The Big Dry

by Tony Davis

  ‘We need Dad!’ Beeper said in a much louder voice.

  ‘Ssh!’ George swung around to see if anyone was listening. ‘I want to find him as much as you do. But we’re nearly out of water, for a start. If you get hurt, it will be my fault. Anyway, I’ve worked out a much better way to find Dad.’

  ‘What … how?’

  ‘I’ll tell you when we get home.’ George began walking back towards their house.

  Beeper followed but loudly grumbled, ‘Tell me now … I need to know!’

  People with buckets and bags and weapons traipsed towards the mall, and away from it.

  ‘Hurry up, Beep,’ George said loudly each time anyone was close. ‘Mum and Dad are waiting just around the corner.’

  When they reached the mall again, George could no longer see any police. A FREE PUBLIC WATER sign pointed down a narrow lane. George decided to make the detour. Just in case.

  A line of people stood behind a dribbling tap. At the head of the queue, an old woman filled a bucket.

  ‘We could top up our bottles there,’ said Beeper. ‘Then we could keep walking to the hospital.’

  George stared at the scene. A woman in a long, grey dress began shouting at a man standing beside the queue. The man had a short, thick steel bar in his hand.

  ‘No, we can’t’ George said. ‘See that guy? He’s telling people they have to pay him.’

  ‘But f-r-e-e … that says free, doesn’t it?’

  The woman in the grey dress began shouting again. ‘I don’t have any!’

  ‘Then shove off!’ the man with the steel bar grunted.

  The woman yelled something else and ran at the man. He pushed her over. When she jumped back to her feet and ran at him, he punched her in the face.

  ‘No!’ yelled Beeper as the man lifted the bar with his other hand, ready to strike her. Beeper began to run towards the woman, now sitting on the ground and holding her nose.

  ‘Stop!’ hissed George, as he caught his brother and pulled him back.

  Everything went silent. Every single person was staring at the two boys. Even the man with the steel bar. Even the woman with the bleeding nose.

  ‘What’s that little boy doing outside?’ someone said.

  TEN

  Run! It was all George could think to do.

  He hauled Beeper up onto his shoulder and charged back up the lane, across the mall and into another side street. He didn’t look back, hoping that everyone else would stay exactly where they were.

  His knees buckled, the muscles in his back throbbed, and Beeper struggled, but adrenalin pushed George on until he was at least two more streets away. Then he lost his footing in the soft surface and fell over.

  ‘Ouch!’ moaned Beeper, whose face was pushed straight into the ground.

  No-one had followed them, it seemed, but George was still terrified. He found himself yelling at Beeper, blaming him for everything.

  ‘I couldn’t help it — she was hurt,’ Beeper protested, as he wiped away the sand that stuck to his face and lips.

  They had to get home. But George knew they couldn’t go through the mall. Not after that. They’d have to crisscross the streets behind the shops and hope they could find their way.

  George’s feet were covered with blisters; the back of his neck was burnt by the glare. Beeper limped along beside him, silent and morose. He had lost his water bottle as they fled. George’s was empty.

  The rabbitoh man had told them to stay on the main roads, but they were in the deserted backstreets. Every street appeared to be exactly the same, and George was sure someone would be hiding around each corner. And it wouldn’t be Dad.

  They should never have left home.

  After half an hour more of nervously walking past houses — some of them wrecked, some barricaded — and of turning in and out of empty streets, George began to get a sense of where they were. Eventually he found the main road, joining it halfway up the hill. It was a small mercy. The trip had been a disaster.

  Near the top, the boys met the rabbitoh man on his way down. His blue eyes peered hopefully from his sallow face. He held up his one remaining rabbit. ‘Lucky last, going fast. A hare without compare.’

  George and Beeper said nothing.

  ‘I can see from your faces that there’s no sign of your dad. Take this bunny. Yours for free — a present from me.’

  The boys shunted past without taking the rabbit or even looking up.

  ‘Cheer up, weary two,’ the rabbitoh man yelled after them. ‘The Good Lord will smile on you.’

