Dad called. Or rather he called and got through. He’s been trying the call, he said, several times a day for the past two weeks. We all believed him because we’ve been trying to call him and never get through.
It was great to hear his voice. He said he and Lisa were fine, and there were no problems with her pregnancy. He said the supermarkets in Springfield were all closed, but the two of them had a fair amount of food in the house. “So far so good.”
Mom also got a call from Jonny’s camp today, and they’re still planning on being open. So the plan remains for Jonny to go to camp, and then Mom and I’ll drive up there, get him, and she’ll drive us to Springfield. Dad asked Matt if he’d be coming, also, but Matt said he thought Mom would need him around in August so he’d be staying home.
I know that hurt Dad, even though it’s probably true and Dad probably knows that. Anyway Dad said maybe Matt could come along for the drive and at least see him and Lisa. We could all have dinner together. For a moment we forgot that all the restaurants are closed. For a moment, things were normal again.
Matt said that sounded like a good plan to him, and Mom said she’d enjoy having the company on the drive home.
Jonny asked if Dad had heard anything about the Red Sox. Dad said he thought they were okay, but he really didn’t know. I feel like Dad should have known Jonny was going to ask, and he should have been able to answer. He could have lied, after all, and said they were all fine.
Although knowing what a Yankee fan Jonny is, maybe Dad should have just said Fenway had floated out to sea.
Peter dropped by this afternoon, bringing us a can of spinach.
“I know it’s good for me,” he said. “But I really can’t stand the stuff.”
Mom laughed, like she used to. “Stay for supper,” she said. “I promise I won’t serve spinach.”
“I can’t,” he said. “I shouldn’t be taking time off now, but I needed to escape, if only for an hour.”
We all sat in the sunroom, happy to have a visitor. But it was obvious Peter wasn’t relaxing.
Finally Mom said, “If this is a house call, at least tell us what we’re sick with.”
Peter laughed, but it was the kind of halfhearted laugh I’m used to hearing these days. “You’re not sick with anything,” he said. “But I did want to tell you to start using Off or any other kind of insect repellent you might have. And if you still know a place where you can buy some, do. Pay whatever it costs, but get it.”
“Why?” Jonny asked. I don’t think Mom or Matt or I really wanted to know.
“I’ve seen three cases of West Nile virus in the past week,” Peter replied. “I’m hearing from other doctors that they’re seeing cases, too. I’ve heard rumors of malaria. Friend-of-a-friend stories, but that doesn’t mean they’re not true.”
“Mosquito-borne illnesses,” Matt said.
“Exactly,” Peter said. “The mosquitoes seem to be happy, even if no one else is.”
“I know I have some Off left over from last summer,” Mom said. “But I don’t know how long it’ll last.”
“Cover yourself up,” Peter said. “Wear socks and long-sleeved shirts and pants when you’re outside. No perfume. And if you even think you feel a mosquito, swat at it.”
All of which I’m sure is very good advice, but I still plan on swimming at Miller’s Pond. I don’t know what I’ll do if Mom tries to stop me.
It rained for the past couple of days, bad thunderstorms. No blackouts, though. No electricity at all, so no blackouts.
This morning the electricity came on for a few minutes, and when it did, Jonny said, “Hey, it’s a black-on.”
This is what passes for humor around here.
Actually it was kind of cozy in the rain. We couldn’t go anywhere, so we stayed in and read books and played games and pretended not to worry. It was like being snowed in only without any snow.
But today the sun was shining and even though the moon glow is disconcerting in the daytime, the sun was still a pleasant relief. No humidity, temperature in the high 80s, just about perfect weather.
So without telling Mom, I slipped my bathing suit on, put on jeans and a shirt over it, and went to Miller’s Pond. I got there around 10, and there were already a few other people there, taking advantage of the good weather.
Dan was among them, and it was great to see him. We swam laps, raced (he won, but not by much), and played water tag with a few other swimmers.
It felt like summer vacation.
After we got out of the water, we dried ourselves off in the sunlight. It’s a little marshy around Miller’s Pond, and we had to swat at mosquitoes, but even that felt like summer.
Dan and I talked as we laid in the sun. First we tried to talk about unimportant stuff, but of course these days there isn’t much unimportant stuff.
“Next year I’ll be a senior,” he said. “Assuming there’s school next year. Assuming there’s a next year.”
“There’ll be a next year,” I said. At that moment, it was impossible to think otherwise.
Dan grinned. “I notice you’re not guaranteeing there’ll be a school,” he said.
“With my luck, there will be,” I said, “and my grades from this year’ll count.”
“My parents and I were going to look at some colleges this summer,” he said. “Check out some schools on the way to my grandparents’. They live in Florida.” He paused for a moment. “Lived,” he said. “We saw their names on a list.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“They liked it down there,” he said. “They kept real busy. We think it probably happened fast with the first tsunamis. Their place was right on the ocean, so that’s probably what happened.”
“My mother’s parents have been dead forever,” I said.
“Since Mom was a little girl. Her grandparents raised her, right where we live now. My dad’s mother is in Las Vegas, and we’re pretty sure she’s okay.”
“I try not to think about it,” he said. “What’ll happen next, I mean. But of course I do. And I get so angry. I know it’s nobody’s fault, but the government should have done something.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“It could have warned people,” he said. “It could have evacuated people from the coastlines. Even if it turned out to be a false alarm. And there’s got to be something they could do about electricity. And gas prices. And food. Somewhere there’s got to be supplies of food that aren’t getting to us.”
“I guess I don’t think it does much good to be angry,” I said.
We both swatted at mosquitoes and suddenly we laughed. It was balletic, swatting in unison. And then Dan said the most amazing thing.
“If there is a world,” Dan said, “and if there is a school, would you go to the prom with me next year?”
“I insist on a corsage,” I said. “And a limo.”
“A stretch,” he said. “And orchids.”
“You in a tux,” I said. “Me in a formal gown.”
“We’ll be King and Queen of the prom,” Dan said.
“I’d be honored, your majesty,” I said.
Dan bent over and kissed my hand. Our faces met and we kissed, really kissed. It was the most romantic moment of my life, and it would have been even more romantic if some little boy hadn’t yelped, “Oooh, kissing, yuck,” which ruined the mood.
Dan walked me home and we kissed again at the back door. “It’s a date,” he said.
“I’ll see you before then, won’t I?” I asked. “The prom won’t be for another year.”
He laughed. “Meet me at the pond tomorrow,” he said. “At ten if it isn’t raining.”
“I will,” I said, and we kissed good-bye. It was a completely magical moment, so naturally it was spoiled by Jonny.
He opened the door, caught a glimpse of Dan, and said, “Mom’s on the warpath. Better talk to her.”
I found Mom in the sunroom. “Where were you?” she shouted.
“Out,” I said. One of the great all-time answers: Out.
“I know that. Where out? What have you been doing?”
“Swimming,” I said. “At Miller’s Pond. Which I intend to keep doing all summer long, so don’t give me any lectures about mosquitoes, okay?”
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Mom look so angry. For a moment, I actually thought she was going to hit me, which she’s never ever done.
I’m not a complete idiot, so I apologized. “I’m sorry,” I said. “What exactly did I do wrong?”
“You left here without telling me where you were going or how long you’d be gone,” Mom said.
“I didn’t realize I had to,” I said. “I’ve gone out without telling you for years now.”
“These are not normal times,” she said, but I could see she’d calmed down if only a little. “I thought you were old enough to realize that.”
“And I thought I was old enough to go out in broad daylight without it being some kind of crisis,” I said.
“Age has nothing to do with it,” she said. “How would you feel if you turned around and couldn’t find me and had no idea where I’d gone or why or when I’d be back? Think about that, Miranda. How would you feel?”
So I did think about it, and my stomach clenched up. “I’d be terrified,” I admitted.
Mom half smiled. “Good,” she said. “I’d hate to think you wouldn’t miss me.”
“Mom, I’m sorry,” I said. “The truth is I was afraid you’d tell me I couldn’t go. And I wanted to so much. So I snuck out. I really am sorry.”
“Why would I tell you you couldn’t go?” she asked.
“Because of the mosquitoes,” I said. “West Nile virus and malaria and all that.”
“Oh yeah,” Mom said. “All that.”
I took a deep breath and waited for Mom to tell me never to leave the house again. But she didn’t say anything.
“Well?” I said, so she could say no and I could yell at her and we could get into a really bad fight.
“Well what?” she said.
“Can I go to Miller’s Pond?” I asked.
“Of course you can,” she said. “I’d love to wrap you and Matt and Jonny up in swaddling clothes and protect you from everything but I know I can’t. You’re all entitled to have some fun. For you that means swimming. For Jonny it’s baseball, and for Matt it’s running.”
“What is it for you?” I asked.
“Gardening,” Mom said. “Even if my crop is vegetables this year and not flowers. I’m not stopping gardening just because there’s a chance I’ll get West Nile virus. I don’t expect you to stop swimming. Were there other people at the pond?”
“Quite a few,” I said. “Including Dan from my swim team.”
“Good,” she said. “I’d prefer to think there are people there, for safety’s sake. Just let me know from now on when you’re going.”
“I love you,” I said. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d said that to Mom.
“I love you, too, sweetie,” she said. “Are you hungry? Would you like some lunch?”
I thought how strange that was, that Mom was asking me if I wanted lunch, not what I wanted for lunch.
“I’m not that hungry,” I said. “Maybe I’ll have something later.”
“All right,” she said. “I’ll be in the garden if you want me. There are some weeds out there with my name on them.”
I went to my bedroom and stripped out of my still-damp bathing suit and put on a T-shirt and shorts. I thought about Mom and about Dan kissing me and about how hungry I really was and how long I could go without eating. I thought about mosquitoes and the prom and the end of the world.
And then I went out and helped Mom with her weeding.
Dan and I swam. We also kissed. I like them both so much, I’m not sure which I prefer.
Mom came home from the post office today with a smile on her face. They aren’t doing home deliveries anymore, so Mom goes into town a couple of times a week and picks up the mail at the post office. The only mail is letters (which people are writing more of since there’s no other way of communicating). Oh yeah, and bills. The bills never stop. But no junk mail or catalogs. Just letters and bills and there’s no way of knowing how long that’ll last.
I saw Mom talking to Jonny about something, and then this evening she told us what.
“I got a letter from Jonny’s baseball camp,” she said at supper (salmon, canned mushrooms, and rice).
“They’re opening on schedule. They have enough food for a couple of weeks, and they plan to stay open at least that long. But there’s a catch.”
“Catch,” Matt said to me. “That’s baseball talk.”
I thumbed my nose at him. “What’s the catch?” I asked.
“The people who own the camp have a farm that adjoins it,” Mom said. “In addition to playing ball, the boys are going to work at the farm. They’ll get fresh milk and eggs and vegetables.”
“Wow,” I said, and I meant it. I still think about those two eggs Mrs. Nesbitt brought over. “That’s great. Congratulations, Jonny.”
“Yeah, it’ll be okay,” he said. I guess he’d rather just play baseball.
I looked at Mom and she was practically glowing with happiness. For two weeks, maybe even longer, Jonny was going to have food, and not just canned stuff. Eggs and milk and vegetables. For two weeks, there’d be one less person to worry about.
No wonder Mom was smiling.
Father’s Day. We tried to reach Dad a few times, but no success. We can still sometimes get through on local calls, but I can’t remember the last time we had any luck with long distance.
I wonder if Dad was trying to call us or if his feelings were hurt because we didn’t call, or if he even thought about us. Maybe it’s for the best that Lisa is pregnant.
I know that’s dumb. I’ll be seeing Dad in a few weeks, spending a month with him and Lisa and Jonny in Springfield. He probably thinks about us as often as we think about him.
More, probably. Sometimes a day goes by and I realize I haven’t thought about him at all.
It’s dawn and I’m writing now because I just woke up from a nightmare and it’s too late to go back to sleep and too early to get out of bed.
The whole day was just one of those days. It’s so hot, over 90 every day for the past week and the nights aren’t much cooler. Half the time the electricity comes on in the middle of the night, and it never stays on much more than an hour, so the house barely cools down even with the central air on. Mom actually got a letter from the electric company last week apologizing for the inconvenience. Mom says that’s the first time a utility company has ever apologized to her.
The best part of every day is swimming at the pond. When I’m in the water I feel as though nothing bad has happened. I think about the fish, how they don’t know what’s going on. Their world is unchanged. Actually it’s probably better now to be a tuna or a sardine or a salmon. Less chance of ending up as somebody’s lunch.
The mosquitoes are getting worse or maybe people are just more worried about West Nile, but there are fewer people at the pond. This would be good for Dan and me except Karen and Emily from the swim team have started swimming at the pond the same time we’re there.
It makes the swimming more fun, since we race and offer advice and play really vicious games of swim tag, but it makes the after-swimming a lot less fun, since Dan and I can’t just escape into the woods for a little private time.
I don’t know why Karen and Emily are showing up then, if it’s a coincidence or if Dan told them that’s when we swim.
I miss the kissing. I miss the ridiculous sensation of having a boyfriend and being on a date. I wonder if I’ll ever have a real date again. Everything’s closed: the restaurants and movie theaters and the skating rink. Dan may have his license, but nobody just drives anymore, and he lives on the other end of town.
This is all just dumb. But I guess it’s one reason why I had my nightmare.
Peter showed up this evening. He brought us a jar of mixed nuts. Mom stared at it like it was a five-course Thanksgiving dinner: turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes and string beans and salad and soup and pumpkin pie. Or maybe that’s what I thought when I saw the jar.
“I’m allergic to peanuts,” Peter said, almost apologetically. “Someone gave me these months ago, and it’s been sitting in my cupboard.”
Mom invited him to stay for dinner, and in his honor she made quite the feast. She took a can of chicken and put some golden raisins in it and it almost passed for chicken salad, if you think of chicken salad being canned chicken and golden raisins. She also served beets and string beans with pearl onions. For dessert we each had a fig and a date.
“This is as close to a date as I’m getting,” I said and everyone laughed a little too long.
When Mom put out the string beans and pearl onions, Jonny asked if it was Christmas. I have to admit, the onions seemed like overkill to me, too. I noticed Mom didn’t eat very much of anything and neither did Peter, although he pretended like it was the best meal he’d ever had. That left more food for Matt and Jonny and me and we certainly ate it all.
Peter always brings death with him, along with spinach or nuts. He said he’d seen 20 cases of West Nile during the week and five deaths from it. He also said two people had died from food allergies.
“They’re so hungry they’re taking their chances eating foods they’re seriously allergic to,” he said.
He and Mom went outside after supper and sat on the swing. I could hear murmured conversation from them, but I didn’t try to eavesdrop. It must be horrible to be a doctor now. Before Peter cured people. Now they just die.
Peter left before sunset. He bikes over and with the streetlights gone, it’s dangerous to be out after dark. Besides, with no electricity, everyone pretty much goes to bed once the sun sets.
“We’re keeping farmer’s hours now,” Mom says. She’s stopped reminding us we can use our flashlights only to get undressed and into bed. We’re all starting to sense how important our supply of batteries is.
