This World We Live In (The Last Survivors, Book 3) (2 page)

April 29

I went upstairs to Mom's room to find something to read. I've read every book in my room so many times, I can open them to any page and recite it from memory. At least it feels that way.

Mom likes biographies, which don't usual y interest me, and given everything that's happened in the past year, interest me even less. Sure, Mary Queen of Scots spent most

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of her life in prison and then got her head chopped off, but compared to me she had it easy.

How much volcanic ash did she have to breathe every day?

One good thing about those biographies, though, is I haven't read them. Not al of them, not al the way through. And since I can't go to a bookstore or the library to get anything new to read, I went up to Mom's room to find something.

Mom expects us to keep our bedrooms as clean as possible, even though we're rarely in them. I noticed right away that there was no dust on the furniture or even on the books. I pul ed one off the shelf, looked to see if I'd find it even remotely interesting, decided I wouldn't, and took another one instead.

I noticed something sticking out of the third book I looked at, a piece of paper about halfway in, and pul ed it out. It was a shopping list. Mom had probably used it as a bookmark.

Milk

Romaine

OJ

WWB

Butter

Eggs

Raspberry preserves

That was it. That was the whole list, just seven items. It took me a moment to figure out that WWB

is whole-wheat bread. It's been so long since I've had any bread, let alone whole-wheat.

It's been so long since I've eaten any of those foods. So

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long since I'd even thought about raspberry preserves or butter.

I can't say staring at that list (and I couldn't take my eyes off it) made me hungry, because I'm always hungry. The food we get every week is enough to keep us going, not enough to keep us ful . And it sure didn't make me nostalgic. Oh, for the good old days when you could actual y breathe the air and put a little raspberry preserves on your whole-wheat French toast! Mary Queen of Scots probably missed French toast, assuming it was invented by then, but not me. I'm past al that.

No, it was the romaine that got me. Seeing

"romaine" in Mom's handwriting, written who knows when, made me think about who we were, who we used to be. We were a family that ate romaine.

Other families ate iceberg, or Bibb, or Boston lettuce. We ate romaine. The Evans family of Howel , PA, favored romaine.

What about other people who ate romaine and raspberry preserves? Are we the only people left on Earth who did?

Somewhere there must be a place where people are eating eggs and drinking milk. I don't know where, or how they get the food, but I bet somewhere in what's left of America, there are places with food and electricity and lots of books to read.

The president had kids. The vice president had grand-kids. Mil ionaires and senators and movie stars had families. Those kinds of people don't subsist on two cans of vegetables a day.

I wonder if they make shopping lists. I wonder if they prefer romaine.

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April 30

I hate Sundays. And this one feels even worse because it's the last Sunday in April.

Mr. Danworth brings us our bags of food on Mondays, along with a little bit of news and the sense that there are people stil living in Howel . But every Sunday, even though none of us says anything, we worry that he won't show up, that the food delivery wil have stopped, that things wil go back to where they were in the winter, with us al alone and slowly starving.

Only it would be worse now, because for a little while we've had food, so we've had reason to hope.

If I hadn't started writing in my diary again, I wouldn't realize it's the last Sunday in April. There's no reason to think things are going to change just because the calendar does, but it's one more thing to worry about. Maybe the food deliveries were going to last only through April.

I hate Sundays.

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May

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***

Chapter 2 May 1

There was no food delivery.

We spent the whole day waiting for it. Every sound we heard made one of us jump. After a while Mom gave up pretending that Jon and I were studying.

It's never light, but with it being spring, it's getting less dark later. Final y, though, we knew it was nighttime and Mr. Danworth wasn't coming.

"We're okay for a few days," Mom said. "We stil have food in the pantry. A week's worth if we're careful."

I know what "careful" means. It means we eat one meal a day and Mom stops eating altogether.

"Just because we didn't get a delivery doesn't mean there isn't any food," Matt said. "Maybe Mr.

