Anna and the Apocalypse

by Katharine Turner

Shaking her head, Anna turned in the opposite direction. One minute, he was saying what a disappointment she is to him, the next he was attempting to scare away boys on her behalf.

  Managing parents was truly an exhausting job.

  4

  THE SCHOOL CAFETERIA was like a zoo, only Anna was sure that animals were served better food. She, John, and Lisa sat at their usual table, John wolfing down his lunch while the girls made faces at the questionable cuisine. How were they supposed to eat it when they couldn’t even tell what it was? Not that it was stopping John, whose plate was already half empty. One row along and a few tables up, Nick cackled loudly with his idiot friends, but always with one eye on Anna. Even when she turned her back, she could feel him watching her. Because that wasn’t too creepy, was it?

  “What’s that on your face?” Anna asked, pointing at a gray line on John’s cheek that hadn’t been there that morning.

  “Oh, nothing,” he replied, balling his hand up inside the sleeve of his Christmas sweater and rubbing at the mark until his skin was red. Nick had decided he needed a bit of festive decorating in the changing room after PE. “Drew on myself.”

  “Classic John.” Lisa smiled. He smiled back, too embarrassed to tell them the truth. “Savage is losing it. After you left rehearsals, he made Henry Lee cry because he can’t break-dance.”

  “But Henry Lee has a prosthetic,” Anna exclaimed.

  “Yeah, and he only has one leg,” said Lisa.

  “What’s Savage’s deal anyway?” John asked. “Did his parents abandon him to be raised by wolves, or what?”

  “I heard he was a twin but both babies got stuck together in the womb and now there’s, like, a baby attached to his side and he hides underneath his sweater,” Lisa said, leaning across the table with wide eyes. “So now he’s the evil twin and the other twin is the good twin, but it’s still a baby and it tells him what to do all the time but he just ignores it. Oh, and he’s in constant agony.”

  Anna and John shared a wide-eyed look of concern.

  John opened his mouth to correct Lisa but stopped himself. She wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but she was one of the nicest people on Earth, so there wasn’t much point in upsetting her.

  “I don’t think he’s got a parasitic twin,” Anna said anyway.

  “He definitely has,” Lisa insisted. “My friend Caroline’s sister’s cousin’s best friend was at school with Savage and he saw it.”

  “I just thought maybe he got bullied when he was younger or something,” John suggested. “Or didn’t get what he wanted for Christmas.”

  “My dad reckons his parents were really strict,” Anna said, peeling the foil off her yogurt. “Like, they always thought he was going to be prime minister or something. I guess things didn’t work out exactly how he thought they would.”

  “Things never do,” John replied moodily, looking over at Nick and his mates.

  “No such thing as a Hollywood ending,” Anna concluded right as Chris sat down beside Lisa.

  “Disagree!” she exclaimed, grabbing her boyfriend by his collar. “I’ve got my Hollywood ending already.”

  Chris barely had time to wave hello to his friends before they launched into their daily lunchtime snogging session. It was almost enough to put even John off his food. Almost.

  “How was film class?” Anna asked.

  Chris turned his head to answer while Lisa carried on kissing his neck.

  “Miss Wright says I need something that shows who I am,” he said, as crestfallen as Chris could possibly be. “I think she liked my Alien homage, but she says I need to show her something more real.”

  “You’ll figure it out,” Anna said with a supportive smile.

  “I hope so,” he replied as Lisa moved on to gnawing on his left ear. “I’ve got no idea what to film. When was the last time anything exciting happened around here?”

  Across the cafeteria, Nick and his mates starting laughing even more loudly, and even though they were all trying to pretend he didn’t exist, as soon as she heard Nick mention her name, Anna knew exactly what he and his childish friends were laughing about.

  “Ignore them,” John said stonily. He’d never asked Anna exactly what had happened with her and Nick at his Halloween party because he was perfectly happy not knowing the details. He could cope with her not loving him back, but he couldn’t stand it if she started going out with a complete knobhead like Nick.