Maybe it was because of the swimming and maybe it was because of my date joke, but I dreamed that Dan and I were on a real date. He picked me up at the house, and he gave me a corsage, and we got in a car and drove to an amusement park.
We had a wonderful time. We rode the merry-go-round and the Ferris wheel and we were on this amazing roller coaster that went down at 100 miles an hour, only I wasn’t scared, I loved it, and as we flew down, we kissed. It was incredibly exciting.
“I’m hungry,” I said, and the dream shifted and Dan wasn’t there anymore. I was in a tent and it had long tables overloaded with food. There was so much to choose from, southern fried chicken and real tuna salad and pizza and vegetables and fruit. Oranges the size of grapefruits. Even ice cream.
I decided to have a hot dog with all the trimmings. I slathered mustard and ketchup and relish and sauerkraut and chopped onions all over it. I was just about to take a bite when I heard someone say, “You can’t eat until you pay.”
I turned around and saw there was a cashier. I found my pocketbook and went to give her the money, when I realized the cashier was Becky.
“You can’t pay with money,” she said. “This is Heaven and you have to die before you can eat the hot dog.”
I looked around the tent some more. Everyone there was someone I’ve known who’s died, like Mr. Nesbitt or Grandpa or Mom’s grandparents or my seventh-grade math teacher, Mr. Dawkes. Angels were serving the food. Even Becky was wearing white and had wings.
“I really want the hot dog,” I said. “But I don’t want to die.”
“You can’t always get what you want,” Becky said.
“Don’t be careless,” Mr. Dawkes said, which was what he always said when he’d hand back a test and I’d made a lot of careless mistakes. Which was really pretty funny, since he died when he ran through a red light on Washington Avenue.
I remember begging for the hot dog and Becky taking it away from me and eating it herself. I never wanted anything as much as I wanted that hot dog.
I woke up with my throat burning and a taste of bile in my mouth. I don’t even like hot dogs all that much.
What I’d really love are pancakes, the kind Mom used to make for special occasions. Pancakes with butter and hot maple syrup. Now that I think about it, we have pancake mix and maple syrup. I wonder if we really could have pancakes. I wonder if waking up alive is enough of a special occasion.
When Mom gets up, I’ll ask her about the pancakes, but not about what constitutes a special occasion. I think Mom wants us to think we’ll wake up every morning for years to come.
Maybe Mom’s right. It’s a beautiful sunrise. We are all still alive, and I’m really not ready for Heaven. Not as long as I can swim in Miller’s Pond and go on make-believe dates with Dan and dream about the possibility of eating pancakes slathered in maple syrup.
The best day in ages.
For starters, Mom made pancakes. Okay, they weren’t pancakes as we all remembered them, but close enough. Water instead of milk, dried egg whites instead of eggs (which made them fluffier and less heavy), no butter, but lots of maple syrup.
We loved them. Mom smiled like I haven’t seen her smile in weeks. Jonny asked for seconds, and Mom made them for him, for all of us, really, since we ate like pigs. Mom sent Matt to get Mrs. Nesbitt so she got to eat pancakes, also.
It was amazing not to feel hungry and not to crave more or different.
Then after I’d fully digested (Mom insisted on that) I went to the pond. Dan was already there, and so was Emily, but Karen didn’t show up. The day was a little grayish, but still murky and humid and hot, and the water felt great. We swam and raced and had a good time, and then, oh happy day, Emily had to leave to do something back at her house, so Dan and I were alone. (Okay, there were a half dozen other people at the pond, but we didn’t know them so we were alone in that way.)
We continued to swim for a while longer, and then we got out of the water, toweled off (not the sort of day where you dry yourself off in the sun), and took a little walk through the woods surrounding the pond. It was wonderful. We held hands, we hugged, we kissed. We talked, too, and sometimes we didn’t do anything, just stood quietly and let the trees and the birds surround us.
Underneath everything, I wonder if Dan would even know I was around if things were normal. Sure he was nice to me at school and at practice sessions, but there’s a big difference between saying I have a good crawl stroke and holding me tight in the forest while we kiss.
If anybody ever reads this diary, I will absolutely die.
Dan walked me back home, but he didn’t come in. It was lunchtime, and there’s an unspoken understanding that you don’t drop in at mealtimes (Peter doesn’t seem to understand this, but he always brings food).
When I went into the kitchen, there was a strange, pleasant smell that I couldn’t quite identify, and then I saw Mom punching a lumpy white thing. She was positively grinning as she punched.
“I’m baking bread,” she said. “The pancakes made me think about just what we have, and I remembered buying yeast. I put it in the fridge and I forgot about it, but there it was. I’m using water instead of milk, but that’s okay. We’re going to have fresh baked bread.”
“You’re kidding,” I said. It seemed too good to be true.
“I have enough yeast for six loaves,” Mom said. “I’m baking two today, one for us, and a half loaf for Mrs. Nesbitt and a half for Peter. As soon as we’re finished with our loaf, I’ll bake another. There’s no point holding off. We’ll eat bread for as long as we can. And then I’ll check out non-yeast recipes and we’ll have something breadish until I run out of flour. I just wish I’d thought of it sooner.”
“We can save some of it for the fall,” I said. “After Jonny and I get back from Springfield.”
And just because it was that sort of day, as soon as I said it, the phone rang. It’s been so long since I heard that sound, I practically had a heart attack. I answered the phone, and it was Dad. Jonny and Matt were at the park, so they didn’t get to talk with him, but I did.
It was so great hearing his voice. He’s fine and Lisa is fine and she saw her obstetrician and the baby is fine. Dad says he tries our number and Grandma’s and Lisa’s parents’ three times a day. He spoke to Grandma a couple of days ago and she’s fine. Lisa reached her parents about a week ago, and they were okay, also.
He said he can’t wait to see us and he was sure we’d be able to manage. Springfield hasn’t had any food deliveries in the past couple of weeks, but he and Lisa had stocked up on stuff when all this first happened, and they have some friends who’ve left Springfield to go south and let them have all their canned goods and boxed foods. Besides, he’d heard that the local farmers were planting crops and that some trucks were on the roads again and things couldn’t stay this way forever.
Just hearing Dad say all that and smelling bread in the kitchen made me feel a lot more optimistic.
Mom was so proud when the loaves came out of the oven. They were golden brown and tasted much better than store-bought bread. Matt biked over to Mrs. Nesbitt’s and to Peter’s office and gave them their goodies.
We had peanut butter and jelly on fresh baked bread for supper tonight. Open-faced sandwiches because we sliced the bread so thick.
Mom says if we keep eating like this we’ll end up fat and malnourished, but I don’t care. It was wonderful.
Then, because when good things happen they just keep on happening, we had electricity and it came on at 7 PM, a time when we could actually use it. And it stayed on for 3 whole hours.
Mom did three loads of laundry and got two of them dry. I vacuumed the whole house. We ran all the dishes through the dishwasher. We ran the central air and cooled the house off. Just for the hell of it, Matt toasted a slice of bread and we all nibbled on it. I’d forgotten how great toast is: crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside.
A couple of days ago, Matt had gone into the attic and brought down a real old black-and-white TV set with a built-in antenna. Mom says the antennas were called rabbit ears, which I think is pretty silly.
With the electricity on, we turned on the TV set, and got two stations. We can’t get any TV reception on our other sets—our cable reception is completely gone.
Just seeing a picture on TV was exciting. One station was religious. The other station showed reruns of Seinfeld and Friends. Guess which station we watched!
Watching sitcoms was like eating toast. Two months ago, it was so much a part of my life I didn’t even notice it. But now it feels like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy and the Wizard of Oz all rolled into one.
We have clean sheets to sleep on, a clean house, clean clothes, clean dishes. We spent the evening laughing. It wasn’t 90 degrees in the house when we went to bed. We aren’t hungry. We’re not worried about Dad. I know what it feels like to be kissed by a boy.
If I could, I would relive this day over and over. I can’t imagine a more perfect one.
I’m so angry at Mom I could scream. And it doesn’t help that she’s as mad at me as I am at her.
The day started out great, too. The sun was shining, perfect swimming weather. There was enough bread left for each of us to have a slice for breakfast. Mom brought in a few strawberries from the garden, and we each had two.
I went to the pond and I didn’t even mind that Karen and Emily were there. We swam, we raced, we had fun.
I guess they’ve figured out something’s going on with Dan and me, because when we got out of the pond, they made themselves scarce. Dan and I took our walk in the woods. When we’re together like that, I feel as though everything is going to work out. I like to think I help him feel that way, also.
Dan walked me home and we ran into Mom in the drive-way. “I’m off to get gas,” she said. “Dan, would you like a lift into town?”
Dan said yes, and I asked if I could go, too. Mom said sure. We’d be picking up Mrs. Nesbitt, also. She wanted to go to the library.
There are two gas stations in town that still have gas. The way it works is you get in line and then you prepay. It’s $12 a gallon, or $35 for 3 gallons, exact change only, and a maximum of 3 gallons. It usually takes about an hour to get the gas, and then you drive to the other gas station and get 3 gallons there. Then if you have the time and the money, you go back to the first gas station and start all over again.
So while Mom is waiting in line, there’s plenty of time to go to the library or do anything else you want to do. A lot of times Mom drops Matt and Jonny off at the park, and they find a pickup game of baseball, while Mom does the gas lines. But since we were all sure it was going to rain, they decided to skip the trip, so there was room for Mrs. Nesbitt and Dan and me.
Mom got into the gas line, and Mrs. Nesbitt, Dan, and I walked over to the library. There’s very little that’s still open in town, so the library has gotten real popular. Of course it’s not the same way it used to be, either. With no electricity, things are pretty dark, and they can’t scan the books, so you’re on an honor system. Four books to a customer, and they trust you to return them as soon as you can.
We have lots of books at home, but Mom’s been urging Matt and Jonny and me to use the library as much as possible. I guess she’s afraid it won’t stay open that much longer.
We all found books to take out. I put Mrs. Nesbitt’s and my books in my book bag. Dan and I kissed in the stacks, and then when we left the library, he started walking toward his home and Mrs. Nesbitt and I started back to the gas station to keep Mom company while she waited.
Only, as we were walking, we saw a long line in the elementary school playground. There were maybe 50 people in the line, and we noticed a couple of state troopers standing around, making sure people stayed in place.
I ran over to see what was going on. “They’re giving away food,” a man told me. “One bag per household.”
I waved Mrs. Nesbitt over and got her a place in the line. “I’m going to get Dan,” I told her. “We’ll meet you back here.”
So I ran, and I do mean ran, toward Dan’s home. It didn’t take me long to find him and explain what was going on. We both ran back to the playground. By the time we got there, Mrs. Nesbitt was about 20 people ahead of us. I knew we couldn’t just cut in line and join her, but we yelled so she knew we were there.
It wasn’t bad in the line, maybe because the troopers saw to it that we behaved ourselves. Any kids who might have been whining played with the slides and swings instead and it was fun watching them have a good time. We were all excited about getting food, even if we didn’t know what exactly to expect. It kind of felt like Christmas shopping.
Every now and again one of the troopers would explain the rules to us. One bag per household. All the bags were identical. Make any trouble and no bag. No cost but a thank-you would be appreciated.
Even when it began to rain, we didn’t mind. It was a gentle summertime kind of rain, and since it’s so humid, we hoped that the rain would clear things up and the weather would turn nice again.
Dan and I held hands and giggled and enjoyed being together. We edged forward and we cheered when Mrs. Nesbitt finally got into the school. We cheered again when she emerged carrying a bag.
We finally got in ourselves. There were other troopers in the school, clearly guarding the bags. It was scary seeing them with real guns.
But everyone was very well behaved. When you got to the front of the line, you had to show an ID that had your address on it. Luckily, Dan and I both had our library cards with us. We were each handed a plastic bag, and told to leave, which we did. When we walked out, we saw the troopers were telling people not to get in line; the supplies were running out.
We found Mrs. Nesbitt standing just outside the playground. “There’s rice,” she said. “And beans and all kinds of goodies.”
I was so excited that I flat-out kissed Dan right in front of Mrs. Nesbitt. Not that she seemed shocked. Dan gave me a hug and said good-bye. “My mom is going to be so happy,” he said, which pretty much summed it up.
“Maybe there’ll be more,” I said. “Maybe this is the start of better times.”
“Let’s hope so,” he said. He gave me one more kiss and then he started back to his house.
I took Mrs. Nesbitt’s bag and we began walking back to the gas station. I couldn’t get over how excited Mom was going to be when she saw I was bringing food.
It was about a half-mile walk to the gas station, and the gentle rain had become heavy with distant thunderstorms. I told Mrs. Nesbitt I wished I had an umbrella for her, but she just laughed.
“I won’t melt,” she said.
When we got to the gas station, we couldn’t find Mom’s car, which meant she was already on her way to the second gas station. That added another five blocks to the walk, and Mrs. Nesbitt and I were drenched by the time we finally found her, but it didn’t matter. Rice and beans and powdered milk and salt and boxed soup mix and dehydrated vegetables and corn flakes and lime Jell-O.
Mom only had a ten-car wait by the time we got there. I was so wet anyway, I volunteered to get out and pay, which I did. It feels so funny to go into the convenience store and see completely empty shelves and signs saying, cashier is ARMED AND TRAINED TO SHOOT.
I guess Mrs. Nesbitt told Mom all about the food and the line while I was paying for the gas. All I know is Mom was in a great mood before I left the car, and she was very quiet by the time I got back in.
I don’t know if Mom felt 6 gallons was enough for one day or if she wanted to get Mrs. Nesbitt home because she was so wet, but we drove straight back and dropped Mrs. Nesbitt off. Any effort Mom might have made to seem social while Mrs. Nesbitt was still in the car ended as soon as it was just the two of us.
“What?” I said when we were finally alone. “What did I do this time?”
“We’ll discuss it inside,” she said. Her teeth were so clenched she could have been a ventriloquist.
We walked into the kitchen and I flung the book bag and the grocery bag on the table. “I thought you’d be happy,” I said. “We have all this food now. What did I do wrong?”
“Sometimes I just don’t understand you,” she said, like I was the mystery creature. “You saw everyone standing in line, and what did you do?”
“I got in the line,” I said. “Wasn’t that what I was supposed to do?”
“You left Mrs. Nesbitt and went to get Dan,” Mom said. “That seems to be the part you’re forgetting.”
“Right,” I said. “I ran to get Dan and then we got right in the line.”
“And what if they’d run out of food by the time you got back?” Mom asked. “What would have happened then?”
“Then we wouldn’t have gotten all this great stuff,” I said. “Rice and beans and lime Jell-O. I didn’t know they were going to run out of food so soon. Besides, what difference does it make? They didn’t run out of the food and he got food to take home and so did I and so did Mrs. Nesbitt. I don’t see what you’re so mad about.”
“How often do I have to explain this to you?” Mom asked. “Family is all that matters. Dan has to worry about his family and you have to worry about yours. And before you even begin to say something about Peter, he’s brought us food every time he’s come here and the least I could do is give him some bread in return.”
