The Rain (40 page)

So, the
Ruby Morris Summary
of this one would be:

It wasn’t as simple as people being old or disabled or having screaming kids, for example. Plenty of people who were old or disabled or who had screaming kids hadn’t been put on the
coach and dumped. And plenty of people who weren’t any of those things had been put on that coach (like me). What we all had in common – and this is the horrible bit – was we had
no skill that the army wanted; we weren’t even the daughters or the sons or the husbands or the wives or the grandmas or the grandpas of people with skills that the army wanted. Or the
fiancées.

Oh yeah, I got that bit. I swerved about when I did. Then I composed myself.

Sounds outrageous, doesn’t it? But you couldn’t argue with it. (Sagal and me, we did try: ‘Yes but,’ we said. ‘Yes but.’) Yes but . . . I’d spent so
long waiting in that hangar I practically knew the whole life stories of the people who’d shuffled back and forth around me. A blind man who spoke Russian; a nasty, shouty man who was an
electrician and his nasty, shouty wife and nasty, shouty kids; this weeping and wailing woman who was a chemistry teacher. None of them were on that coach, were they?

Nerd Boy. They’d definitely have wanted to keep Nerd Boy. If they’d had any sense, they would have wanted to keep Saskia too – not even just because she was pretty darn bright,
which she was – but because she had a skill I was starting to realise was essential in this new world. She was . . .
devious
, that’s the word. She was a human
polyextremophile.

Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.
That doesn’t leave much, does it, Saskia Miller?

Sagal was just a schoolgirl, year below me. Know what she was good at? Cookery! Her dad was a community worker of some sort. Know what he was good at? Talking to people . . . in Somali! Margaret
was just a nice old lady who said she didn’t get out much, but seemed to get out and do more than I did, and Peter said he liked techno music and swimming.

We were not worth saving. We were no use to anyone. We were useless.

I said something pretty bad about the army that Sagal didn’t translate.

‘It won’t be their fault, love,’ said Margaret. ‘They’ll just be doing what they’ve been told. It’ll be that
man’s fault. I wish I’d never voted for him. I’ll not be doing it again. I only hope the Queen’s all right.’

Once we’d hit a main road it was OK getting to Salisbury (THE-CITY-OF-SALISBURY), just the usual avoiding smashed-up and abandoned cars, dead bodies, that kind of thing.
Yes, the driving was OK; I was not. Once I’d realised what Sagal’s dad was saying was true I pretended I had to really concentrate on what I was doing so I didn’t have to speak.
My head felt in as much of a mess as the sky: raggedy thoughts forming, changing, swirling about, bumping into other thoughts, getting mixed up with each other; new thoughts splitting off, puffing
up, turning darker and darker. Thoughts infested with wriggly little space bugs, tentacles waving.

I didn’t know how I’d find the cathedral when we got there. I didn’t need to know. On the outskirts of the city there were signs. Signs saying ‘Welcome’. Signs
written on bedsheets like people do for crummy village fetes . . . then a trail of balloons to follow. Bunches of balloons tied to lamp posts. This way to the party!

Sagal’s dad started singing, not loud, party singing, but some soft warbling song that sounded so sad I was glad I couldn’t understand the words to it.

‘That’s lovely, that is,’ said Margaret. She caught the tune and hummed along a little. Peter added some pretty impressive beatboxing.

Sagal rolled her eyes at me, giggling, but you could tell she was excited too.

‘That way, Ruby!’ she shouted every time she saw another bunch of balloons. ‘Over there!’

That was how we found our way to the giant car park that surrounded Salisbury Cathedral. Basically, it was like how a shopping mall is just before Christmas. A sea of cars packed around it. Only
it’s enormous, Salisbury Cathedral, isn’t it? It’s taller than any shopping mall (but with less stuff to buy). Light – lovely electric light – shone out from huge
windows.

‘Stop!’ yelled Sagal’s dad as Peter stepped straight out of the car.

I peered out through the windows. I got out too. I waved my hand up at the sky: a raggedy mess of sunset orange and black clouds, above us one small gap in which the sky looked an unpleasant
shade of green. (Like . . . you know.)

Truth? I hadn’t known for sure that it would be OK when I stepped out.

‘It’s OK,’ I shouted. ‘It’s OK.’

Now, see, what you must have realised and what I didn’t even get was that as well as the mess in my head, I was whacked out from tiredness and half nuts from thirst.

‘It’s OK!’ I shouted.
I
really wasn’t.

I don’t want to make a habit out of fainting. Before the whole global melt-down end-of-the-world thing I hadn’t fainted once, not in my entire life – and
there had been plenty of times when I could have (kissing Caspar McCloud, for example). I didn’t faint outside that cathedral, not exactly. I just went really weird and dizzy. Sagal’s
dad got the wheelchair out, shoved Sagal in it and shoved me on top of her and bumped us along between cars and across grass to the doors of the cathedral.

Some lady shoved a bottle of water into my hands.

The next thing I can truly say that I clearly remember was me sitting in a pew, looking at the great ribby stone bones of the ceiling, having some mad thought that I’d been swallowed by a
great ribby stone beast, and then realising I hadn’t and that Sagal was next to me in her wheelchair holding my hand while someplace nearby this candlelit choir of the useless droned out
‘Amazing Grace’.