  “He’s such a prick,” Lisa agreed. “A total idiot. I mean, yeah, he’s got a body you could lick chocolate off of, but you’d have to have zero self-respect to even think about…”

  Anna ducked her head, hiding behind her hair.

  “I mean, not you, obviously,” Lisa said, attempting to dig herself out of a very deep hole. “I meant all the others!”

  Anna’s face burned crimson red. John looked crushed.

  “Not that there’s been loads,” Lisa babbled. “You know, it’s probably all just rumors. You can’t believe everything you hear, can you? I’m sure he hasn’t been with that many girls.”

  “Thanks, Lis,” Anna muttered, burying her face in her hands.

  Panicking, Lisa let go of Chris’s hand for a moment and bundled her friend in a giant hug.

  “Love me!” she begged.

  As if it were possible not to, Anna thought, laughing as she hugged her back.

  “Hey, guys!”

  Lisa went back to bothering Chris as Steph appeared at their table. Anna tried to give her a polite smile, while Chris and John just looked outright afraid.

  “I need you to film something,” she said to Chris. Niceties weren’t really something Steph bothered with. It was like she’d heard the stereotype about Canadians being overly polite and decided to prove it wrong.

  “Yeah?” Chris didn’t care. Chris just wanted to film things. Anything. Once, he’d started following a stray dog with his camera and two hours later, realized he was in the middle of nowhere, completely lost. It had taken them another two hours to find him, and then he’d made them watch his film. And Anna’s dad couldn’t understand why she was desperate to get away …

  “Savage keeps screwing with the school blog,” Steph explained, hovering nervously next to the table. “So, I want to bypass the school completely and do a video. If we go to the soup kitchen tonight, I can put it out before Christmas and actually show people we have a homeless problem.”

  “It’s the show tonight!” Lisa said, pulling on Chris’s sleeve. “And I’m doing a special song about Santa!”

  “Miss Wright said in class you need something real,” Steph said, not giving up without a fight. “And this is real.”

  Chris considered it for a moment, gazing into Lisa’s sad puppy eyes and then back up at Steph’s look of desperation.

  “I promise I’ll make it back for your song,” he said to Lisa. “And my gran will be there as well. She’s really excited to see you sing.”

  “All right.” Lisa accepted the compromise with a pout.

  “Yeah!” Steph celebrated with a fist pump. “Thank you, this is so cool.” She paused and bobbed around on the spot. “Let’s see that asshole Savage try to stop this one.”

  The entire table sat in awkward silence, trying not to giggle.

  “Yeah, okay,” Steph muttered to herself. “I’ll show myself out.”

  “Oi! Annie Lennox!” Nick yelled the reference to her short platinum hair for the entire cafeteria to hear.

  As she turned to leave, Nick hurled a handful of food in her direction, hitting her right in the head. His obnoxious friends burst out into hysterical laughter as Steph picked off the remains and hurried out of the cafeteria, head down and determined not to let anyone see her cry.

  “Right,” John said, slamming his hands on the dining table. “That’s it. I’m going over there.”

  “Power down your lasers, Iron Man.” Anna put her hand on top of his. She didn’t want to see him get another black eye.

  “He doesn’t have lase
rs,” John protested. “They’re repulsors.”

  “Well, Nick doesn’t need any more help being repulsive,” she replied, watching as Nick wiped his mouth on a napkin, then wiped the used napkin on the face of the boy sitting next to him. He truly was foul. She must have been out of her mind.

  “Anyway,” she said, turning her attention back to her disgusting lunch. “It’s not like you could actually do anything.” A fact that was not intended to be hurtful, but it was.

  John stabbed the remains of his food with an angry fork while Anna absently stirred her yogurt with a spoon.

  “Hey, did you guys hear what happened in science?”

  If there was one thing Lisa couldn’t stand, it was an uncomfortable silence. Or any silence really.

  “Oh my God, Gemma Brand called Miss Hutchie a name and she got all upset and then she got sent outside and…”

  Anna tuned out Lisa’s story. Let them talk about me, she thought, noticing she was under Nick’s gaze again, and she stared back until he looked away, let them say whatever they want. In six months’ time, she would be on a plane while the rest of them were still here, chatting on about the latest rumors and gossiping about who shagged who. She was already over it. Just six more months, or according to the countdown app on her phone, 181 days.