I would have brought up Peter, too, if she hadn’t. Even I knew better than to say Mrs. Nesbitt wasn’t family.
“There was enough for all of us,” I said.
“Pure luck,” Mom said. “I will not have Jonny or Matt or you starve because you want to include a friend.
This isn’t the time for friendships, Miranda. We have to watch out only for ourselves.”
“That’s not how you brought us up,” I said. “Whatever happened to share and share alike?”
“Sharing is a luxury,” she said. “We can’t afford luxuries right now.”
For a moment, Mom seemed terribly sad instead of angry. I saw an expression in her eyes I remembered from when she and Dad split up.
“You think we’re going to die,” I said.
Any sadness immediately evaporated and rage took its place. “Don’t you ever say that to me again!” she yelled. “None of us is going to die. I will not allow that to happen.”
I actually reached out to comfort her. “It’s okay, Mom,” I said. “I know you’re doing everything you can for us. But Dan and I have something wonderful. Like you and Peter. Something special. Otherwise I never would have told him about the food.”
But Mom was anything but comforted. There was a look on her face, a look of horror, almost like the way she looked that first night. “Are you sleeping with him?” she asked. “Are you lovers?”
“Mom!” I said.
“Because if you are, you’d better never see him again,” she said. “I’ll forbid you to go to the pond. I won’t let you leave this house alone again. Do you understand me? I can’t let you risk getting pregnant.” She grabbed my shoulders and pulled me to an inch of her face. “Do you understand that!”
“I understand!” I yelled right back into her face. “I understand that you don’t trust me.”
“If I don’t trust you, I certainly don’t trust Dan,” she said. “The two of you cannot be left alone. I forbid it.”
“Just try to forbid it!” I screamed. “I love Dan and he loves me and nothing you say or do is going to stop us.”
“Go to your room now!” Mom said. “And don’t think about coming out until I tell you to. NOW!”
I didn’t need any encouragement. I raced to my room and slammed the door as loud as I could. And then I cried. Big howling sobs.
I’m not Sammi. I’m not an idiot. Sure, I’d love to make love with Dan. I’d love to make love with someone before this whole stupid world ends. But even though I told Mom that Dan and I love each other, I know we don’t. Not the kind of love that I want to feel for the first man I make love with.
Half the time I can’t even figure out what Dan is feeling. I would have thought he’d try to go further with me, but he hasn’t. We kiss, we hug, that’s it.
And there’s Mom acting like we’re animals in heat.
It’s so unfair. I haven’t seen Sammi or Megan since school ended. Dan’s practically the only friend I have left in the world. Even if we aren’t lovers, even if we aren’t boyfriend and girl-friend, he’s still the only person I see who isn’t family or Peter. I laugh with him. I talk to him. I care about him. And Mom makes it sound like that’s something bad, like I can’t have friends anymore, like family is the only thing that matters from now on.
If that’s how the world is supposed to be, I hope it does end soon.
I hate Mom for making me feel this way. I hate Mom for making me feel that for every good day, there have to be 10 or 20 or 100 bad ones.
I hate Mom for not trusting me. I hate Mom for making me even more scared.
I hate Mom for making me hate her.
I hate her.
Except for going to the bathroom (and I only did that when I thought no one would see me), I stayed in my room all yesterday. I kept the door shut, and in a fit of rebellion even I realized was dumb, I read by flashlight for four hours.
Matt knocked on my door this morning. “Breakfast is ready,” he said.
“I’m never eating again,” I said. “More food that way for you and Jonny.”
Matt entered the room and closed the door behind him. “Stop being a baby,” he said. “You made your point. Now go to the kitchen and eat breakfast. You might want to kiss Mom good morning while you’re at it.”
“I’m not talking to her until she apologizes,” I said. It’s funny. I was still angrier than I was hungry. Or maybe I just knew that even after breakfast I’d still be hungry, so what was the point.
Matt shook his head. “I thought you were more mature than this,” he said. “I expected better from you.”
“I don’t care what you expect,” I said, which was a total lie. I care desperately what Matt thinks of me. “I didn’t do anything wrong. Mom attacked me for absolutely no reason. Why aren’t you telling her you expected better from her?”
Matt sighed. “I wasn’t here,” he said. “I only have Mom’s version of what went on.”
“Did she happen to mention that she was horrible?” I asked. “That she acted like I was some kind of criminal? Or did she leave that stuff out?”
“If you mean did she burst into tears and say she felt terrible for all the things she said to you, then the answer is no,” Matt said. “But she did say how terrible she felt that you were going through all this. Miranda, Mom is holding on by the skin of her teeth. She has the three of us to worry about and Mrs. Nesbitt. And you know Mom. She’s worried about Dad, too, and Lisa and her baby, and Peter. She’s worried sick about Peter. He’s working twelve-hour days, seven days a week, and she has no idea if he’s eating anything.”
I thought I was going to start crying again, which I didn’t want to do. “Mom thinks we’re all going to die,” I said. “Doesn’t she? Do you? Is this all for nothing? Are we all just going to die?”
“Mom doesn’t think that, and neither do I,” Matt said. I could tell he’d thought about it a lot, and that it wasn’t just a glib answer. “That’s not the same as saying the worst is over, because I don’t think it is, and Mom doesn’t think so, either. If things stay the way they are, then we have a real chance. All the scientists are working on making things better. That bag of food yesterday proves that things are improving.”
“But this has to be the worst,” I said. “How could things get any worse than they are now?”
Matt grinned. “You don’t really want me to answer that, do you?” he asked.
We both laughed as I shook my head.
“Mom’s more worried about Mrs. Nesbitt than she is about us,” Matt said. “Mom’s asked her to move in with us, but Mrs. Nesbitt has it in her head that it would be an imposition. Which only makes things harder for Mom.”
“I know Mom doesn’t want us to die,” I said. I thought really hard about what I wanted to say so it would come out right. “But I think maybe she doesn’t want us to live, either. We should just hide in our rooms and not feel anything and if we get rescued, great, but if we don’t, well, maybe we’ll live a little longer. If you can call that living. I know Mom tells you things she doesn’t tell me, but am I wrong? Because I really feel that way more and more. I’d like to be wrong, because it scares me if Mom feels that way. But I don’t think I am.”
“Mom can’t guess the future any better than you or me or Mrs. O’Leary’s cow,” Matt said. “Horton could be on CNN, assuming there still is a CNN, and have as much of a chance of being right as anybody else. But she thinks, and I do too, that we’re in for some very hard times. Times worse than what we’re going through now. And the way she sees it, the better we take care of ourselves now, the better chance we’ll have when things get worse. So yeah, she probably does seem over-protective right now. I know she’s scared to send Jonny off to camp, but she’s absolutely determined to do that, and not let him know how worried she is. So don’t you tell him, either.”
“I won’t,” I promised. “Mom doesn’t have to worry about me. I’m not stupid, Matt. But I don’t want to have to stop feeling. I really think I’d rather die than stop feeling.”
“No one’s asking that of you,” he said. “And Mom doesn’t want you to stop swimming or to stop seeing Dan.
She’s happy when you’re happy. But she wouldn’t want Dan to be the only friend you see under any circumstances. Why don’t you visit Megan or Sammi? I could use some good Sammi stories.”
The truth of the matter is I hardly even think about Sammi or Megan. It’s like they’re a part of the world that’s already ended for me. But since I’d just finished a big speech about feelings, I didn’t think I could confess that. So I nodded and told . Matt I’d get dressed and make things up with Mom.
But when I saw Mom in the kitchen, I didn’t feel like getting all kissy-kissy with her. And I could see she wasn’t all that eager to get kissy-kissy with me, either. She and Jonny were both sitting at the table, looking kind of glum.
Without even thinking about it, I said, “Jonny, you want to go to Miller’s Pond with me this morning?”
Jonny’s face lit up and I could see I’d said the right thing as far as Mom was concerned. “That’d be great,” he said.
I have no idea why Jonny hasn’t just invited himself along. It’s not like I own Miller’s Pond. But Jonny’s been playing baseball or at least practicing with Matt. And Matt’s been running when he hasn’t been playing ball. Maybe they figured swimming was mine and they’d keep away from it.
Jonny put his trunks on under his jeans while I was eating breakfast, and as soon as we were both ready, we walked together to the pond. With my luck, of course Emily and Karen weren’t there, so Dan and I lost good alone time.
But it was worth it to see how happy Jonny was in the water. There were a couple of kids he knew from middle school and the three of them played together. Then we all swam together, played water polo and imitation relay races. It was another one of those hot sunny days, so we all laid around after swimming and let the sun dry us off. Dan, it turns out, is a big Phillies fan, and he and Jonny talked baseball, which made Jonny even happier.
I’ve been so involved in my own problems, I haven’t thought much about what all this is doing to Jonny. Until I saw how excited he was talking with Dan about all-time great second basemen, I hadn’t realized just how bored he’s been. He’s had Matt, and Matt’s been great with him, but this time of year when Jonny isn’t playing ball, he’s watching it on TV, or following it on the Internet.
Jonny’s passionate about baseball the way I used to be about skating. I’m really glad his baseball camp is going to be open. He deserves a couple of weeks of doing what he loves best.
I guess because Jonny was with me, Dan didn’t walk me home. That was okay, because it gave me more of a chance to talk with Jonny.
“I’ve been thinking about something,” he said, and I could tell it was something really important to him. Right away that meant it wasn’t anything good. “You know how I’m planning on playing second for the Yankees?”
Since Jonny’s been planning on that since birth, I wasn’t exactly surprised to hear it, so I just nodded.
“I know Mom’s doing her best,” Jonny said. “But I don’t think I’m eating a well-balanced diet. Protein and stuff like that. I’m five five and I don’t know how much taller I can get if I don’t start eating hamburgers and roast beef.”
“We’re eating better than lots of other people,” I said.
“Better than people here,” Jonny said. “But what if there are thirteen-year-old guys in Japan or the Dominican Republic who are eating hamburgers and who are growing? I don’t see how I can reach six feet on canned tuna. What if I end up five feet six?”
I would have laughed except he looked so serious. Besides, I knew Matt wouldn’t have laughed. Matt doesn’t laugh at my idiotic questions.
“You taking your vitamins?” I asked.
Jonny nodded.
“Well, they’ll help,” I said. “Look, Jonny, I don’t know what things are going to be like tomorrow, let alone years from now. Even if things get back to normal and baseball is just like it is now, like it was last year I mean, players years from now may all be shorter than they used to be. Or maybe there’ll be less competition for you because, well, because there just won’t be that many second basemen around. I don’t think things are great in the Dominican Republic or Japan. The guys your age may not grow to six feet, either, or have the time to work on their baseball the way you do.”
“You mean you think they’re all dead,” Jonny said.
“Not exactly,” I said, suddenly appreciating how well Matt’s been handling me lately. “What I think is the whole world is going through rough times now, not just Pennsylvania. And there are probably boys in the Dominican Republic and in Japan who are worrying the same way you are. Only I don’t know if they have vitamins or canned tuna. And I do know one thing. It’s like Dad always says. The only way you can be the best at something is to be the best you can be. If you’re the best second baseman you can be, you stand as good a chance as anyone at playing second for the Yankees.”
“Do you hate all this?” Jonny asked.
“Yes,” I said. “And I miss hamburgers, too.”
When we got home, I saw Mom in the kitchen, flour and yeast and measuring cups all spread out on the counter. The kitchen must have been 100 degrees between how hot it was outside and the oven being on.
“Can I help, Mom?” I asked. “I’d like to learn how to bake bread.”
Mom smiled at me. Really smiled. Smiled like I was her long-lost daughter, the good one, who she thought was gone forever. “I’d like that,” she said.
So we baked and sweated together. I like punching the dough. I told myself it was the moon and punched it senseless.
Mom drove Jonny to baseball camp today. She came back really excited because she found a gas station near Liberty that was selling 5 gallons of gas at a time for $75. That’s more than it costs here, but the stations here are down to a 2-gallon maximum, and Mom said it was worth the extra money to get so much gas at once.
One of the things I don’t ask Mom is how much longer her cash is going to last. Then again, the only thing left to spend it on is gas, so I guess it doesn’t much matter.
The temperature was near 100 and we haven’t had electricity for the past 3 days. Matt decided it was time to chop down a tree. He sent me out to gather kindling. That seems dumb to me, but at least in the woods there was shade. And it’s a lot easier to gather kindling than it is to chop a tree.
After I’d gathered 4 bags I brought them to the house. Matt was still working on the tree. At the rate he was going, it’s going to take a week to chop down that tree.
I asked him if he wanted any help, and he said no.
But I didn’t feel like I could just sit someplace reading while he was working. And frankly there wasn’t that much I could do around the house. I weeded the vegetable garden, since Mom does that daily, and I washed the dishes, and then just to prove I was good for something, I scrubbed the bathrooms and washed the kitchen floor.
Matt came in and took a drink of water. “Very impressive,” he said. “Got any other plans for the day?”
I was a little scared to admit I didn’t, so I just mumbled.
“Why don’t you visit Sammi and Megan?” he asked. “Have you seen them since school ended?”
I hadn’t. Of course they haven’t come to visit me, either.
But just to keep Matt from harping on it, I decided to pay calls. It felt very Jane Austen-y to do that. None of her heroines had phones or computers and nowadays neither do I.
It took 15 minutes to walk to Sammi’s and I sweated the whole way. I wasn’t too happy when I got there to find no one was home.
For a moment I wondered if her whole family had packed up and left (some families are doing that, moving down south because things are supposed to be better there), but there was laundry on the clothesline.
Funny to think of Sammi’s mom hanging clothes on the line. Of course that’s what we’re doing now, but Sammi’s mother was never exactly the domestic type.
There didn’t seem any point in staying around waiting for someone to show up, so I walked over to Megan’s. I knocked on the door and Megan’s mom opened the door right away.
She looked beyond happy to see me. It gave me a deja-vu feeling. It was the same kind of look I used to get from Becky’s mom.
“Miranda!” Mrs. Wayne said, and she pulled me into the house. “Megan’ll be so glad to see you. Megan, Miranda’s here!”
“Is she in her room?” I asked.
Mrs. Wayne nodded. “She hardly leaves it,” she said. “Except to go to church. I’m so glad you’re here, Miranda. See if you can talk some sense into her, please.”
“I’ll do my best,” I said, but we both knew nothing I could say was going to change Megan’s mind. I’ve never been able to change Megan’s mind about anything.
Megan opened the door to her bedroom and she seemed genuinely happy to see me. I checked her out carefully. She’s lost some weight, but not as much as I’d been afraid.
What did scare me, though, was how she glowed. She positively radiated inner joy. No way that makes sense these days.
“How are you?” she asked, and she seemed genuinely interested in everything I told her. And I told her most everything, about how Dan and I were seeing each other almost every day, and how Jonny was on his way to camp, and how Matt was chopping a tree. I didn’t tell her about what food we still had because you don’t talk about that anymore.
Once we finished with me, I asked her how she was. If anything, she got even more radiant. She was practically radioactive.
