rain (33 page)

I hesitated, then I tooted. I don’t know whether he would have heard. He didn’t stop.

Some way past the Chippenham turn-off I saw another car gaining on us from behind. This one didn’t zoom past; it came up steadily.

‘Look,’ I said.

‘At what?’ said Darius.

‘That car. Behind us.’

He turned.

‘Hn,’ he said, sitting back round.

Hn?!
We were being followed! I glanced at Darius. Another penny dropped with a massive clunk.

‘Where are your glasses?’ I asked.

‘Polytunnel,’ he said.

‘Oh my
. Can you actually see anything?’

‘A bit. Not much. Look – I can see things close up. I can see you, all right, so stop pulling that face. It’s not my fault, is it?’

‘I Spy!’ I squealed. ‘No wonder you didn’t want to play I Spy!’

‘Nothing I can do about it, is there? I can’t just walk into an optician’s and get a new pair, can I?’

‘
Can’t you?
’

‘No! They’re
prescription
glasses.’

‘What? Are your
eyes
sick too?’

‘No! It just means you need someone who knows what they’re doing – just like
you
and your braces!’

Tchuh! No wonder he wanted to stay at that farm! He’d have made us all hang around there until he got the guts to go back into that polytunnel and get them! No wonder he wanted to hang
around in Bristol! If he was as blind as a bat he could hardly roam around, could he? But he had, hadn’t he? He’d roamed around with me! He’d put ME in danger!

‘Get the crowbar,’ I said.

‘Ru—’

‘Just get it.’

Darius sighed and took off his seat belt.

‘Don’t crash,’ he said to me as he clambered into the back.

‘Yeah, and don’t call me Ru. Do NOT call me Ru.’ I said. ‘Not ever.’

Uh. I realised he had to be rummaging through a ton of my knickers to find that crowbar. I had no time to be mortified. That car grew larger in my rear-view. Darius clambered back, brandishing
the crowbar.

‘Don’t let them see it,’ I said . . . Then, ‘No, do.’

That car, it came right up behind us. Then it split right to overtake . . . but they didn’t overtake; they came up alongside.

, I thought.
!

Darius leaned across me – he squinted, then he waved. I looked over . . . There was a family in that car: a mum; a dad driving; two kids in the back, a girl, a boy . . . all of them waving
like crazy – and smiling. Smiling!

‘Toot the horn!’ said Darius. ‘Toot it!’

I tooted.

‘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 mum did, and then the dad. You could see the kids in the back, unbuckled and leaning over the back seats to see us.

‘Stay here,’ I said.

Me, I got out and sauntered to the front of the car like one of Dan’s car-jacker 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 mum 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 motorway – but somehow my voice came out like that.

I have come to realise . . . that when I get stressed, I get shouty. I was like that before all this happened, a bit, 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 at Salisbury?’ asked Darius.

‘There are big army bases there,’ explained the mum. ‘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 mum 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. It’ll be signposted.’

‘Your dad might be there already,’ said the mum. ‘It’s where everyone will go.’

‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘He’d have come for me first.’

The dad nodded. A bit 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 mum.

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 mum, shaking Darius’s hand next, while the dad, Mike, shook mine. ‘That’s unusual,’ she said. She turned towards 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 any more. I knew that kid needed that dog more than I did. And I needed Darling a lot.

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

The mum 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 mum, ‘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 chuck it
down; the other just looks like it might.

‘Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?’ the mum 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 mum and dad and kids stayed in front. Me and Darius, we didn’t speak until I turned round 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 mum 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 motorway. They were zooming, flashed their lights, tooted and slowed up . . . but we had already passed. I didn’t stop and back up;
the mum 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 round in shock – the car swerved – the kid was
pointing. I looked. On a bridge over the motorway, 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’s 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-onesies 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.