Fallout (11 page)

“I've been thinking about it, Stephanie,” he replies evenly. “Maybe I never got around to putting warm clothes down here and didn't rinse the water tank or test the radio because . . . even though I built this shelter, I never wanted to believe that this could really happen.”

“Then why build it in the first place?” Mr. Shaw asks.

Dad throws up his hands. “I was trying to plan for something completely illogical. Why don't you tell me, Steven. How do you apply logic to something that makes no sense?”

Mr. Shaw's forehead furrows. He looks at the floor and doesn't answer.

Mothers had breasts. When you got hurt, they would press the side of your head against their bosoms, which were sometimes soft and comforting, and sometimes rough if under their blouse they were wearing a bra, which was the thing women wore to hold their breasts in place. Boys and men didn't really have anything that needed to be held in place, except when you played Little League, you were supposed to wear a jock with a protective cup so that you didn't get whacked in the nuts by the ball.

“Watch this,” Ronnie said, and crossed the street to where Paula was standing beside her bike, talking to Linda. He went behind Paula, reached for the back of her shirt, pulled something underneath, and then let go. Even across the street, you could hear the snapping sound.

Paula cried out. Her bike crashed to the sidewalk, and she ran home.

Ronnie raced back toward me. “Come on!”

I jumped up and ran after him, suspecting that he'd just done something that would get him in trouble again. At least this time, I could say I had nothing to do with it.

Old Lady Lester's backyard was a good place to hide because she stayed inside all the time. Ronnie and I sat down on the grass.

“What'd you do?” I asked.

“Snapped her bra.” Ronnie grinned.

“Why?”

Ronnie stopped grinning. “That's what we're supposed to do. Girls wear bras and boys snap 'em.”

“I never heard of anyone doing that before,” I said.

“We didn't know any girls who wore bras before.”

“My mom wears a bra.”

Ronnie looked at me like I was crazy. “You can't snap your mother's bra.”

“Why not?” Not that I ever would. But I mostly wanted to hear what kind of reason Ronnie would come up with.

“You just can't.” He pulled up a clover and started to suck on it. “Know how to tell how big a woman's breasts are?”

“By looking at them?”

“By how thick their bra strap is.”

“Why can't you tell by looking at them?”

“Sometimes you can. Sometimes you can't. It depends on what they're wearing. But you can always tell by the strap. You see a strap like this”— Ronnie spread his thumb and index finger until there was about three inches between them —“and those are really big breasts.”

He paused and studied me. I stared down at the grass.

“Ever seen a breast?” he asked. “I mean, for real?”

I felt my face get hot and tugged at some hairs behind my right ear.

He gave me an astonished look. “What about your mom's?”

“She keeps them hidden.”

“What about by accident? Like walking into her bedroom when she's getting dressed?”

“We're supposed to knock.”

“Haven't you ever forgotten?”

“No.”

Ronnie smirked. “You're allowed to forget once in a while.”

“You mean . . . on purpose?” I asked, astonished.

He nodded enthusiastically. It was a shocking suggestion. Sneak into your own mother's bedroom to look at her breasts? Only someone as sick as Ronnie would think of something like that.

“You've . . . done that?” I asked.

“Of course. Every kid has.”

“I've never heard of anyone doing it.”

Ronnie harrumphed. “Just like you've never heard of snapping bras. Come on, you think Freak O' Nature or Johnny is going to tell the whole world he snuck into his mom's bedroom so he could look at her breasts?”

“Then how do you know?” I asked.

“I told you. Every kid does it. The best time is in the morning when she's getting dressed. Or on Saturday nights before she goes out. Moms always take baths and then try on lots of different clothes before they go out, so your chances are pretty good then.”

I didn't know what to say. Sneaking looks at your mother's breasts had to be wrong.

“Scott, we could all be dead tomorrow,” Ronnie said solemnly. “You want to die without ever seeing a breast?”

Mom can sit up if someone helps her. She'll drink and eat if you put water or food to her lips. Janet helps Dad take care of her. Sometimes Dad kneels in front of Mom and talks, but she just sits and stares blankly.

“Would you try?” Dad asks me.

I don't answer because I'm afraid. I'm not even sure what I'm afraid of.

“Come on, Scott,” Dad says. “And you, too, Edward.”

Sparky bites his lip and shakes his head. He's also scared.

“It's important,” Dad says. “Maybe she'll recognize you.”

Sparky takes my hand. He's never done that before. We face Mom.

“Say something,” Dad says.

“Hi, Mom,” Sparky says.

She doesn't react.

“Mom?” I say.

No response.

Sparky starts to sniff, and Dad puts his arms around him. I feel like crying, too. Now I know what I was afraid of — that she wouldn't know us, either.

Ronnie and I sit together on the bunk. Our fight is still on my mind, but most of my anger has passed. He's my best friend. Right now, he's my only friend. Maybe the only friend I'll have for the rest of my life. Before the fight, we'd never hit each other, but we'd disagreed and gotten mad plenty of times. Isn't a fistfight just more of the same?

He presses his fingertips together under his nose like a squirrel eating a nut and sniffs. Then he leans close and whispers in my ear, “Feels like jail.”

He's right, with all of us crammed into this tiny room with bare gray concrete walls. I whisper back, “But
they
get more to eat.”