  If things were different, maybe she’d consider staying, but nothing exciting ever happened and nothing ever, ever changed. She had a feeling that John didn’t want her to go, and now she knew that her dad didn’t, but it was time for her to strike out on her own. Anna leaned back in her chair, kicked her feet up onto the seat next to her, and gazed out the window as it began to snow. There was such a lot of world to see. She just couldn’t imagine a single thing that could possibly change her mind.

  * * *

  John had also gotten pretty good at tuning Lisa out over the last seven years. In fact, his selective attention span was probably why they were still such good friends. If only he could select whether or not he was attentive to Anna. But he was in love with her and that was that. Completely and utterly, lie awake at night and imagine the two of them skipping hand in hand through Disneyland, in love with her. But this wasn’t Disney, this wasn’t a movie where the good guy always gets the girl. This was real life, where your best friend grows up to be super hot and hooks up with a total wanker, while you grow up to be just as awkward as you’ve ever been and no one even gives you a second glance. He wasn’t about to ride in on a white horse and save the princess. He was going to sit there, in his Christmas sweater with permanent marker on his face, and watch the princess disappear halfway across the world.

  That was real life.

  5

  IT WASN’T AS though Canada was a tropical wonderland, but Steph was so completely over this Scottish winter. She pulled her sleeves down over her fingers and made another attempt at breaking into her own car. It always looked so easy on TV. Maybe she should just give up, confess that she was out of cash, and ask her parents to get her a plane ticket to Mexico, too. What was the point in holding on to her stupid pride if her own girlfriend couldn’t even bring herself to spend the holidays with her? If she even was her girlfriend anymore.

  “Sure, I’ll finish school abroad,” she muttered to herself as the whole school emptied out into the parking lot. “Sure, Scotland sounds swell. Who wouldn’t want to immerse themselves in their Celtic heritage? Sure, I love the rain and the snow and the miserable weather and the shitty food and the mean kids and sociopathic assistant principal who steals your car keys when all you’re trying to do is deliver a bunch of Christmas gifts to homeless children.”

  A bunch of students wearing ridiculous Christmas-themed hats walked past, saw her trying to bust in to the car, and laughed.

  “Really?” she said. “You’re wearing a hat shaped like a roast chicken and you’re laughing at me?”

  But they were already gone.

  “Meat is murder!” she yelled.

  With an exasperated grunt, Steph gave her tire an almighty kick.

  “Fuck!” she howled, pressing her lips together to stop herself from crying. Maybe her car tires were made of stone. “Ow.”

  “Want me to call someone?” Anna asked, wandering across the parking lot with a helpful smile on her face.

  Steph sighed inside. Why was this chick always around when she was making an idiot out of herself? Sure, she was cute and she seemed pretty nice, but Steph had also heard she’d been hooking up with that mega-asshole Nick, so she couldn’t be all that smart.

  “I tried,” she replied. “My girlfriend won’t pick up.”

  “Locksmith?” Anna suggested.

  “I have no cash,” she admitted. “And my parents are in Mexico, so they aren’t going to be any great help.”

  “I wish I was in Mexico,” Anna said, leaning against Steph’s car. “Sun, good food, tequila…”

  “And five thousand miles away from your weird-ass daughter,” Steph abruptly interrupted.

  Anna smiled and nodded. “Oh, I’d happily move my dad a few miles away from here right now.”

  “Can you stop talking?” Steph said rather rudely. Anna stood up, more than a little taken aback. “Try being moved to an entirely different continent whether you like it or not.”

  “I’m sorry,” Anna said, coiling her long hair around her hand, suddenly very uncomfortable. She’d only been trying to be nice.

  “At least you don’t have a mom on your case about every little—” Steph stopped as her brain caught up to her mouth. This was Anna. Anna’s mom had died. Could Steph get her foot any farther down her own throat?