There were groups of people dotted about all over the place, talking, sorting stuff, ladies taking down names, people handing out survival goodie bags, people handing out blankets, people
handing out maps of the city.

People consoling people.

And I do mean ‘people’. This looked like no kind of church I’d ever been in. EVERY kind of person was there.

Sagal’s dad was deep in (heated, translated) conversation with another bloke, who looked a bit like him, and a woman in a headscarf and a Christiany churchy-looking man and some random
hoodies – one of whom lit up a cigarette and puffed on it until this stressed-looking mother with a baby on her hip told him to PUT IT OUT. He put it out.

Sagal handed me another bottle of water. I glugged it down.

‘What are they going on about?’ I asked

‘Stuff,’ said Sagal. ‘Why this happened, that kind of thing.’

‘It doesn’t matter why it happened,’ I said.

I wanna go home, I thought. I wanna go home.

That’s what I thought.

Like, really, this place was nothing like the army place. No one was hassling anyone with tricky questions; anyone who arrived was given food and water. (Peter, who ‘arrived’ twice,
scored double rations.) But to me, even though I felt like it shouldn’t do, the whole thing sucked. No – not that. It was all really lovely and everything (although I did wonder why
they couldn’t have picked somewhere more cosy) . . . but really:

‘Oh
! He’s so embarrassing!’ whispered Sagal, rolling her eyes about her dad.

‘At least he’s here,’ I said, getting to my feet. I swayed for a second.

‘Oh! Sorry! I didn’t mean . . .’ said Sagal. She smiled sadly at me and pushed another bottle of water and the kind of wholewheat snackbar Darius would adore into my hands.

I chomped; I drank. I looked at the bottle, half the water left. I listened to the singing. Hymns, they always sound bad, don’t they? They always sound . . . so drony. My dad says that. He
works in the music industry – which sounds really cool, but he hates his job. He always says how he’s just a ‘glorified accountant’ and stuff, but he knows about music.
I’m useless at it, but even I can tell when something sounds bad. My dad? He wouldn’t have stayed in that cathedral for a second. Not with that racket.

‘I’m going home,’ I said.

‘Abo! Abo!’ I heard Sagal shouting as I walked out down the aisle.

They caught me at the doors. Literally: Sagal grabbed hold of my dress.

‘Ruby! Please! Don’t go!’ she said.

Please don’t leave me.

Her father, he looked at me.

‘Where will you go?’ he said in English.

‘Home,’ I said. ‘
You speak English?!
’

‘Of course,’ he said.

‘He just doesn’t like to because he thinks he’s not very good at it,’ Sagal said. ‘That’s how people are; if you don’t speak perfectly they think
you’re stupid.’

‘Like me,’ I said.

Sagal’s father gabbled something else, then he took hold of his daughter’s hand and made her let go of my dress.

‘He says no. He says anyone can see you’re not stupid,’ said Sagal. She giggled, a little shyly. She looked unsure. ‘He says . . . you just look like trouble.’

That dad, he smiled at me. It was a nice smile. A dad’s smile.

I walked out, straight out, into the crazy-skied night.

‘He says,’ Sagal shouted from the door of the cathedral, ‘that your father would be very proud of you.’

I had no map. I guessed. I zigzagged; I went wrong.

I had to ditch the car and get another one.

I got out at Stonehenge. Time before the rain you couldn’t even touch those stones. I was in a big starry patch of sky, so I went for it. I smashed into the gift shop and I swigged my
drink and snacked on crisps sitting right on top of one of them.

Imaginary snap No. 2. Selfie, with stones.

I went wrong again; I went right again. I ditched my car again. I found another one. It was not like the MG journey from hell. I was not frantic to get where I was going, I was
just going there. I was just going home.

Even when dawn came and the rain started I didn’t panic. When I finally got to our house, it was pouring. Nimbostratus.

Welcome home, Ruby. Welcome home.

That’s what the rain said.

Why, thank you
, I said, and I lay down on the back seat of the car and I went to sleep.

Short and oh so sweet.

Later that day, when the rain stopped, I didn’t have to break into my own house because someone who knew where the Ruby Emergency Key was had left the front door open. Not
open
open, but open.

The house stank.

There, scrawled on the kitchen wall in marker pen that would never, ever, come off was a message from my dad.

Dan had drawn a little smiley face after his name, and they both had left a trail of kisses.

That was nearly three weeks ago.

My dad didn’t come that day, and he didn’t come the next day, or the day after that. My dad hasn’t come yet, but he will.

To start with, I didn’t want to leave the house again, not ever, because I was convinced my dad would turn up at any second. Even the first time, later that day, when I
had to go to the Fitches to look for something to drink, I left a note. I also left the window open because of the smell and when I got back the note had blown off the table, so now – every
time I leave the house – I write where I am going, what time I am going, when I will be back and WHAT DATE IT IS on the wall.

My dad, he never did that, did he? There was no date on the wall.

Meantime, because I’ve got no one to talk to, I started writing this. I didn’t think I’d get this far, but there you go.

I was going to call this
The Disaster Diary of Ruby Morris
, but that sounds too cute. It’s just not that kind of story, is it? I think I’ll just call it
THE RAIN
. I always did hate the rain, even before it turned into a killer. And
THE RAIN
sounds so much more Hollywood, doncha think?