Danworth can't use the snowmobile anymore.

Maybe they ran out of gas. I'l go to town tomorrow and see."

"You're not going alone," Mom said. "Miranda can go with you."

"Why can't I go?" Jon whined.

"Because you flunked your algebra quiz," Mom said.-It's funny. I've felt holed up here for so long, you'd

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think I'd be excited at the thought of going someplace, anyplace, even if it's just to town. But it scares me. What if there's no one there?

May 2

Mom made Matt and me eat breakfast this morning. She said she and Jon would eat later, but we al knew that meant Jon would eat and Mom would forget to.

We decided to take our bikes, riding them when we could and pul ing them along when we had to.

We used to bike into town last summer, but I stopped once I started getting scared about what I might see. Then, after the blizzard, we couldn't bike anyway.

There was pavement for most of the trip. Some places, though, the rain and the snowmelt had left a layer of ice, and we walked and skidded there. Both of us fel more than once, but neither of us broke any bones.

That's what constitutes a good trip. No broken bones.

"City Hal may not be open," I said to Matt. "I think it's only open on Fridays."

"Then we'l go back on Friday," Matt said. "If it's closed then, we'l figure out what to do."

"We'l have to leave," I said. "Maybe we should anyway. Find a school where Jon can learn algebra."

"Mom wants us to stay for as long as possible,"

Matt said.

"If there's no food, we can't stay," I said. "You're not tel ing me anything I don't already know," Matt said.

"I'm sorry," I said, even though I wasn't.

Sometimes I think Mom and Matt make al the decisions and don't care what I think.

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With the four of us cooped up in the same room together day and night, I don't know when Mom and Matt have the time to whisper conspiratorial y about my future, but I guess they stil do. They probably talk about Jon's future in algebra while they're at it.

"I don't know if I agree with Mom," Matt said, which I knew was his way of apologizing. "But if we do decide to move, we're better off waiting until summer."

Summer used to be a time of blue and yel ow and green. Now I guess it'l be less gray. It's like no broken bones. You keep your expectations low, and

"horrible" is down to "merely rotten."

"Where would we go?" I asked. "Have you and Mom talked about that?"

"Pittsburgh," Matt said. "At least for a start. That seems to be the closest place we know is stil functioning."

"Do you think there are places where things are actual y okay?" I asked. "I know it's gray everywhere and cold, but maybe there are places with food for everyone. Running water and electricity. Furnaces.

Schools and hospitals."

"And twenty-four-hour pizza delivery," Matt said.

"Think big."

"I bet there are places like that," I said. "Towns set up for politicians and rich people and celebrities."

"If there are, we don't qualify," Matt said. "But we know there are people living in Pittsburgh. If we have to, we'l resettle there."

Mom gets the Pittsburgh radio station almost every night, so we hear more about it than anyplace else. Mostly they read the lists of the dead, but they also talk about food handouts and curfews and martial law.

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And I know it's dumb, but we look awful. We're thin and no matter how often we wash, our faces, our hands, our clothes are gray. A whole city of people looking like us sounds like a horror movie.

"Do we have enough food now?" I asked. "If we can't get any more, and we have to move, say tomorrow, do we have enough food to get there?

Pittsburgh's got to be two hundred miles away."

"Three hundred," Matt said. "But we won't have much of a choice."

Suddenly al my dreams of living someplace civilized evaporated. "I don't want us to go," I said.

"We're okay where we are. At least for now. The longer we give the world time to recover, the better off things wil be when we do have to go."

Matt laughed. I couldn't tel if that meant he thought it was funny I kept changing my mind or if he thought it was funny the world would ever recover.

The road cleared up pretty good after that, and we got back on our bikes and rode the rest of the way into town. We didn't see anyone, but I was prepared for that. Most people in Howel had either left early on or died during the winter.

The City Hal door was unlocked, and when we walked in, we found Mr. Danworth. I was so relieved to see him, I almost burst out crying.