  When they made it home, George trudged along the driveway past the empty rainwater tank. He ran his fingers along the bricks to the right, forced them into a gap and slid a brick out. He stuck his other hand into the hole and pulled out the house key. Never take the key with you when you go out: that was their father’s rule. The key could be lost, or it could be stolen — and the robbers might force you to give up the address.

  George unlocked the front door and pushed. It didn’t move. ‘Beeper, the bar’s in place! Someone’s inside.’

  George didn’t know whether to be scared or relieved. He went to the edge of the front porch and pushed his fingers into a hidden gap under the railing. He slid out a hacksaw blade, but fumbled so much he almost dropped it.

  ‘It’s Dad. It has to be Dad,’ George said, though his voice sounded thin and unsure, even to himself. He slid the hacksaw blade into a secret slot below the door handle and pushed hard. There was a click as it triggered a latch. The brackets opened; the bar popped out and fell to the end of its wire.

  George let the door swing wide and stared down the hall. He couldn’t see anyone, but sensed straight away that the rabbitoh man had been wrong. The Good Lord had not smiled on them.

  ELEVEN

  George slammed the front door and charged down the hall.

  ‘You!’ he growled. There was no fear now, just anger. ‘How did you get in again?’

  The girl was sitting at the kitchen servery. She didn’t look at George. Or at Beeper, who followed closely behind. She took a slow sip of water from one of their jars, then scooped a mouthful of food from one of their tins. A red, blue and green tin. The Special Tin.

  There was something else wrong. The girl was wearing a different dress. A much cleaner dress.

  ‘Those clothes …’ George spluttered. ‘Where did they come from?’

  She glanced up at him. ‘I’m still not the type to be answering questions, kiddo. But I have something to talk to you about.’

  ‘They’re Mum’s clothes! You took them.’

  ‘No-one was using them.’ She took another mouthful of salmon. ‘When times are tough, you can’t be too sentimental.’

  Beeper held up his fists and rushed at the girl. She slid from the chair, and was somehow in the kitchen before he could make contact.

  ‘Where is your mum?’ the girl asked.

  ‘None of your business!’ George put his arm around Beeper’s shoulders.

  ‘Is she living somewhere else?’

  ‘What?’ George followed the girl into the kitchen, with Beeper in tow. His tiredness had been replaced by anger. He tore open the cupboard doors to check if she’d taken anything else.

  The girl sashayed past them and sat back at the servery. She began eating the salmon again. ‘Just asking if she ran away when everything got too hard … that’s what people do these days.’

  ‘Not in this family they don’t,’ George said.

  Beeper leaned over the servery and shouted in her face. ‘My mum disappeared in a blaster.’

  The girl didn’t flinch. ‘Maybe, littl’un. But, truth is, most people look out for number one. Those who don’t are fools.’

  ‘You’re certainly taking care of yourself,’ said George.

  ‘And you’re not, kiddo?’ She smiled and scooped up more salmon.

  ‘I’m not the one who’s stealing things.’

  ‘I’ll be replacing stuff. Maybe. But I can’t go anywhere toni
ght. Won’t make it to where I’m heading, before dark.’

  ‘It’s mid-afternoon!’ George stomped around the servery and stood beside her.

  ‘The curfew’s been extended. Haven’t you heard? I’ve got a long way to go and nobody’s meant to be walking out on the street from dusk. Our beloved General says it’s for our own good.’

  George wanted to hit her, to drag her outside. ‘You should have thought about that earlier.’

  The girl leaned towards Beeper. ‘So,’ she said in a softer tone, ‘you didn’t find your father.’

  ‘Like we’d tell you,’ said George.

  ‘We didn’t go to the new hospital,’ whimpered Beeper. ‘George said we couldn’t.’

  ‘Ssh!’

  ‘But he said he’d worked out a better way to find him.’

  ‘Ssh!’

  ‘Maybe your dad’s done a bolt too, kiddo.’

  ‘Our parents aren’t like that,’ George yelled. His face was right next to hers. ‘They’d never leave us behind.’