“Oh, Miranda,” she said. “If only you could know the true happiness I’m feeling.”
“I’m glad you’re happy,” I said, although frankly I thought she was crazy, and bad as things are, I’m still not glad when people are crazy.
“You could be happy, too, if you only embraced God,” she said. “Admit your sins, cast out Satan, and offer your heart to God.”
“You getting to church much?” I asked. Megan had listened to me rattle on about Dan, the least I could do is listen to her rattle on about Reverend Marshall.
“I go every day,” Megan replied. “Mom knows I go every morning, but she gets angry at me if I don’t come back by afternoon. And I don’t want Mom to be angry, because I want to see her in Heaven. Sometimes, though, at night when she’s asleep, I slip out and go back. No matter when I go, the Reverend is there. He’s praying day and night for all us sinners.”
Somehow I doubt he’s praying for me, and if he is, I’m not sure I want him to. But at least if Megan was going to church, she was getting out of the house.
Still some questions had to be asked. “So are you eating anymore?” I asked. Funny how anymore can mean two different things.
“I eat, Miranda,” Megan said, and she smiled at me like I was an idiot child. “It would be suicide if I stopped eating altogether. It’s not God’s will that anyone should commit suicide.”
“Glad to hear it,” I said.
She gave me a look of such pity I had to turn my face away. “You’re like how I was,” she said. “After Becky died.”
It’s a funny thing. We were all so close to Becky, Megan and Sammi and I, but we hardly talked about her after she died. That’s when we started going our separate ways, like Becky, and even her illness, was the glue that held us together.
“What about her?” I asked. I wondered if Megan dreamed about Becky like I do, three or four times a week lately.
“I was so angry,” Megan said. “Angry at God. How could He let someone like Becky die? With so many awful people in the world, why was it Becky had to be the one to die? I actually hated God. I hated everyone and everything and I even hated God.”
I tried to remember what Megan had been like. It was a little over a year ago, so it shouldn’t have been too hard. But that whole time was so awful. Becky had been sick for so long, and then it looked like the treatments were working, and then out of nowhere she died anyway.
“Mom was scared for me,” Megan said. “And Reverend Marshall had just started preaching here, so she took me to see him. I screamed at him. How could God do that to Becky? How could He do that to me? I thought Reverend Marshall would tell me to go home and I’d understand when I was older, but he didn’t. He said we could never truly understand God’s will. We have to trust God, have faith in Him, and follow the rules He gave us without ever understanding Him. The Lord is my shepherd, Miranda. Once Reverend Marshall made me understand that, all my doubts and all my anger went away. God has His own reasons for what we’re suffering. Maybe when we’re in Heaven we’ll understand, but until then all we can do is pray for His forgiveness and obey His will.”
“But His will can’t be for you to starve to death,” I said.
“Why not?” she asked. “His will was for Becky to die. Death can be a blessing, Miranda. Think how much suffering Becky’s been spared.”
“But you can’t pray to die,” I said.
“I pray to accept God’s will without any doubts,” she replied. “I pray to be worthy of His love. I pray for eternal life in Heaven. I pray for you, Miranda, and Mom and Dad and even for Dad’s other family. And I pray as Reverend Marshall says we should, for the souls of all the poor sinners, that they should see the light and be spared the eternal flames of hell.”
“Thank you,” I said, for lack of anything better to say.
Megan stared at me with pity. “I know you’re not a believer,” she said. “And I see the unhappiness in your eyes. Can you say you’re happy, Miranda? Can you say you’re at peace with the world?”
“No, of course not,” I said. “But I don’t think I should be. Why should I be happy when there isn’t enough food and people are getting sick and I can’t even turn on the air conditioning?”
Megan laughed. “All of that is so unimportant,” she said. “This life is no more than the blink of an eye compared to life everlasting. Pray with me, Miranda. The only thing that’s keeping me from true happiness is knowing that people I love aren’t saved.”
“Well, no one says you can be happy about everything,” I said. “I know I should be glad for you, Megan, but frankly I think you’re crazy. And if Reverend Marshall is making you this way, I think he’s evil. This life, this everyday existence, is the one gift we’re given. To throw it away, to want to be dead, to me that’s the sin.”
The Megan who used to be my best friend would have argued with me. And then we would have laughed. This Megan got down on her knees and began to pray.
When I got home, I went back into the woods and got three more bags of kindling. Maybe I’ll end up in the eternal flames of hell, like Megan says. But until that happens, I intend to stay warm from the flames of a woodstove.
After supper tonight, Mom said, “I was thinking about this on the drive home yesterday. How would you feel if we cut back to two meals a day?”
I think even Matt was startled, because he didn’t say sure right away.
“Which two?” I asked, like it would matter.
“We’d definitely keep eating supper,” Mom said. “It’s important for us to have one meal together. But we could decide every day if we wanted breakfast or lunch. I know I’d skip breakfast. I’ve never been much of a breakfast person.”
“I skip lunch sometimes at school,” Matt said. “It wouldn’t be that big a deal for me to skip it.”
“Of course it’s voluntary,” Mom said. “We’re nowhere near running out of food. But I thought while Jonny is away, maybe we could all do with a little less.”
I pictured Jonny on the farm, eating eggs and drinking milk and, for a second, I really hated him. “It’s fine, Mom,” I said. “I’ll skip a meal. I’ll live.”
I wonder what it’s going to be like with Dad and Lisa. I’m starting to develop real fantasies about Springfield. I picture a kitchen full of food, a working refrigerator, farmers’ markets with fresh produce and eggs and pies and cookies and chocolate fudge. I imagine air conditioning and TV and Internet and 80-degree weather and indoor pools and no mosquitoes.
I’ll settle for any one of those things. Well, any one of those things and fudge.
Happy Independence Day.
Ha!
Horton kept us up all night wailing in front of Jonny’s bed-room door. He’s gotten very sulky and only ate half of his food yesterday (and Mom didn’t even have to ask him to).
No electricity for the past three days. The temperature has been hovering around 100 degrees and it doesn’t get much cooler at night.
I dreamed heaven was an ice palace, cold and white and beckoning.
I skipped breakfast today and I was hungry when I went swimming. I’ll try skipping lunch tomorrow. All the time I spent with Dan (not enough and Emily was there practically on top of us the entire time), all I could think about was food. How much I missed breakfast. What I was going to eat for lunch. How many more loaves of bread we were going to be able to bake before we run out of yeast.
I think about Jonny getting three meals a day, real food, farm food, and how Mom pulled this two-meal business on us only after he left, and I get so angry. It’s like she thinks Jonny’s needs come first. Got to get him his nourishment if he’s going to reach 6 feet. Just to be on the safe side, give him some of Miranda’s.
I hope this bad mood is just because it’s the Fourth. That was always one of my favorite holidays. I love the parades and the fair and the fireworks.
This year Matt brought Mrs. Nesbitt over for supper, and after we ate, we sat on the front porch and sang patriotic songs. Horton screeched right along, and it was hard to say which one of us sounded worse.
This is without a doubt the worst summer of my life and there are still two months to go.
No electricity for the past 5 days. None of us wants to say it, but we’re all thinking maybe we’ll never have electricity again.
It was 97 this afternoon. Mom is making us drink lots and lots of water.
Matt’s still chopping down trees and I’m still gathering kindling. It’s hard to imagine ever being cold again.
I think brunch is going to work best for me. I go swimming in the morning and then when I come back, I eat my meal. That way I don’t have to watch Matt eat breakfast or watch Mom eat her half lunch and feel guilty when I’m eating more than she is.
Right after I got back from swimming, the electricity came on. We haven’t had any in almost a week, and we were jubilant at its return.
Mom always leaves a load of most-needed-to-be-washed clothes in the washing machine, and she turned it on right away. I grabbed the vacuum cleaner and started on the living room floor. Mom got the dishwasher going and the central air (it was 92 degrees when I woke up this morning). Matt turned on the rabbit ears TV, but all he got was an emergency broadcasting signal, whatever that means.
After ten glorious minutes, the electricity went off. Everything stopped, the vacuum and the air conditioning and the washer and the dishwasher and the freezer that would have made us ice cubes for the first time in a week.
We stood around, actually stood around, waiting for the appliances to turn themselves back on. Mom stared at the washer; I held on to the vacuum.
After about 15 minutes, I gave up and put the vacuum cleaner away. Mom unloaded the dishes from the dishwasher, rinsed them off, and put them away.
She held off on the laundry until mid-afternoon. Then she and I unloaded it, carried the soapy wet clothes to the bathtub, and spent what felt like hours rinsing them out and wringing them so they could get hung on the clothesline.
So help me, 15 minutes after we got them hung, there was a thunderstorm. I thought Mom was going to start crying (I sure felt like it), but she was okay until Matt finally made his way back in. He spends all his time chopping wood, and I guess he wasn’t going to let a little thunder and lightning get in his way.
Mom totally blew it. She screamed at him for staying in the woods during a thunderstorm. Her face turned so red I was afraid she’d have a stroke. Matt yelled right back. He knew what he was doing, every minute counted; if he’d been in any danger lie would have come right in.
Then the electricity came back on. We all ran out, took the clothes off the line, and shoved them into the dryer. Mom started a second load in the washing machine. We turned on the air conditioning, and Matt went online to see if anything was there (just a week-old listing of the dead and the missing).
This time the electricity stayed on for 40 minutes, long enough for the second load of laundry. It had stopped raining, so Mom hung it on the line.
The ice cubes weren’t frozen all the way through, but they still were a wonderful luxury in our glasses of water. The house cooled down and outside it was less muggy.
Mom and Matt are still speaking to each other. Horton is still demanding to know where we hid Jonny.
I can’t decide which is worse, no electricity or unreliable electricity.
I wonder if I’ll ever have to decide which is worse, life as we’re living or no life at all.
The temperature is 102, there’s been no electricity since Saturday, and I have my period. I would kill for a chocolate chocolate-chip ice-cream cone.
Here’s the funny thing about the world coming to an end. Once it gets going, it doesn’t seem to stop.
I woke up this morning and immediately sensed that things were different. It’s hard to explain. It was cooler than it has been (which is good), but the sky was this weird gray color, not exactly like it was cloudy or even foggy. More like someone had pulled a translucent gray shade over the blue sky.
I went downstairs to the kitchen because I could hear Mom and Matt talking. Mom had boiled water for tea, and even though I don’t much like tea, it still gives me the illusion of having something in my stomach so I made myself a cup.
“What’s going on?” I asked, because it was pretty obvious something was.
“We hadn’t wanted to worry you,” Mom began.
I don’t know what raced through my mind first. Jonny. Dad. Lisa’s baby. Mrs. Nesbitt. Grandma. Electricity. Food. Mosquitoes. The moon crashing into earth. Everything flooded in. I know how terrified I must have looked, but Mom didn’t change her expression. No reassuring smile, no laugh at my overreaction. Matt looked every bit as grim. I steeled myself for the worst.
“We thought this was a possibility,” Mom said. “Matt, Peter, and I, but the scientists didn’t say anything about it, at least not that we heard on the radio. I guess we hoped we were exaggerating. Worrying about things that weren’t really going to happen.”
“Mom, what happened?” I asked. At least it didn’t seem to be anything personal. The radio wouldn’t care what happened to Jonny or Dad.
“You know the moon is closer to the earth than it used to be,” Matt said. “And that’s changed the gravitational pull.”
“Of course,” I said. “That’s why the tides changed. And that’s what caused all the earthquakes.”
“What we were concerned about—what seems to be happening now—is volcanoes,” Mom said.
“Volcanoes?” I said. “There aren’t any volcanoes in Pennsylvania.”
Mom managed half a smile. “Not that we know of,” she said. “We’re not in any direct danger from volcanoes, any more than we’ve been in direct danger from the tsunamis or the earthquakes.”
Of course there’s been plenty of indirect danger. In case I needed any more reminding, a mosquito landed on my left arm. I killed it before it killed me.
“Okay,” I said. “So how can volcanoes make things any worse?”
I was hoping Matt would laugh or Mom would tell me not to be so self-pitying, but instead they both looked grim.
“What is it?” I asked. “Things can’t get worse. What can a volcano do that hasn’t already happened?”
“A lot,” Matt said, almost angrily. I don’t know if he was angry at me or at the world. “The moon’s gravitational pull is forcing magma through the volcanoes. From what we heard on the radio last night and this morning, there are dormant volcanoes erupting everywhere. It’s been going on for a few days now and there’s no guarantee it’s ever going to stop. The earthquakes haven’t. The floods haven’t. The eruptions may not, either.”
“We don’t know what’s going to happen,” Mom said. “But right now there’s more volcanic action than there ever has been.”
“I still don’t get how that’s going to affect us,” I said. “You said there are no volcanoes here. Have lots of people died?”
“Lots,” Matt said. “And lots more are going to. And not just people who live near volcanoes, either.”
“Matt,” Mom said, and she put her hand on his arm. I think that scared me most of all. Matt’s done nothing but comfort me since he got home, and now he needed Mom to comfort him.
“Look outside,” Matt said. “Just look at that sky.”
So I did. It was that funny shade of gray.
“When a large enough volcano erupts, it clouds the sky,” Matt said. “Not just a mile away and not just a hundred miles away. Thousands of miles away, and not just for a day or two, either.”
“The concern is that the volcanic ash will cover the sun most places on earth,” Mom said. “Like it seems to be doing already here. And if it lasts long enough…”
“Crops,” Matt said. “No sunlight, no crops. Nothing grows without sunlight.”
“Oh, Mom,” I said. “Not the vegetable garden? How can that be? We’re nowhere near a volcano. I’m sure we’ll get the sun back.”
“They’re starting to issue warnings,” Mom said. “The scientists on the radio. They say we should be prepared for major climatic changes. Drought’s a real possibility, and record cold temperatures. It’s already cooling off here. It was eighty-eight when I went to bed last night, and it’s seventy-two now. But feel how muggy it is. It hasn’t cooled off because of a thunderstorm. It’s cooled off because the sunlight can’t penetrate the ash in the sky.”
“But it can’t last all that long,” I said. “A week? A month? Is there something we can do to keep the garden growing?”
Mom took a deep breath. “I think we have to assume it’s going to last longer than that,” she said. “And we should prepare for the worst, very little sunlight, very weak sunlight for several months. A year, maybe longer.”
“Longer?” I asked, and I could hear the hysteria in my voice. “Longer than a year? Why? Where’s the nearest volcano? What the hell is going on?”
“There’s a volcano at Yellowstone,” she said. “It erupted yesterday. Phoenix and Las Vegas are drowning in ash.”
“Las Vegas?” I said. “Is Grandma okay?”
“There’s no way of knowing,” Matt said.
I pictured Springfield, my Springfield, with its food and its electricity. “Are things better east of us?” I asked. “Miranda, this isn’t a local problem,” Mom said. “It’s not just one volcano. A half dozen erupted yesterday alone. Nothing like this has ever happened before. Wind currents will affect things and no one can predict the wind. Maybe we’ll be lucky. Maybe something good will happen that we can’t imagine just now. But we have to prepare for the worst. You and I and Matt and Jonny have to prepare for the worst. We have to assume frosts in August. We have to assume no power and no food coming in and no gas for the car and no oil for the furnace. Up till now we’ve been playacting survival, but from now on we have to take it seriously.”
