The Rain (28 page)

‘Can I get some privacy here?’ he said, pulling clothes out of their wardrobe.

There was no reason to go poking about; I was just looking for the bathroom to see if I could find something for Darius’s pits. I opened a door.

She was lying on the bed. Her room was just like mine. Same mess of stuff she probably got told off for every day. Clothes jumbled on the floor with her revision: same books, same exams coming
up. Same mess of make-up scattered all over the dressing table. Same wall plastered with photos of her and her friends . . . I wondered which boy she had liked. I decided it had probably been the
dark-haired one.

I wondered if she had died before her parents, and had her mum to comfort her, or whether she’d died alone.

I felt cold then, shivery. I looked in her wardrobe. I took one of her cardigans because I had to; I took a T-shirt for a Princess dress.

‘Thanks,’ I said to her. I wanted to do something for her.

It takes a girl to know a girl. I picked out what I knew would be her best dress – this gorgeous lacy white frock she’d probably had to beg to be allowed. I took it off the hanger. I
held it by the straps and, careful not to touch her, I laid it on her body.

‘That’s a great dress,’ I said. ‘You look really pretty.’

When I came out of the room, Darius, in jeans, was coming out of the bathroom, spraying stuff into his pits.

‘Are you OK?’ he asked as he ditched the empty can of man-spray and pulled on a checked shirt.

Before I could have some weird random thought about him looking not too repulsive, really, considering, I blanked it by staring at his dead man’s socks. I felt it again, that I really,
really wanted to talk. It just wasn’t the time.

‘Here,’ I said, chucking the T-shirt at him. ‘You’d better give this to her.’

‘I’ll get your skirt,’ he said.

‘I don’t want it.’

‘Ruby?’ said Darius. ‘
Are
you OK?’

Shut up, shut up, shut up, I thought. I didn’t know whether I meant him or me.

‘Don’t go in there,’ I said, closing the door to her room.

Apart from there being nothing much but the syrup from tinned fruit to drink, the house was good to us. Very good. It sounds awful – well, it would have sounded awful to
the me that used to be me – but they had a big old stove like Zak’s parents had, only even older, and it was still on, so we made a massive pile of scrambled eggs and sat and ate them
in the stinking house of dead people. It was the first hot food I’d eaten since . . . that stew Simon had made. Which was . . .

‘How long has it been?’ I said out loud.

Darius didn’t ask what I meant.

‘Six days,’ he said.

After breakfast, we got busy. First we rowed. Darius, dead-man’s sock feet shoved in wellies, wanted us all to get togged up in bin-bag armour and I refused. I had to
stand in the yard and shout about how blue the sky was (it was!) before he’d listen. Then I got on with things. I checked the truck, ignoring Whitby’s boomy barks (he wanted out) and
the cows’ mooing (I guess they wanted out too). I started it up: over half a tank of petrol . . . I didn’t know how far that would take us, but anywhere out of there was good enough. We
raided the house for everything that was useful – and I mean everything: food, waterproofs, more wellies, bin bags, tape, blankets. Tools, a whole bag of them, but no pointless electric
stuff.

Crazy, really. I thought I’d never get us stuck like that again with no petrol, and, the way things were, it seemed like we could pretty much go into any house or any shop and get what we
needed. It was just that . . . there’s this fear thing, isn’t there? Every time you go in some place, the fear that there might be someone, anyone there . . . and the other fear, which
is really more a fear of yourself, that you are going to see something, yet another something, that will upset you.
May Meltdown
. So it’s easier – isn’t it? – to
stock up.

‘We should let them out,’ I said to Darius, looking at the shouty cows.

‘Hn,’ he said.

‘Well, we should, shouldn’t we? It’s not like any of them are gonna be murderers, is it?’

‘Cows kill more people than sharks,’ he said.

‘Keep out of the way, then, if you’re scared.’

‘I’m not scared; I’m just saying.’

I was scared too, but another thing I’d learned on Simon’s country walks was how to deal with cows. Mostly they won’t come near you anyway, so you should just ignore them and
not crowd them . . . but if they’re frisky or curious, you need to show them who’s boss. You need to act big and stern and noisy. And if you’re really worried you should get a
branch or a nice chunky stick. I got a mop from the house.

Darius brought the kid out to see. (The kid in her new Princess T-shirt dress that was a hundred sizes too big and a pair of wellies that were a hundred sizes too big.) That surprised me –
like, why would he do that? – and it annoyed me – like, are they just going to stand there and watch me mess it up? Afterwards I thought maybe he did it so’s she could learn
something: either that cows could turn nasty and were best avoided (‘See how they’re trampling Ruby?’) or a thing about handling animals (‘See how Ruby nearly got
trampled?’) . . . in both cases, it was not a great lesson.