Ronnie chuckles. The others frown when they see us whispering. Up till now, everyone's said what they're thinking out loud. And even though Ronnie and I are just talking kid stuff, I have a feeling we shouldn't look like we're sharing secrets.

I hate being hungry. I hate what's happened to my mother. I hate being down here in this smelly, chilly, damp, windowless room, with nothing to do. I hate that everyone has to go to the bathroom in front of everyone else and nobody has any privacy. I hate feeling sad about my friends and everyone else who was up there. I hate that this happened, and I hate whoever made it happen.

Dad says we should exercise. “We need to keep our strength up for what comes next.”

“And just what do you think comes next?” asks Mrs. Shaw.

“Rebuilding.”

Ronnie's mother rolls her eyes. “You really think life's going back to the way it used to be?”

“There won't be that much destruction outside the blast zone,” Dad replies. “I think you'll be surprised.”

Mrs. Shaw slowly shakes her head. “What are you going to do for food, Richard? Go to the store? There isn't going to be any food. The animals are dead. The farmers who raised them are dead. There'll be no electricity, no gasoline. If we don't starve, we'll freeze to death. Don't you understand? The world . . . has been destroyed.”

“Steph, the kids,” Mr. Shaw cautions.

“What difference does it make? They're going to find out soon enough,” Mrs. Shaw says scornfully.

Maybe we're supposed to understand that the grown-ups are on edge, but it's still upsetting when they argue. What's even more upsetting is suspecting that Ronnie's mom is right. I tug behind my ear and glance at Sparky, who watches and listens.

“Let me tell you how you're going to spend the rest of your life, Richard,” Mrs. Shaw goes on. “You'll be searching for whatever food hasn't been contaminated or gone bad. You'll be looking for clean water. You'll probably wind up migrating south, because without heat, the winters up here won't be survivable. And you want to know what's going to happen when you head south? You're going to run into all the other survivors who've had the same idea. Only then there'll be even less food and water to go around, and —”

“Dad!” Sparky cries out, and runs into his arms. “Is that true?”

“Things will be different from before,” Dad says, hugging him and glaring hard at Mrs. Shaw. “But right now we don't know how.”

Playing Parcheesi gets boring, so we go back to checkers. Then that gets boring, and we try Go Fish. But eventually we get to the point where we don't want to play any games at all. The boredom is bad because there's nothing to do except wonder and worry about what's going to happen next. The hunger pangs are worse, but sometimes they take my mind off the future. The bare patch behind my ear must be the size of a tennis ball, but I can't stop tugging.

Mom just sits with that blank look like a marionette with the strings cut. Sometimes I wonder if she can think but can't move her arms and legs. But she can move her eyes. Only she hardly ever does.

“I can't stand it,” Mr. McGovern says. “I need to eat something.”

“We'll never make it if we don't ration,” Dad says.

“Then maybe we shouldn't be feeding all these mouths,” says Mr. McGovern.

The words hang in the clammy air.

“What do you mean?” Dad asks.

“I think you know.”

Again there's silence, as if something serious has happened. Mrs. Shaw's eyes dart from Dad to Mr. McGovern, and it feels like it does in school when a kid does something really bad. Finally, Dad says, “I think you better watch yourself, Herb.”

But Mr. McGovern isn't finished. “You didn't come this far just to fail now, did you, Richard? If hunger forces us out of here too soon, it'll all be for naught.”

My heart begins to thump. It sounds like Mr. McGovern is suggesting that some people leave. But who?

“We could take a simple vote,” he continues. “The majority rules.”

“Over my dead body,” Dad says.

“You were more than willing to let people die so that you and your family could live. You'll still have your boys.”

He's talking about Mom!

Dad is shaking his head in disbelief. “You can't be serious, Herb.”

“I can't?” Mr. McGovern laughs bitterly. “I'm talking about survival, Richard. Isn't that what this is all about? Isn't that why you built this shelter? And in this situation, you might as well add ‘of the fittest,' because like Stephanie said, that's what it's going to be once we get out of here.”

“That's enough!”
Dad yells, and starts pacing like a tiger in a cage. My heart beats faster, and my forehead grows hot. Are they going to fight?

Mr. McGovern turns to the Shaws. “Do
you
think it's enough? It's not as if we're guests here anymore. We're all in this together, and we all have an equal say. I think Richard's right about the food. We probably don't have enough to make it until the radiation gets down to a safe level. But with two less mouths to feed, maybe we could.”

Two
less mouths? Who else is he talking about? He said Dad would still have Sparky and me, and he sure wouldn't be talking about his daughter or the Shaws. . . .
That leaves Janet.

Just a few months ago, the worst, most scary thing in life was when Dad got angry and came after me with the paddle. After that, the scariest thing was the Russians attacking. Now it's being in this bomb shelter with grown-ups arguing about who should live and die. Forget what Mrs. Shaw said about how hard life will be when we get out of here. What will happen if Mr. McGovern and the Shaws gang up on Dad? They could force Mom and Janet out, and then what would stop them from forcing Dad and Sparky and me out as well? I know Dad's stronger than either Mr. Shaw or Mr. McGovern, and I know what's in the green box on the shelf, but what if they wait until he's asleep? And they could probably make Ronnie fight me, and I'd be sure to lose.