  “I am so sorry,” she said, pushing her own platinum hair out of her face. “I didn’t mean that.”

  Anna nodded, sticking her hands deep inside her pockets, balled up into tight little fists.

  “Really, I, uh, I always say the wrong thing,” Steph said, an uncomfortable chuckle in her voice. “It’s kind of my style. Really, I am sorry. About your mom. And also for what I said. About your mom.”

  Anna gave her a tight smile and then began to walk away, leaving Steph all alone with her locked car and no way of getting inside.

  “Merry Christmas, Stephanie,” she mumbled to herself before recommitting to breaking in. “And a very shitty New Year to you.”

  * * *

  Arthur Savage held open his blinds with his thumb and forefinger and watched the students pour out of the school like rats abandoning a sinking ship. Laughing, joking, enjoying themselves … They had no idea what the real world was like, no idea what nightmares they would have to face once they left this school. He’d done his best to prepare them, of course, dedicated his life to making sure they were ready. But did they listen? Of course they didn’t, they were children. And children, Savage had discovered during his decades as an educator, were ultimately deeply stupid. Oh yes, people loved to talk about the wonder of childhood, the importance of raising the next generation, but he’d been a teacher for twenty-three years, and every single one of his students had been a disappointment. He had fought and strived and sacrificed but slowly, surely, his will to want more for them had ebbed away. Where were his world leaders? Where were his Nobel Laureates?

  “Piss bus drivers maybe,” he said, watching as one student ran around in circles with what looked like a chicken on his head.

  No, the next generation was doomed. All they cared about were selfies, likes, and retweets. The planet could go to hell in a handbasket and they wouldn’t care, as long as their YouTube channel was still getting views. Gill had been too soft on them. Thirty years, that man had been principal. Thirty years! And in all that time the school had done nothing but churn out loser after loser after loser while Savage slogged away, wasting his life on undeserving ingrates. He looked back at his office. The poky, dusty assistant principal’s office. If he could just hang on for two more weeks, then he’d finally be in charge. Then things would change around here.

  “I believe the children are our future,” Savage sang me
nacingly, turning back to the window and observing the children as they jumped on one another’s backs, pelted one another with foodstuffs, and generally behaved like animals. “And if that’s the case, God help us all.”

  He let the slats of his blinds snap back into place, just as someone knocked on his locked door.

  “Who is it?” he bellowed, straightening his tie. Clothes maketh the man, after all.

  “All right there, Arthur?”

  As if to prove his point, he opened the door to Tony Shepherd.

  He returned to his position behind his desk. Maintaining professional distance helped Shepherd grasp that Savage had authority over him. Savage wasn’t one to invite someone to sit on a comfy sofa, or offer a jar of sweets.

  “I prefer Mr. Savage when we’re in school,” he said, the edges of his lips curling up at the state of the man. “And outside of school.”

  “So everywhere then?” Tony replied with a laugh.

  Savage did not laugh, but if Tony was offended, he didn’t show it. What he did show was dirt under his fingernails, filthy marks on his knees, and, if the assistant principal wasn’t very much mistaken, tomato sauce stains on his shirt.

  “I’m going to nip home for some tea before the show, but I’ll be back here for six o’clock,” Tony said, shoving his hands into his trouser pockets. “It’s a hungry business, this show business!”

  “Like no business I know,” Savage replied in a droll voice. The sight of Tony’s unshaven face was enough to kill his own appetite. “Is that all?”

  “I was thinking,” Tony began, but Arthur could barely believe it was true. “Have you got any plans for the Christmas break?”

  “Oh yes,” he replied with a wide smile. “I’ve got plans.”

  So many plans. Plans to turn this idiot factory into something approximating a school as soon as his name was above the front door.

  “I was thinking, why don’t you come over for dinner on Christmas Eve?” Tony suggested. “Doesn’t do to be on your own at this time of year, Arthur.”

  Savage glared at him from behind his desk.

  “Mr. Savage,” Tony corrected with a soft chuckle. “We’ll be cooking up a feast, lots of food to go around.”