“Playacting!” I cried. “You think this has all been a game to me?”
“Look,” Matt said, and I couldn’t tell which one of us he was trying to calm down. “The smartest thing we can do is assume things are going to get a lot worse. Mom and I were talking about precautions we can take now so that if it’s a rough winter, we’ll be in better shape.”
“Like eating less,” I said. “Because we can’t be sure of the garden.”
Matt nodded. “I’m not crazy about the idea, either,” he said. “But we do have to discuss the possibility.”
“I can cut down to one meal a day,” Mom said. “I’m too upset to be hungry these days, anyway. But I don’t want you kids doing that. Not unless we really have to.”
“Maybe we could fast one day a week,” I suggested. “Or I could skip brunch, say, every other day.”
“Those both sound like good ideas,” Matt said. “I could eat breakfast Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and Miranda could eat brunch Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and we could both fast on Sundays.
But Mom, if you’re eating only one meal a day, you really shouldn’t fast.”
Mom looked like she was going to cry. “I’ll be fine,” she said instead. “I think we need to store up as much water as we possibly can. As long as we have running water, we might as well use it, but we need to conserve as much as possible.”
“The well might run dry?” I asked.
“It’s a possibility,” Matt said. “Any water we don’t use now could come in handy six months from now.”
“I’m also concerned whatever rain we get will be polluted,” Mom said. “We should boil our drinking water from now on. We’ve never had any problems with our well water, but if the air is badly polluted, we shouldn’t take chances.”
“What about the pond?” I asked. “I can keep swimming, can’t I?”
“I think so,” Mom said. “For the time being. Of course if the temperature really plummets, it might get too cold.”
“It’s July,” I said. “How cold can it get?”
“That’s what we don’t know.” Matt said. “But I guess we’re going to find out.”
Just to prove everybody wrong, Mom and Matt and all the scientists, I went swimming this morning. Only two other people showed up, and none of us stayed very long.
Even though I knew the water was just as clean as it had been yesterday, I still felt dirty when I got out of the pond. It wasn’t cold outside, but it was so clammy that I couldn’t stop shivering. Just yesterday I’d been wishing things would cool off, and now that they have, I miss heat so much. I even miss seeing the moon.
Today’s a Saturday, so I ate brunch. Tomorrow we’ll fast. I wonder how that will be, but I guess we’ll get used to it.
I hope Grandma’s okay.
I guess the lists of the dead are about to get a lot longer.
Mom changed the rules so I can eat brunch on Mondays. She says it isn’t fair for me to fast on Sundays and then not eat until Monday night. Of course she isn’t eating until Monday night, but we’re not supposed to notice.
Fasting wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I got real hungry around lunchtime, but it wore off as the day went along. I guess I’ll get used to it.
It’s hard to be sure, but I think things are getting grayer.
Peter dropped by this afternoon. We told him our plans and he thought they were good ones. He especially approved of boiling the drinking water.
I asked him about swimming.
“It’s probably better if you stopped,” he said. “The people with town water are telling me it’s discolored and there are concerns about how much longer it’s going to last. All that takes electricity, and we know how well the power plants are working these days.”
“But what does that have to do with the pond?” I asked.
“It’s hard to predict what people will do if they don’t have running water,” Peter said. “They might start taking their dirty clothes to the pond to wash them there. Or they might start bathing there. There’s a possibility the pond will become a breeding ground. Nowadays it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
At least he didn’t list the symptoms of cholera. That, for Peter, showed real restraint.
I think I’ll go swimming tomorrow, anyway. Maybe Dan will show up. Maybe the sun will shine.
No Dan. No sun. No electricity. No word from Jonny or Dad.
Matt’s stopped running. It took me five days to realize that. I finally asked and he said he’d stopped on Saturday, partly because he’s worried about air quality and partly to conserve strength.
The days seem a lot shorter than just a week ago. At least it’s getting darker sooner. Mom lets us use one of the oil lamps in the sunroom every evening. It doesn’t cast enough light for all of us to read, so Matt and I take turns sitting near it. Mom found a bag of old yarn in the attic and she’s crocheting at night, so she doesn’t need much light.
I’m using the flashlight to write this now. I know I should stop. Batteries don’t last forever.
I did something so stupid today. I could kill myself, I’m so angry and upset.
We were sitting around this evening, doing our let’s-share-the-dim-light routine, and around 9 Mom announced we’d used up enough oil for one night and we should go to bed.
We’ve been on a sunrise to sunset pattern for a while now, but with that horrible gray covering over the sun, our timing is off. You can still tell if the sun is up, but there are no dramatic changes. Gray at 6 AM, gray at 6 PM.
And I don’t know why, but I just didn’t feel like going to bed. Maybe it’s the nightmares I’ve been having the past couple of days. Becky pushing me into a volcano, stuff like that.
I said I was going to sit on the porch before going to bed, and since sitting on the porch doesn’t use up any energy, Mom had no reason to say no. So I went out onto the porch and sat there for a while, maybe half an hour. Certainly long enough that when I went back in, Mom and Matt were already in their rooms.
Only when I decided to go in, I forgot about Horton. Horton goes outside in the daytime, but we’re not allowed to let him out anytime after sunset. Even when we had electricity, that was the rule. Horton stays in at night.
I guess Horton’s as confused about what’s day and what’s night as the rest of us. He raced out as soon as I opened the door.
I went back out and called for him, but he wasn’t interested. I stayed on the porch for an extra hour, calling for him, and hoping he’d come back on his own, but there’s no sign of him.
I’d better not use up any more flashlight battery. I just hope he’s on the doorstep, complaining about being forced to spend the night outside, when I get up tomorrow.
No Horton.
I alternated between gathering kindling and looking for him. Mom and Matt searched also, but none of us saw him.
Mom says I shouldn’t feel bad, that it could have happened with any of us, but I know it’s my fault. I am so careless. I’ve always gotten into trouble because I’m careless, but most of the time I’ve only hurt myself.
I don’t know what Jonny will do if he gets home and Horton isn’t back.
Still no sign of Horton.
Mom and I had a big fight.
“We haven’t heard a word from Jonny in two weeks! And all you can think of us that damned cat.”
“Jonny’s fine!” I yelled right back at her. “Jonny’s eating three meals a day. You waited until he left before you put us on our starvation diets. You think I didn’t notice that? You think I don’t know which one of us you’re betting on?”
I still don’t believe I said that. The thought’s crossed my mind, but I haven’t even written it here, it’s so horrible. What if Mom truly believes only one of us is likely to make it? I know she wouldn’t choose herself.
But would she really pick between Matt and Jonny and me! Will a point come where she asks two of us to give our food to the third?
The thing is I know if it comes to that, Matt wouldn’t take the food. And Mom’s got to know that also. And when I do think about this, and I try so hard not to, I think Mom guesses I couldn’t make it on my own, that no female could.
Which leaves Jonny.
I hate thinking like this. I hate myself for being so upset about Horton that I took it out on Mom. I hate being so selfish that it never even occurred to me Mom was worried about not hearing from Jonny.
I’ve stopped worrying about not hearing from Dad. I just imagine a month away from here, from Mom. A month in Springfield where for some reason the sun shines brightly and the electricity works all the time and I’m never hungry.
Three days and none of us have caught a glimpse of Horton.
Even Mrs. Nesbitt’s been looking, since Horton sometimes wanders down to her house. She thought maybe she saw him yesterday, but she isn’t sure, and Matt says we shouldn’t assume she really did.
“People see what they want to see,” he said.
Mom and I haven’t talked since our horrible fight yesterday, which makes suppertime even more fun. After supper, I go searching for Horton until it’s too dark to see anything, let alone a gray tabby. Then I sit on the porch and will him to come home.
Matt came out on the porch. “Horton might show up tonight,” he said. “But we’d better start dealing with the possibility he isn’t coming back.”
“I think he’s going to,” I said. “I think he just went searching for Jonny. When he gets hungry enough, he’ll come back. It isn’t like anyone else is going to feed him.”
Even in the gloomy darkness, I could see Matt’s expression. I’ve gotten to know it so well lately. It’s that How-Am-I-Going-to-Tell-Her-This-One look.
“You know we’re in pretty good shape,” he said. “Compared to a lot of other people we’re doing fine.”
That’s how he does it. He kind of slides into it. Breaks it to me gently. Points out how fabulous our life is before he sticks the knife in.
“Just say it,” I demanded.
“It’s possible Horton’s been killed,” Matt said. “For food.”
I thought I was going to be sick. I don’t know why that hadn’t occurred to me. Maybe because until a couple of months ago, I didn’t live in a world where pets were regarded as food.
“Look,” Matt said. “We’ve all let Horton out. If someone wanted to catch him for whatever reason, they’d have plenty of chances. All you did was let him out at night. You’re not at fault. No one is.”
But I am, and he knows it, and Mom knows it, and Jonny’ll know it, and most of all I know it. If Horton’s dead, if he’s been killed, I’m the one responsible.
I really don’t deserve to live. Not because of Horton, but if there is only so much food left, I haven’t done anything to earn it. What do I do? Gather kindling? What kind of contribution is that?
I hate Sundays. Everything is worse on Sundays.
Monday.
I stayed out all day, searching, and gathering kindling.
I fell asleep in the woods this afternoon, just collapsed into sleep. The mosquitoes must have loved me. I have half a dozen bites I don’t remember from this morning.
I got in around 4 and Mom was waiting for me in the kitchen.
“Did you eat today?” she asked. “I didn’t see you come in and eat.”
“I skipped brunch,” I said. “I forgot about it.”
“You don’t forget about food,” she said. “You fasted yesterday. Today you eat. Those are the rules.”
“You sure do like making up rules,” I said.
“You think I like this?” Mom yelled. “You think I like seeing my children go hungry? You think I’m getting any pleasure from all this?”
Of course I don’t. And I should have apologized on the spot and hugged Mom and told her how much I love her and how brave she’s being and how I wish I could be just like her.
Instead I ran to my room and slammed the door behind me. Just like I was 12 again. It’s going to be suppertime soon and I know if I don’t go out, Matt’s going to drag me out. Even if he doesn’t use actual force, he’ll drag me out with guilt.
The funny thing is I’d just as soon not eat. It turns out if you don’t eat for long enough, the idea of food becomes nauseating. That’s probably how Megan’s been doing it. Only she thinks going hungry is good and I know it sucks.
Suppertime’s going to be so much fun.
No Horton.
No word from Jonny.
Mom and I didn’t talk.
Matt isn’t talking much, either.
Today’s the anniversary of the day men first walked on the moon. I learned that when I was doing all those papers about the moon.
I hate the moon. I hate tides and earthquakes and volcanoes. I hate a world where things that have absolutely nothing to do with me can destroy my life and the lives of people I love. I wish the astronauts had just blown up the damn moon when they had the chance.
I have now gathered almost enough kindling to build a house, but Matt keeps telling me there’s no such thing as enough and I should bring in more. It’s not like I have anything else to do, so I keep going out and gathering.
In a week I’ll be going to Springfield. I know, I just know, everything’ll be better there, and that when I get home, this whole nightmare will be over.
I was out doing my gathering thing when Mom found me. “Sammi’s here,” she said. “Go on in.”
This is the most Mom’s said to me in days. I figured a visit from Sammi must have really cheered her up. Maybe she brought us a can of spinach.
Sammi actually looked pretty good. She’s always been obsessive about her weight, but she didn’t look like she’d lost very much since I saw her in June.
We went out onto the porch and stared out at nothing. “I’ve come to say good-bye,” she said. “I’m leaving tomorrow morning.”
“Where are you going?” I asked, remembering the laundry on the clothesline. Sammi has a kid brother a year younger than Jonny but she hates him. She fights with her parents all the time, too. I was just as glad I wasn’t going to be in that car.
“I met a guy,” Sammi said, and I burst out laughing for the first time in a week. I don’t know why that struck me as funny, except it was so obvious and I hadn’t even thought of it.
“Miranda,” Sammi said.
“Sorry,” I said, swallowing a few more giggles. “You met a guy.”
“I’m going with him,” she said. “He’s heard things are better down south. Lots of people are saying that. We’re going to Nashville and if that doesn’t work out, we’ll try Dallas.”
“Do your parents know?” I asked.
Sammi nodded. “They say it’s fine. He’s been giving us food so they think he’s great. And he is. He’s forty and he knows lots of people. He’s been bringing us food for a couple of weeks now, and he even got gas for Dad’s car, and lots of bottled water. Mom and Dad would love it if he stayed, but he’s been planning on moving out for a while now. He says he’s been waiting until I was ready.”
“How long have you known him?” I asked. “You never mentioned him at school.”
“I met him about four weeks ago,” she said. “Love at first sight. At least for him, which is a good thing. He can have any girl he wants. I’m lucky he wants me.”
“You don’t sound all that happy,” I said.
“Well, I’m not,” Sammi said. “Don’t be an idiot, Miranda. I may like older guys, but not that much older. Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three was my absolute limit and that was after this whole moon thing and I was drunk. But he’s given my folks cartons of canned goods and gas and Mom says maybe things really are better in Nashville and I’ll have a chance. She says the best thing a parent can do for a child now is to send them someplace where they have a chance. Only you need protection, which he’ll provide me.”
“Does he have a name?” I asked.
“George,” Sammi muttered and we both burst out laughing. “Okay, I never thought I’d end up with a fortyyear-old named George,” she said. “And maybe we won’t stick together. Maybe when we’re in Nashville I’ll find myself a nice twenty-two-year-old who can feed me and then I’ll dump George. Or maybe he’ll dump me. Enough guys have. Either way I’ll be out of here, which is all I ever wanted.”
“I tried to visit you,” I said. “A couple of weeks ago. No one was home.”
“I’ve been thinking about visiting you, but George takes up a lot of time,” Sammi said. “I stopped in on Megan on my way here. She seems pissed that she’s still alive.”
“I hope you come back,” I said. “I hope we get to see each other again.”
“You were the only good thing about this place once Becky died,” Sammi said. “You know, when she died, I figured out that life is short and you have to make the best of what time you have. Of course I didn’t expect it to be quite this short, and I didn’t think the best would be a forty-year-old guy named George. But that’s how it goes. Anyway, I’m really going to miss you and I wanted to say good-bye.”
She got up and we hugged. She never once asked how I was doing or how Mom and Matt and Jonny were. She came, she told me her news, and she left.
I know I’ll never see her again. I hate her for leaving and I feel sorry for her for leaving the way she is and for a change the ache in my stomach isn’t from hunger. Or at least not from hunger alone.
The best day in ages.
It started with finding Horton at the kitchen door. He was scratching and yowling and demanding to be let in immediately.
We all heard him. It was just after sunrise, or what passes for sunrise these days, and we raced out of our bedrooms and ran downstairs. Matt got there first, but I was right behind him, and Mom was less than a foot away.