As I walked towards the barn, the cows came barging forward. When I got right to the gate they backed up a bit, jostling each other, nervous. I eyed up my escape route, unbolted the gate, swung
it open and clambered up on to the fence. The cows did barge out, but in a fairly orderly manner – not quite single file, but almost. They were mooing with delight and pretty darn speedy for
plodders. What I hadn’t really thought about was where they would go, but they seemed to know exactly where they were headed. They all turned right and disappeared up a muddy track. Darius
and the kid came to see. We walked up the side of the barn and watched the cows speed-plod into a field, fanning out to gorge on the grass.

There was another thing I hadn’t thought about; they weren’t lady cows, milking cows, they were boy cows. Young boys. I know two (Simon) things about them: 1) a lady cow will just
come get you if she thinks you’re messing with her calf, but if her calf has gone she’s probably going to be OK; but boy cows – young boy cows – like to hassle people, for
fun . . . and 2) boy cows are only kept for meat.

So they’d been double saved, hadn’t they? No starving to death in a barn and no one-way trip to Burgersville either.

The kid climbed up on the fence to get a better look.

‘Now they’re happy,’ I beamed. ‘Lovely fresh grass!’

Princess ignored me, but I knew she’d heard. Some random horrible thought about what it was they were chomping
on
bubbled up in my head: how wet the grass might be, whether . . .
if that
thing
was in the rain and the grass drank up the rain and the cows ate the grass. Hey, I was veggie, what did I care? But lady cows . . . what about milk and – cheese?! Was
there going to be no more CHEESE?! I popped the thought and carried on beaming. I even smiled nicely at the Spratt.

‘We could just stay here,’ said Darius.

Huh?
Instant frown.

‘We’d have to go and get some stuff to drink, get some more food, but then we could come back and hang out here– just for a few weeks or something . . . until we work out what
to do . . .’

‘I
know
what I’m doing!’ I said.

‘No you don’t. I mean, you don’t seriously think your dad’s still going to be alive, do you?’

I have only driven a truck that one time; it was old and more clapped out than my dad’s jalopy. It rattled your bones, it crawled along, it guzzled petrol and NO WAY
would it have kept the rain out, not for one second. There was moss growing in the little grooves where the windows should have slid open; now you couldn’t even slide them closed.

Oh, and it was really noisy. That was FINE, because basically I didn’t want to speak to Darius Spratt EVER AGAIN.

He didn’t even apologise. OK, the words ‘I’m sorry’ came out of his mouth, but they were followed by the words ‘but it’s pretty unlikely he’s alive,
isn’t it?’.

Kid or no kid, I went NUTS. I shouted so loud the cows got spooked and ran across the field. I said every nasty thing to him I could think of. I ranted and raved and stomped about. I think you
could summarise what I had to say as ‘
HOW DARE YOU?!
’, and I think you could summarise what Darius Spratt had to say as ‘I’m just trying to be realistic’
– which apparently involves not caring ONE BIT what anyone else feels.

It should have ended with me getting into the truck and driving off. That’s what I felt like doing. It ended with me getting into the truck and starting up and just sitting there.

Please don’t leave me!

Over the clatter of the engine I couldn’t hear what Darius was saying to Princess, but I had a bad feeling it was basically going to be her decision, whether they stayed or came with me.
And as far as that kid was concerned I was Rumpelstiltskin, wasn’t I? Not my lovely made-up version, but the shouty, horrible real thing. If they decided to stay, I’d take Darling off
her – that’s what I thought. Hey, I could even threaten to take Darling off her unless they got in the truck. I thought that too. I reckon I would have done it, I was that stewed up,
when the kid suddenly made this funny little shruggy gesture and trailed towards the truck . . . but not towards the passenger door. Apparently I was too awful to sit next to. Apparently I was
worse than the memory of a car crash. Apparently I was now more revolting than death-breath Whitby, whose rear end was already letting us know that the leftover scrambled eggs didn’t really
agree with him.

We rattled on in silence for a while. Every time I accidentally glanced at the Spratt, he was frowning. Seemed as if he was deep in thought about something; how sorry he was,
that’s what it should have been.

‘NOUGHT POINT TWENTY-SEVEN PER CENT,’ shouted Darius.

‘PARDON?’ I shouted back.