  ‘Parents are a thing of the past, boys. Like rain. It’s everyone for themselves.’ The girl scraped the last morsel of salmon from the tin, put down the spoon and looked at George. ‘Anyway, I’ve been admiring the nice room at the front of the house. No-one’s using it. So I’ll just stop there for the night and be going in the morning. When I’ve beaten the dust out of my own clothes.’

  George thrust out his right hand so quickly she didn’t have time to move. He grabbed a fistful of her hair.

  Keeping one hand tightly clenched against her scalp, he seized a fistful of her sleeve with the other. He twisted her head sideways and pulled it down against her shoulder. She winced with pain but didn’t make a sound. George yanked her head down even further, putting the weight of his body into it. He dragged the girl off the stool and marched her down the hall. ‘Open the front door, Beeper,’ he yelled.

  ‘George!’ Beeper shrieked. But he did what he was told.

  George shoved the girl through the open door and swung it shut behind her. For once he’d taken control. Something had at last gone his way.

  ‘This is our house, and our food,’ George shouted, as he jammed the security bar into its brackets. ‘You’re not welcome.’

  ‘Who you going to complain to?’ the girl yelled through the door. ‘Hey … George? Beeper’s a little boy with no parents. I could get a reward for reporting him. Big reward. But I’d rather we were friends.’

  George rested his forehead against the back of the door. His temples were burning.

  ‘That’s not all, kiddo,’ the girl added. ‘I could be coming back any time I feel like it. They haven’t made a door yet that I can’t get through.’

  George slid to the floor and leaned against the wall. It was all true. Somehow, she knew how to open their door. And she could report them whenever she wanted.

  George was beaten. Again. He climbed back to his feet. His shoulders, his arms, his whole body seemed to weigh a hundred tonnes as he opened the door.

  TWELVE

  The girl breezed back into the house as if nothing had happened.

  ‘So, we’re agreed,’ she said, peering through Beeper’s bedroom doorway. ‘I’ll be sleeping in this room. No mattress on the bed, but I’m used to that.’

  George didn’t reply. He went to the kitchen, opened the cupboard, and carried the eight remaining tins of food to his room. He returned for the biscuits, the noodles and four of the clearest jars of water.

  ‘Come on Beeper,’ he said. He grabbed two plates, some cutlery, the can-opener and the white mugs. The boys sat on their mattresses in silence as the afternoon wore on. Both were listening for the sound of a car, the click of the lock on the front door. Dad’s familiar footsteps in the hallway.

  There was nothing.

  Eventually, George selected a tin of Spaghetti in Tomato Sauce. He served it out into bowls and they ate it cold, straight off their knees, with dry noodles. They did so without exchanging a word. Then George rationed out three biscuits each.

  Later, Beeper flicked through his favourite book, a copy of The Selfish Giant with a battered green cloth cover. Beeper couldn’t read all of it on his own, but he knew whole paragraphs off by heart. He loved the descriptions of the soft, green grass, the flowers like stars, the peach trees that in autumn bore rich fruit. He loved the full-page drawings that showed trees in blossom, covered with birds.

  George drifted in and out of an unhappy sleep. He stared at the late-afternoon light slinking through the barred window. He heard the girl move up the hallway. There was a clunk as the door to Beeper’s room closed.

  George rubbed his eyes and climbed to his feet. ‘Wait here, Beeps.’ He tiptoed into the day room and checked both locks on the back door. He sneaked up the hallway. The floorboards twisted and squeaked under his footsteps, but the door to Beeper’s room stayed shut.

  George heard a muffled sound as he neared the front door. It sounded like the girl was crying. But when he stopped to listen, the sound stopped too.

  George double-checked the front door was properly locked, then pulled out the security bar and slammed it back into its brackets. He clumped back to his room and flicked the light switch. Nothing happened. The power was out.

  At least the house was locked properly. Even if she was inside, not out.

  ‘Hurry up, Beeper, let’s check for nasties before it’s completely dark.’