Matt opened the door, and Horton strolled in like the past week hadn’t happened. He rubbed his head against our ankles and then walked over to his food bowl. Fortunately there was still some dry food in it, which he ate in two gulps.
Mom opened up a can of food for him and poured him some fresh water. We all watched as he ate. Then, just because he’s a cat, and cats love to drive people crazy, he used the litter.
“He couldn’t do that outside?” Mom asked, but she was laughing when she said it. We were all laughing. I think Horton was laughing right along with us.
He curled up on Jonny’s bed and slept for the next six hours. When I came back in from my kindling hunt, he was still asleep on the bed. I petted him and scratched his ears and told him how much we loved him. I guess he agreed because I could hear him purring.
Then Mom went to the post office to pick up our mail and there were five letters from Jonny waiting for her. The last one was dated Monday. He’s fine, camp is fine, he’s eating okay, playing baseball is fun, etc. I don’t think any of the letters was more than a paragraph long and they all said pretty much the same thing, but it didn’t matter. We heard from Jonny. Mom could stop worrying.
We celebrated at supper tonight. Mom declared this National Good News Day. She brought Mrs. Nesbitt over and we feasted. Mom warmed up a can of chicken and served it with noodles and mixed vegetables. We even had dessert: canned peaches. Mrs. Nesbitt donated a jar of apple juice.
It’s been getting chillier and chillier and after supper we went into the sunroom and built a fire in the woodstove. Not a big roaring fire, but enough to take the chill off. Mom lit a couple of candles and we had the oil lamp going and the woodstove cast off a glow.
We spent the evening sipping our apple juice (I think Mom was pretending it was wine) and telling stories. Mrs. Nesbitt told us about what things were like during the Depression and World War Two and what was different now and what was the same. Mr. Nesbitt was on a submarine during the war and she told us things he had told her about what life was like there.
Horton sat on all our laps. He hopped from one lap to another until he finally settled on Matt’s. I guess Matt is as close to Jonny as Horton could find.
I feel so much better about things. After a day like today, I feel like we will make it through, that if we love each other and work hard enough, we’ll survive whatever might happen next.
I dreamed that Becky was working in a candy store. I saw her and she told me to come in and take as much candy as I wanted. There were counters filled with different kinds of chocolates, and after the most wonderful, agonizing indecision, I asked for a piece of rocky road fudge. I even ate a bite or two before I woke up, and I swear my mouth tasted of chocolate until I realized it was a dream.
I couldn’t hear anyone moving around, so I stayed in bed and fantasized about chocolate. I thought about chocolate cake and Oreo cookies and chocolate chocolate-chip ice cream and hot-fudge sundaes and hot chocolate. Hershey bars and Nestle Crunch and Peppermint Patties. German chocolate cake (which I don’t even like). Black Forest cake. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Chocolate milk. Chocolate shakes. Soft vanilla ice cream cones chocolate dipped.
Now the closest I get to chocolate is in my dreams.
“Could we have a moment?” Mom asked me, which I figured meant something was happening that I wouldn’t like. Mom and I have been getting along great all week and I didn’t see how I could have done anything too awful without knowing it. So I guessed it was just more end-of-the-world stuff.
We went into the sunroom, which probably should be renamed the gray room.
“There’s been a change in plans,” Mom said. “I got a letter from your father, and it affects you.”
“Is he okay?” I asked. “Is it Grandma?”
“Your father is fine,” Mom said. “And Lisa is well. He doesn’t know how Grandma is; he hasn’t heard from her in a while. Miranda, I know you’ve been looking forward to your month in Springfield, but that’s not going to happen this year.”
“Why not?” I asked, trying to sound mature and civilized about it. What I wanted to do was scream and pout and throw a temper tantrum.
Mom sighed. “You know how things are,” she said. “Anyway, Lisa is desperate to see her parents, to be with them when the baby is born. And your father is equally worried about Grandma. So they’re planning to close the place in Springfield, pick up Jonny at camp, and visit for a couple of days before they take off. You’ll get to see your father, but you won’t have an extended visit. Sweetie, I’m really sorry.”
I know she is. I know she loves me and she’s worked really hard to make sure Matt and Jonny and I all see Dad and talk to him and feel like he’s still our father.
But I also know that if Jonny and I were in Springfield for August, that would stretch our food supplies out a lot longer, like 60 suppers’ worth, not to mention breakfasts and lunches. Sometimes I wonder if when Mom looks at me, she sees me or she sees a can of carrots.
I know I’ve been crazy thinking about Springfield as some kind of pre-moon heaven. Conditions there must be about the same as they are here. Dad has some sense of how things are going here, and if there was plenty of everything in Springfield, at the very least he’d tell Matt and Jonny and me to move in with him. Lisa might not like it, but I bet he’d tell Mom to come, also.
I understand how scared Lisa must be, being pregnant with the world in the condition it’s in. I’d want to be near Mom if I were pregnant.
Of course if I were pregnant Mom would kill me.
Speaking of not being pregnant. I haven’t seen Dan in weeks, not since I stopped going to Miller’s Pond. I know it’s impossible to call since the phones aren’t working anymore and it’s tricky to drop in for a visit, but he does know where I live, and I don’t see why he’s ignoring me. Even Peter shows up occasionally, if only to tell us a dozen new ways people are dying.
I wonder how far Sammi’s gotten and how Dad and Lisa plan to get gas along the way. Maybe things really are better down south or west. Maybe we should be leaving, too. I don’t see what good staying here is doing.
Matt came in this evening from his day of tree chopping and he showed off his biceps. It was sad, really. His biceps were impressive, but he’s gotten so thin. It looked like all his muscle tone was in his upper arms. He said that actually his legs got a good workout with all the chopping as well, and except for being hungry, he’s never felt stronger in his life.
I’m glad one of us is feeling strong, because it sure isn’t me.
Maybe Dad’ll bring us food from Springfield.
Maybe there really is a Santa Claus.
Jonny, Dad, and Lisa are due sometime tomorrow. Mom says she wrote to Jonny’s camp to let them know Dad would be picking him up. She can only hope the camp got the letter.
Life was easier when you could count on the telephone working.
At supper tonight, Mom said she didn’t know how long Dad and Lisa would be staying here, but she thought a week, maybe less.
“I don’t want him driving all the way to Las Vegas worrying about us,” she declared. “So for as long as he and Lisa are here, we’re going to be eating three meals a day.”
“Mom,” Matt said. “Is that realistic?”
“We’ll manage,” Mom said. “We’ve managed so far.”
Half of me, okay more like 3/4, loves the idea of 3 meals a day. Even with what passes for meals around here, that’s pretty exciting. I’m used to being hungry now, and it really isn’t that bad, but still. Not being hungry sounds fabulous.
But there’s that mean little part of me that’s wondering if Mom’s changing the rules because she doesn’t know what to do about Jonny. We (except for Mom) were on 3 meals a day, at least officially, when he left.
Sometimes at night when I have trouble falling asleep, I think about the future (which only makes it harder for me to fall asleep, but I do it anyway, like probing a cavity with your tongue). Not the immediate future, which is bad enough, but the 6-months-from-now future, or the year-from-now future, if we’re still alive.
Mom must be trying to work out the future as well. Maybe she thinks we’d be better off if Matt moved on, like lots of people are doing, or if I found some guy to protect me, the way Sammi did. Then whatever food she has would be for Jonny until he’s old enough to take care of himself. But I know Mom loves Matt and me too much to sacrifice us. And Jonny needs food now to keep growing and stay strong.
Which is a real problem for Mom. One that I think she’s decided not to deal with until after Dad and Lisa are gone.
Jonny and Dad and Lisa are here.
They got here this evening, and it’s been wonderful.
Jonny looks good. He says they fed them pretty well, even though the farm was hard work and cut into baseball time.
Dad’s lost a few pounds, but he’s always been thin and it’s not like he looks gaunt. Just thinner. Definitely older, though, than when I saw him in April. His hair is a lot grayer and his face is way more lined.
Lisa looks okay. You can tell she’s pregnant, but she isn’t big yet. I don’t know if she should be looking more pregnant than she is. But her face is still round and her skin tone is great. My guess is Dad’s seeing to it that she’s eating properly, even if that means he’s eating less than normal.
I could see Dad checking all of us out, just like we were checking out him and Lisa. I wish I weighed more (never thought I’d say that!), because I could see he was worried. And he has enough to worry about. I guess he had seen that Jonny looked pretty much the same and hoped Mom and Matt and I would, too.
Not that Dad said anything except how great we all looked and how wonderful it was to see us and how much fun they’d had driving Jonny home and hearing all about baseball camp.
But even though it was wonderful seeing that Dad really is okay, because you have to worry when you don’t see someone for a long time, the best part was all the stuff he brought us.
He and Lisa came in a minivan and it was loaded top to bottom. Dad had labeled all the boxes, and he left at least half of them in the van (which we hid in the garage—you don’t leave stuff out anymore). Even so it took us 10 or 15 minutes to unload the boxes just for us.
It really was like Christmas. Dad brought us cases of canned food: chicken noodle soup and vegetables and fruit and tuna fish. I actually lost count of how many cases, but I’d guess at least 30, with each case holding two dozen cans. Boxes of pasta and powdered milk and mashed potatoes. Jars of meat sauce and applesauce. Cases of bottled water and a half dozen jugs of distilled water.
“Where did it all come from?” Matt asked. Mom was crying too hard to talk.
“The college,” Dad said. “It’s not opening in the fall and the dorm kitchens had all this food. Lots of the staff had already gone, so those of us who were still there divvied up what was there. I’m taking a lot with us, for the road, and for Lisa’s parents and Mom, just in case they need it.”
But that wasn’t all, although it certainly could have been. They gave us four blankets and batteries and a box of matches and sheets and towels and washcloths and toothpaste. Perfumed soap for me. Kerosene. Insect repellent and sunscreen (we all laughed at that). Tracksuits for all of us, which of course were baggy but still wearable. And two working power saws and a two-handled saw.
“I figured while I was here, I’d help with the firewood,” Dad said.
Oh, and a battery-run lamp, which we agreed made the sunroom look bright and cheerful.
Mom calmed down enough to go into her room and pull out the boxes of stuff we’d bought for Lisa’s baby. All those cheap clothes she’d been so excited to find.
So help me, Lisa burst into tears when she saw what Mom had gotten. She kept hugging Mom and me, thanking us for thinking of her and the baby. Dad started crying, too, and the only things that kept me from crying right along with them was my thinking how totally weird this all was and Jonny rolling his eyes and Matt looking so embarrassed, which made me want to laugh instead of cry.
Lisa unfolded every single piece of clothing, and we ooohed and aaahed like it was a baby shower. Well, Matt and Jonny skipped the ooohing and aaahing and unpacked some of the food instead.
I have to admit the little overalls really were cute.
We stayed up until past 10, and then Mom, who’s sleeping in the sunroom so Dad and Lisa can have her bedroom, shooed us out.
I’m staying up late because I feel rich with batteries. It’s fun to be extravagant. I know it won’t last, that even those mountains of food Dad brought us aren’t going to last forever.
But for tonight, I can make believe.
Dad says however much wood we think we’re going to need, we’re actually going to need a whole lot more, and the most important thing he can do while he’s here is chop. He also said we can’t store the wood outside, even right by the side of the house.
“It’ll be gone by October,” he said. “Nothing’s going to be safe.”
Mom thought about it, and decided the best place to store the firewood was the dining room, since we never eat in there anymore (not that we ate there all that often before).
So after breakfast this morning, which we all ate, we moved the furniture out of the dining room and into the living room. All the breakables had to be moved first, and it was tricky because we couldn’t wrap things up in newspaper like we would have if there still were newspapers. But we didn’t break anything. Then came the furniture: the breakfront and the sideboard and the table and chairs. Even Lisa carried chairs out, although Dad watched over her like she was one of the breakables.
“The living room looks like a used-furniture store,” Jonny said.
“Like an antiques shop,” Mom corrected him. Either way, the living room is pretty much unusable now, but we haven’t been spending much time in there anyway.
Once the furniture was moved, Dad and Matt went out to cut down trees.
Jonny and I carried the logs we already had into the dining room. Mom covered the dining room floor with sheets so it wouldn’t get permanently scarred. After we finished bringing the firewood in, Jonny went out to help Dad and Matt. I went into the woods and collected more kindling. I think I crossed onto Mrs. Nesbitt’s property, but I know she won’t mind if I take some of her kindling. She really ought to move in with us. I don’t know how she’s going to make it through the winter otherwise.
I’m so used to skipping brunch that I did without thinking about it, which is pretty funny. The first time in ages when we don’t have to worry about food, and I skipped a meal anyway.
Supper was a disappointment, just tuna fish and canned string beans. Somehow I’d imagined a feast. Mom and Lisa actually giggled when they saw my reaction. “We’re going to have a real dinner party on Tuesday,” Mom said. “Just hold on.”
A real dinner party. I wish we’d saved the dining room until then.
But even if the food wasn’t so exciting, supper tonight was actually fun. It was great having Jonny back, and it was his first chance to tell us about what camp had been like. A lot of the kids hadn’t shown, which meant more food for the ones who were there, but fewer guys to play ball with. And the farm work was hard, especially in the beginning, but after the sky had been gray for a while, the animals began feeling the difference and the chickens didn’t lay as many eggs and milk production went down.
Only we didn’t want to talk about that, so we switched topics real fast. Dad told jokes, and it was so funny watching Mom and Lisa’s eyes roll.
But I think the best thing that happened today was that Horton finally forgave Jonny for leaving him. Horton’s been ignoring Jonny since he got home. He’s been sitting on Matt’s lap, on my lap, on Mom’s lap, once even on Dad’s lap. And since Lisa doesn’t want to have a thing to do with him, Horton’s been flinging himself at her.
We’ve all been laughing about it, except maybe Lisa, and maybe Jonny, and maybe me, since I keep remembering how hysterical I was at the thought of having to tell Jonny his precious Horton was gone forever.
But tonight after supper, we sat around in the sunroom, with our lovely battery light shining, and Mom crocheting while Lisa watched, and Dad, Matt, Jonny, and me playing Monopoly, which was irresistible to Horton, who had to knock pieces around. Once he’d established the floor was his turf and he was allowing us to use it out of his great benevolence, he checked us all out, and then curled up right next to Jonny and demanded to get his head scratched.
Which Jonny did. Horton purred like a kitten, and for a glorious moment, all felt right with the world.
It turns out Mom’s definition of a dinner party is us, Dad and Lisa, Mrs. Nesbitt and Peter. I think it’s a little weird for Mom to invite Peter, but then again it’s weird having Lisa staying here, so why not.
Mom asked me to bike over to Mrs. Nesbitt’s to let her know, and then to Peter’s office to invite him.
Jonny’s been chopping wood from the trees Dad and Matt have been cutting down, so I was the one most available.
Mrs. Nesbitt’s been huffy about Dad ever since the divorce, but when I invited her, she practically glowed with excitement. “I’m not getting out very much these days,” she confided, which struck both of us as so funny, we laughed until we cried.