"We came to see about the food," Matt said. I could tel from his shaky voice he was near tears himself. "Is there any?"

Mr. Danworth nodded. "We're not delivering anymore," he said. "You can take your regular amount home with you today."

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"Do other people know?" I asked. "Or didn't you tel anybody?"

Mr. Danworth looked uncomfortable. "We were instructed not to tel ," he said. "Just stop the deliveries and whoever shows up gets food."

"What about the people who can't come in?" I asked. "What if they're too weak to or it's too far away?"

"It wasn't my decision," Mr. Danworth said. "And a few folks have come in. We're keeping City Hal open al week for anyone who makes the trip.

Starting next week we'l only be open on Mondays."

"How much longer wil you be getting food in?"

Matt asked. "Did they tel you?"

"I'l tel you what I know," Mr. Danworth replied. "A lot of the big cities--New York, Philadelphia, even Washington--they've been shut down. New York, I know, was hit hard by the waves. I guess the other cities weren't safe, either. But the cities were getting food deliveries until everybody got moved out.

There was some food left over, and it's being distributed to a handful of towns. It's al connections, and we were lucky that Mayor Ford has some. His wife's cousin is married to the governor. We got our share, maybe even more.

"Only now they don't want us delivering what we get. Maybe it's to save whatever gas we have left, or maybe it's to make sure only the strong get to eat.

But the letter said we could expect food for the next few weeks at least, and we'd be told when it'l stop.

If anyone didn't come in for their food, we could take that amount and give it to those people who did.

Next week maybe you'l get a little more than you've been used to."

"That's awful," I said. "You're going to let people die."

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"If it'l make you feel any better, give them your food," Mr. Danworth said. "I don't know anyone else alive on Howel Bridge Road, but there are other places around town you could go."

"We'l take our food," Matt said. "There are four of us. We didn't al have to come in for it, did we?"

"No," Mr. Danworth said. "One representative per family. Your bags are right here."

We took them.

"I don't like this, either," Mr. Danworth said. "It gave me pleasure to see people's faces light up when I'd bring them their food. But it's the government. It makes the rules, and we have to fol ow them."

"We're lucky to have what we get," Matt said.

"And we appreciate your keeping City Hal open this week."

"Maybe things'l get better," Mr. Danworth said.

"Al the rain. That's got to mean something."

"Let's hope so," Matt said. "Come on, Miranda."

I carried out two of the bags while Matt carried the others.

"People are going to die," I said as we loaded the bags onto the bikes. "Isn't there something we can do?"

Matt shook his head. "I think you're worrying about nothing," he said. "The only ones left are strong enough to get to town. The sick, the elderly, they've either moved on or died. Take Mrs. Nesbitt. She was in great health before al this, but she couldn't survive."

"So it's only people like us," I said. "Young and healthy."

"Probably," Matt said. "Survival of the fittest. And the luckiest."

It's so hard to think that, with everything terrible that's happened, we're the lucky ones.

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But we have food and we have shelter and we have family. So along with no broken bones and less gray skies, I guess that means we are.

May 4

We had four hours of electricity today, smack in the middle of the afternoon. It's the longest stretch of electricity I can remember and certainly the best timed.

Mom and I threw rainwater into the washing machine and washed al the sheets, then shirts and slacks, and final y underwear. The dryer stayed on long enough to dry everything except the underwear, which we hung on the sunroom clothesline. There was a time I would have found that embarrassing, but now I'm used to it.

We're running low on laundry detergent, though.

We're running low on lots of things like that: toothpaste and tissues and shampoo. Now that I know we're going to have food a little while longer, I get to worry about not enough soap.

Since the mattresses were stripped, Matt and Jon piled them up and Matt washed the sunroom floor.

Then, to push my luck, I asked if we could take the plywood off the sunroom windows. Matt put it up when the temperature plummeted, and it may not be al that warm outside, but it isn't below zero al the time.