Meantime, there’s reality.
I found this book next-door-but-one’s kids had, all about clouds. This, I am studying. It seems simple when you look at the pictures; when you step outside, it’s tough to spot what’s what. I am getting better at it. I have to get better at it.
And that’s about it, really.
I know! Just to check whether you’ve been paying attention, like I would listen to your story . . . if I ever met you . . . I’ll set you an essay question . . . like: ‘In what ways should Ruby have behaved differently? Discuss . . .’ or, ‘In what ways will everything now turn out OK? Discuss . . .’
OK, scrap that. I’m just kidding! (I don’t want to think about ANY of that.)
Let’s have a multiple choice instead. I love multiple choice! You don’t even have to know the answer to stand a chance of getting it right.
QUESTION: When should you give up hope?
A) Now. Immediately. We’re all doomed.
B) Give it another couple of weeks.
C) Never.
I suppose there might be an option D) – but if there is, I can’t think of it.
Mum, I am still breathing.
I am Ruby Morris. This is my story. Any day now, my dad will come.
Also, although I’d rather die than . . . although I basically never want to see him again as long as I live, Darius Spratt has got a ton of my stuff. Including my mobile phone.
Endnote
1 With some exceptions.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank:
My family
Rachel Petty and the team at Macmillan Children’s Books
Also thanks to:
Jackie Pridham, for being truly wonderful Hilary Hunt, for being Hilary Hunt Louise Lamont, for being my agent Donovan Hawley, for trying to be sensible. Sometimes Gary Sugden, for reading and thinking and being honest Erik Tarloff, for putting up with me A. D. Cooper, likewise
And Helen Summers, for knowing and for waiting
Thank you to Dr Matthew Avison (University of Bristol) and Dr Helen Smalley, for kindly giving excellent scientific advice, which I tried to heed as much as I could.
Sorry about the made-up bits
Also to Brendan Boyce, for explaining the finer points of mass civil unrest
The Guide Law reproduced by kind permission of Girlguiding
Finally, thanks to my consultants:
Ruby T., Stan, Aidan and Luke
LOOK OUT FOR THE EXCITING SEQUEL TO THE RAIN:
THE STORM
COMING SOON!
FRANCES HARDINGE
The first things to shift were the doll’s eyes, the beautiful grey-green glass eyes. Slowly they swivelled, until their gaze was resting on Triss’s face. Then the tiny mouth moved, opened to speak. ‘Who do you think you are? This is my family.’
When Triss wakes up after an accident, she knows that something is very wrong. She is insatiably hungry; she keeps waking up with leaves in her hair, and her sister seems terrified of her. When it all gets too much and she starts to cry, her tears are like cobwebs . . .
Soon Triss discovers that what happened to her is more strange and terrible than she could ever have imagined, and that she is quite literally not herself. In a quest to find the truth she must travel into the terrifying Underbelly of the city to meet a twisted architect who has dark designs on her family – before it’s too late . . .
As soon as I’d got the first warbling word out, I knew I’d made yet another horrible mistake. Not because of the not being able to sing, but because the song was the song my mum sang to me when I was little, the one she wouldn’t sing that night when she sat outside the door: ‘Dream a little Dream of Me’.
Every lovely, pretty thing in it felt wrong:
There were no stars. (YOU COULDN’T EVEN SEE THE STARS BECAUSE IT WAS CLOUDY AND IT WAS RAINING KILLER RAIN.)
There was no breeze. (THERE WAS JUST KILLER RAIN WHISPERING, ‘I WANT TO KILL YOU.’)
There was no birdsong. (BECAUSE THE BIRDS WERE TOO BUSY PECKING OUT HUMAN EYEBALLS.)
The next bit is supposed to be really sweet, about how you’ll dream of the people you love. It doesn’t say anything about ‘EVEN THOUGH THEY’RE PROBABLY DEAD’. I couldn’t go on. I got all choked silent. I wanted my mum.
Genius, Ruby. You really are a genius.
The killer rain applauded me, drumming down harder on that thin plastic roof.
First published 2014 by Macmillan Children’s Books
This electronic edition published 2014 by Macmillan Children’s Books
a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-1-4472-6608-2
Copyright © Virginia Bergin 2014
The right of Virginia Bergin to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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The Rain Page 28