I biked into town, inhaling dank ashy air, and went first to Peter’s office, only there was a sign on his door saying he’d closed his office and could be found from now on at the hospital.
It wasn’t surprising that Peter’s closed his office, but it was another one of those things that make me realize how different the world’s become. The past couple of days have been so great, I’d been forgetting what’s really going on. Even the gray, which I thought I’d never get used to, is just part of life now.
Things are different when you know where your next meal is coming from.
I went to the hospital, which was incredibly busy. I was stopped in the lobby and asked who I wanted to see. I said Peter and it was personal.
The hospital still has electricity and it was weird seeing a building all lit up. It was like a fairyland, or at least like a theme park. Hospital Land! It made me think of the amusement park dream I had a while ago.
Of course things were different at the hospital. The gift shop was closed and so was the coffee shop. I guess it’s a no-frills hospital, but even so, it seemed magical.
The security guard (armed, I noticed) paged Peter and finally I was told to go to the third floor east wing. “Elevators are only for the sick, the elderly, and the handicapped,” the guard said. I took the hint and used the stairs.
Peter looked exhausted, but otherwise okay. I told him Dad and Lisa were with us, and that Jonny had gotten home safely, and that we were having a dinner party tomorrow night and Mom wanted him to come.
If Peter felt weird about it, it sure didn’t show. He grinned almost as big as Mrs. Nesbitt and said he’d be delighted. “I haven’t left here in almost a week,” he said. “I’m due an evening out.”
It’s funny. I sort of dread Peter’s visits. He always brings us something, even if it’s just a can of spinach. But it feels like all he knows how to talk about are illness and death.
But he looked so happy at the invitation that it made me feel good to know he’d be coming tomorrow for a real meal and a nice night out, even if it was with his kind-of girlfriend, her kids, her ex-husband and his pregnant wife, and, of course, Mrs. Nesbitt.
As I was walking down the hallway to the staircase, I ran into Dan. I was so startled to see him, I gasped. He looked just as shocked.
“What are you doing here?” I asked him before he had the chance to ask me the same thing.
“My mother’s here,” he said. “West Nile. She’s going to be okay. But it’s been a rough couple of weeks.”
I felt awful when I thought about how angry I’d been at him.
Dan took my arm. “There’s something I want to tell you,” he said. “Where are you going?”
“Just to the stairs,” I said. “I mean, back home.”
“I’ll walk you outside,” he said, and he removed his arm, which made me sad. Somehow I thought that his arm would slide down to my hand and we’d walk together like we used to. But instead we walked like two different people, each with important stuff on our minds.
We went outside to the bike rack, where my bike chain was double locked. “Miranda,” Dan said, and then he stopped.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Just tell me.”
“I’rn going to be leaving soon,” he said. “Next Monday probably. I would have gone sooner, but I wanted to make sure Mom was going to be okay before I did.”
I thought of Sammi and Dad and Lisa and wondered how many more people would be leaving my life. “Do you know where?” I asked.
Dan shook his head. “First we thought we’d all be going,” he said. “Mom and Dad and me. To California, because that’s where my sister lives. Only we saw her name on one of the lists. That’s how you find out. Nobody notifies you. You just see the name. Dad took it okay. He didn’t go crazy or anything. But Mom was hysterical and she kept not believing it, so I said if I could figure out a way I would go.”
I wanted to tell him how sorry I was. I wanted to kiss him and hold him and comfort him. Instead I just stood there and listened.
“Dad said that was a mistake and we had to keep on living, and Mom was so beside herself it didn’t really matter,” he continued. “You don’t know what it’s like. I’m glad you don’t, Miranda. I’m glad this hasn’t really touched you yet. I hope it never does. And then it was summer and I couldn’t really figure out what I was supposed to be doing. So I swam. And I thought about loving you, but it didn’t seem fair to you or me. Because Dad decided I should leave. It was his idea, and he told me first, before he told Mom, because he knew she’d get hysterical. He swapped his car for a motorcycle and he taught me how to ride it.”
“I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to leave my folks, or you. But Dad insisted and I would have gone weeks ago except Mom got sick. Dad and I both worried if I left while she was sick she might not make it. But now she’s recovering, and I need to get going while the weather is still okay. Dad says the first frost should be in a couple of weeks.”
“In August?” I said.
Dan nodded. “Dad says we’ll be lucky if we go without a heavy frost before September. Has your family thought about leaving?”
“My father and stepmother are,” I said. “They’re staying with us for a few days and then they’re going west.”
“Maybe I’ll see them on the road,” Dan said. “Miranda, I wish things could have been different. I want you
to know I liked you a lot before all this. I was getting up my nerve to invite you to the prom.”
I thought about how much that invitation would have meant to me. “I would have said yes,” I said. “Maybe we’ll still get to go to a prom someday.”
“If I’m here, it’s a date,” he said. “I’ll try to write, but I don’t know if letters are going to get through. Miranda, I’ll never forget you. No matter what happens, I’ll remember you and Miller’s Pond. That was the only good thing that’s happened.”
We kissed. It’s funny how much that kiss meant. I may never kiss another boy again, not the same way I kissed Dan.
“I have to get back in,” Dan said. “Mom’ll be wondering.”
“Good luck,” I said. “I hope wherever you end up, things are better.”
We kissed again, but it was a quick good-bye kiss. Dan walked back into the hospital while I stood there and watched.
I know Dan thinks I’m lucky, that I’ve been “untouched” by everything that’s happened. And I know I’m self-pitying to think otherwise. But sometimes I wonder if the big cannonball horror of knowing someone you love has died is all that much worse than the everyday attrition of life.
Except I know it is. Because Dan lost his sister and I’ve lost no one, not to death at least, not that I know. And Dan has the same attrition that I have, only his mother’s been close to dying, also.
Honestly, I know how lucky I am.
But my heart feels like breaking because he didn’t ask me to the prom in May. I could always have had that. And now I never will and I don’t think I’ll ever have anything nearly as wonderful to dream about.
What a feast!
Mom and Lisa baked bread (using the last of the yeast). Of course we couldn’t have a regular mixed salad (It’s amazing the things one misses. Who would have thought I’d be nostalgic for iceberg lettuce?), but Mom took a can of string beans and a can of kidney beans and tossed them with olive oil and vinegar and declared it a two-bean salad. Our main course was spaghetti with meat sauce. Sure, the meat came out of a jar but I don’t remember the last time I had any kind of beef, except in my dreams. For a vegetable, we had mushrooms.
Peter brought two bottles of wine, one white and one red, since he didn’t know what we’d be having for dinner. Mom let Jonny and me have a glass of wine, because, hey, the world is coming to an end so why not.
Mrs. Nesbitt made dessert. She baked meringue shells from powdered egg whites and filled them with chocolate pudding.
We ate in the sunroom. We set up the metal folding table and covered it with a pretty tablecloth and carried in the dining room chairs from the living room. Mom lit candles and we had a fire going in the woodstove.
Mom used to pride herself on her cooking. She was always trying out recipes. The way the world used to be, Mom would never have served jarred meat sauce or canned mushrooms. But she was so proud and excited by dinner tonight. And we made an equal fuss over Mrs. Nesbitt’s dessert.
Maybe it was the smell of fresh baked bread or maybe it was the wine, or maybe it was something as basic as having enough food, but we all had a great time. I’d wondered what it would be like having Peter and Dad together, but they handled things the way Mom and Lisa do, like they were old friends and having dinner together was the most normal thing in the world.
We all talked. We all joked. We all enjoyed ourselves.
After dinner, Matt and I cleared off the table. Nobody wanted the evening to end, so we kept sitting around the table.
I don’t remember what we were talking about, but it couldn’t have been anything too serious because we didn’t talk seriously all evening long (even Peter kept his dead stuff to himself), when Jonny asked, “Are we all going to die?”
“Come on,” Mom said. “My cooking isn’t that bad.”
“No, I mean it,” Jonny said. “Are we going to die?”
Mom and Dad exchanged looks.
“Not in the immediate future,” Matt said. “We have food and fuel. We’ll be okay.”
“But what happens when the food runs out?” Jonny asked.
“Excuse me,” Lisa said. “I don’t like to discuss this.” She got up and left the room.
Dad looked torn. Finally he got up and went after her.
So we were back to us, the us I’ve gotten used to the past couple of months.
“Jon, you’re entitled to an honest answer,” Peter said. “But we don’t know what’s going to happen. Maybe the government will get more food to us. There have to be supplies somewhere. All we can do is go day to day and hope for the best.”
“I won’t survive all this, I know,” Mrs. Nesbitt said. “But I’m an old woman, Jonny, You’re a young boy, and a strong healthy one.”
“But what if things get worse?” I asked. I still don’t know why, but maybe it was because Jonny’d just been told he’d live and nobody was bothering to tell me that. “What if the volcanoes aren’t the last bad thing to happen? What if the earth survives but humans don’t? That could happen, couldn’t it? And not a million years from now, either. That could happen now or next year or five years from now. What happens then?”
“When I was a kid, I was fascinated by dinosaurs,” Peter said. “The way kids are. I read everything I could about them, learned all the Latin names, could recognize one just from a skeleton. I couldn’t get over how those amazing animals could just disappear. But of course they didn’t disappear. They evolved into birds. Life may not continue the way we know it today, but it will continue. Life endures. I’ll always believe that.”
“Insects survive everything,” Matt said. “They’ll survive this, too.”
“Great,” I said. “Cockroaches are going to evolve? Mosquitoes are going to be the size of eagles?”
“Maybe butterflies will grow,” Matt said. “Picture butterflies with foot-long wingspans, Miranda. Picture the world blazing with the color of butterflies.”
“My money is on the mosquitoes,” Mrs. Nesbitt said, and we were so startled by her cynicism that we burst into laughter. We laughed so loud Horton woke up with a start and leaped off Jonny’s lap, which made us laugh even louder.
Dad came back down then, but Lisa never did.
Dad and Matt worked all day. When Dad came in for supper, he told us he and Lisa would be leaving first thing tomorrow morning.
I knew I shouldn’t be surprised, but it still hurt to hear it.
Lisa pretty much stuck to bed today. Mom went in there a couple of times to make sure she was okay but it didn’t seem to make a difference.
“She’s worried about her parents,” Mom said to me. “And of course she’s worried about the baby. She wants to be settled in as soon as possible, and the longer they wait, the harder it may be to travel.”
I wonder if Lisa would be in such a hurry to go if Jonny hadn’t asked about the world ending.
Dad made tuna fish sandwiches for himself and Lisa and took hers up to their room. For a long time I thought he might stay there and then leave early tomorrow morning and I wouldn’t have a chance to see him again.
But after an hour or so, he joined us in the sunroom. “How about sitting on the porch with me, Miranda?” he said.
“Sure,” I said, and the two of us walked out together.
“I haven’t had much of a chance to talk with you,” Dad said after we sat down on the porch swing. “I’ve spent a lot of time with Matt and Jonny, but not much with you.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “Cutting the wood was the important thing.”
“You and your brothers are the important thing,” Dad said. “Miranda, I want you to know how proud of you I am.”
“Proud of me?” I asked. “Why?”
“For a million reasons,” Dad said. “For being smart and funny and beautiful. For finding swimming when skating didn’t work out. For all the things you’re doing to make your mother’s life easier. For not complaining when you have so much to complain about. For being a daughter any father would be proud of. I knew asking you to be the baby’s godmother was the right thing, and the past few days I’ve realized just how right it is. I’m so glad I’m your father. I love you so much.”
“I love you, too,” I said. “And the baby is going to be all right. Everything will be; I just know it.”
“I know it, too,” Dad said, and we hugged. We sat there quietly for a while, because we both knew anything we said would spoil the mood.
Then Dad got up and went back to Lisa. I sat on the porch a little while longer, and thought about babies and butterflies and what the rest of my life was going to be like. When I thought every thought I possibly could think, I went back inside and listened for a while to the silence.
Dad and Lisa left at 6 this morning.
We all got up when they did and we had breakfast together. Mom found a jar of strawberry jam and used the last of the bread. We had canned peaches and powdered orange drink mix. Dad and Mom had coffee. Lisa had tea.
Dad hugged all of us and kissed us all good-bye. It took all my willpower not to cling to him. We all know we may never see each other again.
Dad promised he’d write every chance he got, and he’d make sure to let us know how Grandma is.
When they got in the car, Lisa did the driving. I think that’s because Dad was crying so hard, he knew he couldn’t drive.
I woke up this morning thinking, I’ll never see Sammi again. I’ll never see Dan again.
I am so scared I’ll never see Dad again.
I don’t know how I’ll survive if I never see sunlight again.
I went into Matt’s room before supper to see if he had any library books to return tomorrow.
Matt walked in as I was looking. “What the hell are you doing in my room?” he shouted.
I was so startled I just stood there.
“I’ve been chopping wood all day,” he said. “I’m tired and I’m filthy and hungry and I have to be with Jonny every damn minute and I swear I could kill Dad for not staying here to take care of us.”
“I’m sorry,” I stammered.
“Well, so am I,” he said. “Fat lot of good that does.”
We’re all in a funk. You would think knowing we actually have food in the house would cheer us up, but nothing seems to.
I’ve noticed that Mom’s skipping breakfast again, and for the past couple of days I haven’t seen her eat lunch, either. Matt’s been chopping wood all day long, so I guess he’s not eating any lunch. He hasn’t been real chatty lately.
Nobody’s telling me what to do, but I guess I’d better go back to brunch, also.
It scares me that Mom is eating less when we do have food in the house. It must mean she doesn’t think the stuff Dad brought (and what we still had before he came) is going to last long enough.
You’ve got to think something in this world would get back to normal. I don’t remember the last time we had electricity, not even for a few minutes in the middle of the night. Mom makes sure at least one of us goes into town every day, to see if there’s any news at the post office (it’s become the community bulletin board) or if there’s a food giveaway, but we all come home empty handed.
It’s getting colder, too. The temperature today never even hit 60.
First frost. Just a light one, but nonetheless.
“Why are we staying here?” Jonny asked me this morning. “Everybody else is moving down south.”
“Everybody else isn’t moving,” I said, mostly because I was flustered by the question. Jonny’s never been much of a talker, but since he came home from camp, he’s been even quieter than usual. It’s like this whole business has made him old before he ever had a chance to be a teenager.
“Half the kids at camp said their families were planning to move,” Jonny said. “And camp was less than half full. I ran into Aaron in town yesterday, and he said so many kids from school had already left they’re talking about closing down some of the schools.”
“Aaron isn’t exactly a reliable witness,” I said.
“His father is on the school board,” Jonny said.
“Okay,” I said. “So he is a reliable witness. But we’re not going anywhere, and you’d better not talk to Mom about it.”
“Do you think we should go?” Jonny asked. It felt so strange, because he sounded like I do when I ask Matt stuff like that.
“We can’t leave Mrs. Nesbitt,” I said. “And to get in our car and drive someplace, without knowing where we’d end up, or if there’d be food there and a place to live? Some people can do that. I don’t think Mom can.”