  George tried to push the wardrobe across his bedroom door to block it. It was too heavy to move, even with Beeper’s help. He pulled out a loose shelf from the wardrobe and leaned that against the door instead. If she came into the bedroom to take their food, the shelf would fall and wake them.

  ‘Is Mum really out there somewhere?’ Beeper asked as they lay side by side in the darkness. ‘Living without us?’

  ‘No, Beeps. What the girl said about Mum was nonsense. She’s just trying to upset us.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. But Dad said lots of people disappeared in that big storm. That’s the sad truth. We had a memorial service.’

  George listened for the sound of the girl crying again. All he heard was groans from the bedroom ceiling. Then Mr Carey’s piano.

  ‘Mum used to cry and yell at me,’ said Beeper. ‘Maybe she wanted to live somewhere else.’

  ‘No, no, no. She was just upset because … I don’t know … because things kept getting worse and worse.’ George wasn’t sure this was a conversation he should be having with a six-year-old. But Beeper had that tone in his voice. He wasn’t going to let it go.

  ‘Sometimes,’ George continued, ‘she couldn’t get out of bed for days. But Dad says she was the best mother …’

  ‘Where do they disappear to, Torgie? In a storm, I mean.’

  ‘They say in the really big ones, people … look, it doesn’t matter. Mum didn’t run away, she just walked out into … I mean, she didn’t leave us so she could make things easier for herself. She didn’t.’

  George’s mind drifted away. He had lied about having a better way to find Dad. He didn’t have anything. He was a failure.

  ‘And some people come back, don’t they?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Some people come back, Torgie, don’t they? Because they go to the hospital and the hospital makes them better.’

  ‘Yes, Beep. Some people come back, they really do. Mum can’t, but Dad can. Dad will.’

  It wasn’t long before Beeper was breathing his heavy fast-asleep breaths. George lay listening for a long time. There was no more noise from the front room, or from the ceiling. No wind, cars or sirens. Just the slow and gloomy chords of Mr Carey’s piano.

  George hated that tune. His mother used to say it sounded like death. George rolled on to one side, then the other. Wiped the sweat off his neck. He couldn’t sleep. He tried to think of good things. The old days. When it wasn’t as hot. When the house had carpet, when the blasters weren’t as bad, or as frequent. When Mum and Dad were sure they were
over the worst of the second big drought. When Mr and Mrs Carey held street parties to raise money for the farmers whose crops had failed, and to buy fruit for the neighbourhood children.

  George thought of the night Mr Carey dressed up as a clown and walked around with a brass horn with a rubber bulb at the end. Every time he squeezed it, George’s baby brother Edward laughed. That night, he said his first word other than ‘Mumma’ and ‘Dadda’.

  ‘Beep!’ he said, and he followed it with ‘Beep! Beep! Beep!’

  George wasn’t sure when people turned mean and hard. But they did. They stopped helping each other. They made their houses into fortresses. Even Dad bolted steel bars across the windows, and put barbed wire and metal bracing on the fence around the back yard.

  There were no more street parties. Mr Carey had been a builder and he made his own house the strongest of all. The windows were double-thickness glass. The doors were steel.

  When Mrs Carey died from the muck in the air — they called it ‘dust pneumonia’ — George’s mother tried to console Mr Carey. He sent her away. ‘What did we do to deserve a world like this?’ he said. And he slammed the front door.

  From then on, Mr Carey locked himself inside, playing out his misery on the piano. He occasionally checked around the outside of his house, making sure it was secure, but he didn’t say a word, or make eye contact, or even return a ‘hello’. His only visitor was a man in an old van, who delivered two large cardboard boxes every few weeks.

  The children made fun of Mr Carey, dared each other to throw rocks at his scary house. But one by one, the children left for other places, or became sick, or retreated inside their family fortresses. John, Josh, Ben … Hugo and Jacinta and Christopher across the road … every friend vanished suddenly or slowly. Mr Carey outlasted them all except George and Beeper.

  George put his hand out to check that the shelf from the wardrobe was still propped against the door. He used his sleeve to wipe grime and sweat from his forehead. He wondered what anyone had done to deserve a world like this.