‘STOP!’ STOP!’ I yelled, chasing after that coach.
Amazingly, they did stop.
Look charming, look contrite, look . . . desperate. That’s how I felt: desperate.
‘Please!’ I said, grabbing at the open door. ‘There’s been a mistake!’
I didn’t know what the mistake was, but I knew there must have been one. (And not mine, surely!)
That soldier, that SIT-DOWN! soldier, he came down to that door and he looked at me; I looked at him. I thought I saw a flicker of something human in his eye. Something human, but maybe only some flicker of shame. And so he should be ashamed, for what he was doing.
‘Go to Salisbury,’ he whispered.
Was that supposed to be some kind of joke?!
‘I’VE-JUST-BEEN-THERE,’ I hissed. Maximum cobra-strike sarcasm.
I’ll remember you, I thought, staring him straight in the eyes. I’ll remember you.
‘To the cathedral?’ he whispered, like I was stupid or something.
I felt like I was stupid or something. ‘What?!’ I said.
‘GO-TO-SALISBURY-CATHEDRAL-IN-THE-CITY-OF-SALISBURY,’ he said.
HE-DEFINITELY-THOUGHT . . . I was some kind of an idiot.
And then they shut the doors. And then they drove off. Yeah, they left us.
CHAPTER THIRTY
I would have just gone straight home; I wanted to just go straight home.
There was this really ugly few minutes when everyone who’d been chucked off the coach stood in the middle of that pretty little village and raged. That wasn’t the ugly bit; the ugly bit was when people realised there was no point raging. Then people just split. Some went for houses, some for cars; some teamed up and some headed off alone. A kind bloke helped the woman with the bawling kid. The rude woman, amazingly, went off with this frail old lady – but probably only because she seemed to be deaf and could put up with the rudeness. That left me, some bloke with Down’s syndrome (like Ronnie’s brother had), another old lady, the wheelchair girl and her dad standing on the pavement.
I split.
Ten minutes later I was back with a car. Think that’s because I’m a nice person? It’s not. I’m the kind of person who leaves a hamster in a car, who forgets to feed guinea pigs – every day, for two years. Why I went back wasn’t really because I couldn’t ignore them (like I’d ignored Melissa, the Girl Guide girl). It wasn’t even that the thought of those people left there would chew deep into – and feast upon! – the massive guilt I already felt about a whole load of things I couldn’t even exactly name because I couldn’t even exactly think about them (like Melissa). Those people left on the pavement, they probably would have been OK. I’m sure they would. Why I went back, really, was because some creepy bloke from the coach who said he was an artist had been following me about, trying to get me to go with him.
‘Safety in numbers’, that’s what I thought, as I hammered on the horn to summon my new passengers.
That wheelchair girl, she smiled when she saw me; her face lit up and she grinned at me like I was her best mate.
Please, please DON’T, I thought.
‘Hello! I’m Sagal!’ she said, beaming at me as her dad helped her into the passenger seat.
‘I’m Ruby,’ I said in a dead voice.
The dad, who had climbed into the back with the others, asked Sagal a question; she said ‘Ruby’ and he gabbled on again. The only word I understood was when he repeated my name.
‘Abo – my dad says to say thank you and to tell you that you are not useless after all,’ said Sagal.
Whoa. From somewhere deep inside me the spirit of yee-haa arose.
‘YOU WHAT?!’ I said.
Before I could stop her, Sagal translated that.
It seemed to be an accurate translation – even the tone of her voice and the steely gaze matched – and her dad, looking fairly cross, launched into a long speech.
She grinned apologetically at me as her dad banged on.
‘Does he want to drive?’ I whispered.
‘He’d love to, but he has no UK licence,’ she whispered back. ‘It’s against the law.’
Oh, for crying out loud . . .
It’s international, I guess, cross parents banging on. What’s less widespread as far as I know is us actually bothering to listen. Even though Sagal had to translate, she asked questions too; we both did. You kind of didn’t want to believe it, and at the same time . . . you totally could. And you weren’t really allowed not to, because everything the dad said, the old lady (Margaret) agreed with. Even the guy with Down’s syndrome – his name was Peter – agreed: ‘Listen to what you’re told, Ruby!’ he said to me.
(And how the had Peter ever made it to the army place on his own?)
(And ! I hate that I can even remember these people’s names! I hate that.)
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. Bun
ches 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:
1. It reminded me in some weird way of the school fete. Like any minute now I’d get told I had to make fairy cakes or sign up for a turn running the tombola. (Not good!)
2. What I had felt when I first saw the army men? About ‘Was this how the world was going to be?’ . . . I kind of felt that again. (Not good!)
‘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.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
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.
RUBY – WHERE ARE YOU?! WE ARE GOING TO GET GRANDMA. STAY HERE! BACK SOON!
LOVE DAD AND DAN
Dan had drawn a little smiley face after his name, and they both had left a trail of kisses.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
That was nearly three weeks ago.
My dad di
dn’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?
Can’t you just see the trailer? Can’t you just hear that bloke’s growly voice . . . as my face (deadpan, but pouty) stares out of the window at:
THE RAIN
It’s drippy. It’s deadly.
Then, to dramatic music, we have a fast montage of everything that’s happened (cutting out the Darius bits). We end with me giving my dad – who’s weeping with joy at the sight of me – a hug and a gentle ticking-off about time-keeping issues. I ruffle my grinning brother’s mop-top of hair – and he has to let me because he’s so happy to see me. Then I turn and passionately snog Caspar. Who did (somehow) survive.
I’ve got the perfect dress; I’ve got the perfect Diana shoes. There is no longer even the tiniest hint of orange on my face. My hair has gone a bit weird and brittle, but it is an excellent jet black . . . and I’ve swapped that runny mascara for one that definitely stays put no matter how much you sob. (I’ve tested it.) I’m premiere good-to-go!
The Rain Page 27