‘SAY THE POPULATION OF DARTBRIDGE IS APPROXIMATELY TEN THOUSAND. I MEAN, IT CAN’T BE THAT MANY, BUT IF YOU INCLUDED THE CLOSEST VILLAGES IT PROBABLY IS. SAY THERE WERE TWO PRISONERS
ALIVE IN EACH CELL, PLUS US . . . THAT’S TWENTY-SEVEN. TWENTY-SEVEN PEOPLE LEFT MEANS NOUGHT POINT TWENTY-SEVEN PER CENT SURVIVED.’

I drove, I just drove. I was just a girl, out for a drive, on a lovely sunny day.

‘SAY THE UK POPULATION IS SIXTY-THREE MILLION,’ bellowed Darius, ‘THAT MEANS . . . THERE’S APPROXIMATELY . . .’

An age went by. Like I say, I was just a girl, out for a drive, on a lovely sunny day.

‘ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY THOUSAND AND ONE HUNDRED PEOPLE LEFT,’ shouted Darius triumphantly.

I gripped the steering wheel.

‘DOES THAT SEEM ABOUT RIGHT TO YOU?’

‘WHATEVER,’ I shouted.

‘NO, BUT DOES IT?’

‘NO! ACTUALLY, NO! YOU DON’T KNOW. THERE COULD BE TONS OF PEOPLE. THEY COULD BE HIDING. THERE WAS A BLOKE AT THE SUPERMARKET AND THERE WAS BLOKE AT THE PUB.’

I saw Darius open his trap.

‘AND I THINK SASKIA MIGHT STILL BE ALIVE,’ I shouted.

And Caspar – and Caspar – and Caspar, I thought. I didn’t speak it. I couldn’t bear to have to tell about that, to hear what Darius thought.

‘
SASKIA MILLER?
’ he shouted.

‘YOU KNOW HER?!’

Like, really, was he some kind of sixth-form perv? How come he knew all our names?

‘WELL, YEAH!’

I glanced at him. He smirked. Revolting. Apparently, like every other boy in the school, Darius Spratt fancied her.

‘AND THERE WAS A BLOKE WHO
MURDERED
MY STEPDAD,’ I shouted, to shut him up.

It didn’t work. There was this intense waft of stink, which could have been Whitby’s bottom or could have been Darius Spratt blowing off from the strain of calculating.

‘A HUNDRED AND NINETY-FIVE THOUSAND, THREE HUNDRED!’ he shouted.

‘WHY DON’T YOU SHUT UP?’

‘I’M JUST SAYING.’

‘
SHUUUUUUT UUUUUUP!
’

Please, my heart thought, please don’t say another word I can’t bear to hear.

I knew we needed to turn off and find another car. Though I hated the thought that this might involve speaking to Darius, it’d have to be done. No way was there enough
fuel in the truck to get us much further.

I was so busy thinking about how awful it was going to be, having to speak to him, that I missed the first turn-off. I could have turned round and gone back, but I couldn’t bring myself to
do that, to admit I’d made a mistake. I was bristling about that so much we rattled past the next turn-off. That’s when Darius spoke up.

‘RUBY,’ he shouted.

‘I KNOW!’ I shouted.

He was quiet for a moment.

‘I NEED TO GO TO A CHEMIST’S,’ he shouted.

‘
WHAT?!
’

‘A CHEMIST’S.’

‘WHAT FOR?’

Even as I said it I knew. It wasn’t just Darius’s trousers that had got left in the polytunnel, it was that stash of medicine he’d had in his bag.

‘I NEED TABLETS,’ he shouted.

‘ARE YOU GONNA HAVE AN EPILEPTIC FIT?!’ I shouted, panicked.

‘NO.’

I glanced at him; he was crimson.

‘I JUST NEED THEM. THAT’S ALL.’

‘WHAT DO I DO IF YOU HAVE A FIT?’

‘I’M NOT GOING TO HAVE A FIT.’

‘YEAH, BUT WHAT IF YOU DO?’

‘I’M NOT. I JUST NEED TABLETS.’

So: the epilepsy thing was a total no-go sore spot, discussion-wise. Hello, Darius Spratt! Just like my dad’s chances of being alive! I felt like pointing that out. Only thing that stopped
me was that if I pointed that out he’d probably end up saying again that my dad was DEAD. So I shut up . . . but I was boiling mad – and pretty scared that Nerd Boy would have some kind
of fit on me.

Great, eh? But wait! It gets even better!

When we got to the suspension bridge in Bristol, the barrier was down. Being smart like I am, I backed up and drove across in the other lane. Not so smart; the barrier at the
other end was down and I guess someone else had tried to leave through the incoming lane because they were still stuck there. Lovely choice: I could either reverse right back across the bridge or
attempt to turn round.