“Maybe one of us should go,” Jonny said. “Matt or me. You could stay here with Mom and Mrs. Nesbitt.”
“You’re not old enough,” I said. “So stop thinking about it. We’ll be okay. We have food, we have wood, we even have some oil for the furnace. Things are bound to get better. They can’t get worse.”
Jonny grinned. “That’s what they all say,” he pointed out. “And they’ve all been wrong.”
At supper tonight (canned chicken and mixed vegetables), Jonny said, “I know my birthday is coming but I don’t expect any presents so don’t worry about it.”
I had totally forgotten about Jonny’s birthday.
When I list all the things I miss, I need to include shopping.
Mom said that was very mature of Jonny, and she had to admit she didn’t have anything for his birthday, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t going to be a special day. Which I guess means an extra vegetable at supper, or maybe some canned fruit salad for dessert.
Or maybe we’ll drink that other bottle of wine Peter brought and all get drunk.
It kind of annoys me that Jonny’s making these big grown-up gestures and I’m not. I can’t exactly say don’t worry about my birthday, since it’s in March, and I think we’ll have lots of other stuff to worry about between now and then.
I’m back to two meals a day, but that’s not exactly a big grown-up gesture around here.
Also, even though none of us is saying it, we’re all worried because there’s been no word from Dad. The mail is so weird, letters can take weeks to arrive, and probably a lot of mail doesn’t make it through at all. There’s no reason to think we’d have heard anything by now, but it’s scary to think of him and Lisa driving into the void.
Mom listens to the radio every morning, and I’m pretty sure if the rest of the United States had evaporated or something, she’d mention it. So Dad and Lisa are probably safe wherever they are.
Still, we’d all like to hear.
I asked Mom if things were better than they had been. Had all the bad stuff, the floods and the earthquakes and the volcanoes, stopped?
She said no, that once the moon’s gravitational pull had changed, things could never go back to where they’d been.
But things aren’t any worse, I said.
Mom obviously didn’t feel like answering that.
How much worse can they get? I asked.
Mom explained that there were volcanoes erupting in all kinds of unexpected places like Montreal. It seems there’s a volcano there that never erupted because the earth’s crust had been too thick, but now that the moon’s pull is so much stronger, the lava was able to break through the crust. The volcanoes cause fires and the earthquakes cause fires and the tsunamis get bigger and bigger so there’s less and less coastline and people are fleeing places with volcanoes and earthquakes and floods so things are getting worse even in the stable places.
And, of course, there are epidemics.
Once Mom got started, there was no stopping her. We’ve already had three nights with frost, but New England and the upper Midwest have already had weeks of killing frost. All the crops there have died.
Oh, and there was an earthquake right by a nuclear power plant, and it exploded or something. I think that was California.
“Now do you see how lucky we are?” she demanded. “I never said we weren’t!” I yelled, because I hadn’t. Or at least I hadn’t today. All I did was ask if things were getting better, which isn’t exactly the same as saying I wish we had electricity and hot chocolate and television and a prom with an actual date to look forward to.
All of which I think about every morning when I wake up and every night before I fall asleep.
“Don’t use that tone with me!” Mom shouted. “What tone?” I shouted right back. “You’re the one who’s using a tone! How come you can yell at me and I have to just take it?”
We really went at it. Which we haven’t done in weeks, not since that whole horrible business with Horton. How ungrateful I am. How I just sit around and do nothing. How self-pitying I am.
“You’re damn right I’m self-pitying,” I shouted right back at her. “Why shouldn’t I be? It’s bad enough my life is like this and I have no idea if I’m going to survive. I’m stuck with a mother who doesn’t love me. I should have gone with Dad and Lisa. He loves me even if you don’t!”
“Go,” Mom said. “Just get out. I don’t want to look at you.”
I was so stunned it took me a moment to run out of the house. But once I did, I had no idea where to go or what to do. I got on my bike and let my legs tell me where to go. And much to my surprise (although I guess not to my legs’ surprise), I ended up at Megan’s.
Megan’s mom looked about ten years older than she had when I saw her last month. But she smiled when she saw me, like it was the most normal thing for me to be popping in for a visit. At least she didn’t remind me of Becky’s mom anymore.
“Megan’s in her room,” she said. “She’ll be glad to see you.”
I went up to Megan’s room. For a moment I wondered what the hell I was doing there. But I knocked on her door and told her it was me and went on in.
Megan was lying on her bed reading the Bible. It was scary seeing how thin she’d gotten. But she didn’t look crazy or anything and these days you take what you can get.
“Miranda!” she squealed, and for a moment she was my Megan. “I’m so happy you’re here. Sit down. Tell me everything.”
So I did. Every single thing. Mom and the fights and Jonny and Matt and Dad and Lisa and Horton. And how Dan was going to ask me to the prom only now he’s gone. I must have talked nonstop for half an hour, with Megan interrupting me only to ask a question or make some kind of sympathetic noise.
“Boy,” she said when I finally finished. “Your life is terrible.”
I didn’t know whether to burst into tears or laughter. Laughter won.
“I’m having one of those ‘Except for that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?’ moments,” I said.
“Everyone is,” Megan said.
“Even you?” I asked.
Megan nodded. “I know what I need to do,” she said. “And I’m doing it as best I can. But even though I know it’s God’s will and I can’t question, I want to know Mom’s soul is saved and Dad’s and yours and everyone else’s I’ve ever loved. I pray and I pray but I don’t think it’s making any difference. We’re all in hell, Miranda. God knows what’s best for us, but it’s still hell.”
“Does Reverend Marshall think that way?” I asked. I was pretty shocked to hear Megan talk like that.
“He says God is punishing us for our sins,” she said. “We’re all sinners. I know how sinful I am. I covet things, Miranda. Food. I covet food so much sometimes. And I have lustful thoughts. Don’t look so shocked. I’m sixteen. You think I never had a lustful thought?”
“Who for?” I asked.
Megan laughed. “Tim Jenkins,” she said. “And James Belle. And Mr. Martin.”
“We all had crushes on Mr. Martin,” I said. “Half the girls at Howell High are going to hell if having a crush on Mr. Martin is a sin. But Tim Jenkins? I didn’t think he was your type. He’s kind of wild, Megan.”
“I know,” she said. “I used to think if he loved me, I could get him to reform. But that wasn’t how I lusted after him, if you know what I mean. I didn’t lust after him just so I could save his soul.”
“And Reverend Marshall thinks all the horrible stuff has happened because you lusted after Tim Jenkins?” I asked.
“That’s kind of simplistic,” Megan said. “My point was that I’m as much a sinner as anybody else and I’ve hardly had a chance to do anything. I might have lustful thoughts, but Sammi’s actually done something with hers, and if God is angry with me, then He’s angry at her, too, and pretty much everybody else on earth. We really have made a giant mess of things.”
“Speak for yourself,” I grumbled, and we both laughed.
“I can’t believe the moon came crashing in because I want to go to the prom with Dan,” I said. “What’s the point of God making us human if He doesn’t want us to act like we’re human?”
“To see if we can rise above our natures,” Megan said. “Eve got Adam to eat the apple, and that was the end of the Garden of Eden.”
“It all comes back to food, doesn’t it,” I said, and we laughed again.
I can’t tell you how it felt to be laughing with Megan. I know she’s crazy to be flinging herself into death, when so many people are dying you practically have to take a number and wait your turn. And she looked like a talking skeleton. But she was still Megan. For the first time since all this happened, I felt like I’d gotten something back.
“I think I’ll go home,” I said. “I don’t have anyplace else to go.”
Megan nodded. “Miranda,” she said, and she took one of those long pauses I’ve come to expect from people.
“Miranda, I don’t know if we’re ever going to see each other again.”
“Of course we will,” I said. “Or are you and your mother planning on leaving?”
“I think she’ll go after I die,” Megan said. “But we’re staying until then.”
“In that case, I’m sure I’ll see you again,” I said.
Megan shook her head. “Don’t come back,” she said. “I have to show God I’m truly repentant and I can’t do that if you make me think about Tim Jenkins and food and how awful things are now. I don’t want to be angry at God and seeing you makes me feel that way, just a little bit. So I can’t see you again. I have to sacrifice our friendship, because I don’t have much left I can sacrifice to prove to God how much I love Him.”
“I hate your God,” I said.
“Find your own then,” she said. “Go, Miranda, please. And if you ever hear from Sammi, tell her I prayed for every day, just like I pray for you.”
“I will,” I said. “Good-bye, Megan.”
And then the worst thing happened. She’d been propped up on her bed for the whole time I’d been there.
But when I got ready to go, she struggled to get off the bed, and I could see she barely had the strength to stand. She had to support herself as we hugged and kissed, and then she fell back onto the bed.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Go, Miranda. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” I said and I ran away from her, away from her house, without even saying good-bye to her mother. I got back on my bike and rode straight home. I probably burned off three days’ worth of calories, I rode so fast.
I put the bike in the garage and raced into the house. Mom was sitting in the kitchen sobbing.
“Mom!” I cried, and I flung myself into her arms.
She hugged me so hard I could barely breathe. “Oh, Miranda, Miranda,” she kept crying. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too,” I said and I was. Not for anything I’d said earlier. I was sorry because I make Mom worry and there’s nothing I can do to keep her from worrying.
I love her so much. In a world where there’s so little good, she’s good. Sometimes I forget that or resent it.
But she is good and she loves me and every thought she has is to protect Matt and Jonny and me.
If God’s looking for sacrifices, all He has to do is look at Mom.
Jonny’s birthday.
Matt took the afternoon off and we played baseball. We took turns, catching, pitching, fielding, and hitting.
Mom hit a ball so long it took Matt five minutes to find it.
Then we went to Mrs. Nesbitt’s for dinner. I have to admit that was a nice change, eating around someone else’s kitchen table.
She made quite the meal for us. We started with fruit salad and then we had tuna noodle casserole and peas. For dessert she’d made oatmeal raisin cookies that Jonny’s always loved. I could tell Mom was concerned because all that good oatmeal was going to cookies, but she had two anyway. The rest of us pigged out—I know I ate at least four cookies, which probably guarantees me a first-class ticket to hell for gluttony.
But Mrs. Nesbitt beamed while we were eating. She must have been planning those cookies for weeks now, and she pulled off the surprise.
Jonny said he wanted to make a speech. So we cheered him on. He actually stood up, and I guess he’d been working on what he wanted to say, because it was pretty close to perfect.
He said he knew times were tough now and we didn’t know if the future was going to get any better, but the important thing was we had each other and as long as we stuck together, we could make it through. He even said he loved us.
Mom was crying, but they were happy tears. I know, because I shed a few myself.
It’s funny. I remember my birthday so vividly, the fights Mom and I had because I wanted a big boy/girl party and Mom wanted something simpler and easier. I yelled, “Trust!” at her and she yelled, “Temptation!” right back at me. We started fighting over it the day after her birthday and I don’t think we stopped until the day before mine. Four weeks of fighting over what kind of party I could have.
In the end it was perfectly fine, boys and girls, pizza, cake, no beer, and a certain amount of unsupervised making out.
It’s hard to believe I was ever that young.
I guess Jonny never will be.
Mom went to the post office today (still no word from Dad), and at supper she told us that there was a notice for a big meeting for all concerned at the high school on Friday. Announcements about the school year.
Usually by this point in August there’s a shift in weather to remind you that the good times are about to end. A little chill in the evening. The days aren’t quite as long. Just a sense that in a couple of weeks it’s going to be schooltime again.
But lately all the days have been the same: cool and gray and dry. Sometimes it’s muggy, but it never rains. And the sun doesn’t shine, so it’s hard to tell if the days are getting any shorter.
I hadn’t been thinking about school. But now that I am, I realized I’m looking forward to it. It won’t be school like I remember. It’ll probably be worse than it was in June, and that was pretty bad. But at least it’ll be something to do. People to see. And I may not like tests and homework (Who does?), but at least you can pretend it’s for a purpose. School is all about what’s going to happen: a test on Friday, report cards at the end of the month, graduation in two years.
A lot of people laughed at that.
“What about food?” another parent yelled. “My kids are hungry. I’ve been counting on school lunches.”
“We can’t supply lunches,” Aaron’s father said. “Give your children a large, nourishing breakfast, and feed them again when they get home from school.”
“You want to tell us where that large nourishing breakfast is going to come from?” a woman yelled.
Aaron’s father ignored her and all the other people who were starting to make noise. “Naturally, the schools don’t have electricity,” he said. “We ask every parent to give their child a flashlight to take to school. We’ll try to make the best use of natural light, but as we all know, lately that’s been hard to come by. We’re going to start with a nine AM to two PM school day, but we’ll probably change that as the days get shorter.” “What about heat?” someone yelled. I have to give Aaron’s father credit. I’d have been running out of there by then, but he just took it.
“The schools are heated by natural gas,” he said. “I spoke to a vice president of the company last week. He was unable to assure me that there’d be any natural gas going through the pipelines much past September.”
“Wait a second,” a man yelled. “Is that just for the schools or for everybody?”
“Everybody,” Aaron’s father said. “Believe me, I questioned him carefully about that. The man I spoke to said the best-case estimate right now is for the gas supplies to end by early October.”
“Even for the hospital?” someone asked. “They have electricity. Will they have heat, too?”
“I can’t speak for the hospital,” Aaron’s father said. “Perhaps they have some electrical heating system. The schools don’t. We’re dependent on natural gas, and we need to assume that we won’t have any by October.”
“So you want my kids to walk ten miles to starve and freeze at school!” a woman yelled. “Is that what you’re telling us?”
Aaron’s father just plowed on. “In case there’s any uncertainty about this, there’ll be no after-school activities,” he said. “And many of the high school classes can no longer be offered. We’re going to try to divide the teachers as evenly as possible between the two schools, and we think there’ll be enough teachers, but no one should assume that a certain teacher or subject will be available. No more science labs or gym. We’re fortunate that Mrs. Underhill, the school nurse, is still working with us. She’ll divide her days between the two schools. She’s requested that if a child complains of any discomfort, that child not be sent to school. We have no way of contacting parents if a child needs to be sent home. And naturally, we’re concerned that an infected child could make classmates sick as well.”
“How do we know Mrs. Underhill is going to stay on?” a man shouted. “Or any of the teachers? What if they decide to get the hell out of here?”
“That might happen,” Aaron’s father said. “None of us can be certain what next month is going to be like, or the month after that or after that. We’re trying to do the best we can, and it’s our opinion that even a little bit of school is better than none. If you think your children would be better off being homeschooled, simply go to one of the two schools and sign up for the grade-appropriate textbooks.” He stood there for a long brave moment and then said, “Any other questions?”
It turned out there were, lots of them, but they mostly had to do with natural gas. I guess this was the first people had heard that the supply was going to run out.
It wasn’t until I got home that I realized we use natural gas for the stove and the water heater.
I asked Mom about that and she said we’d cook our food and heat our water on the woodstove, so we’d be okay. She says she doesn’t know what people who don’t have woodstoves are going to do, but she guesses they’ll move out, try down south or something. Although she heard on the radio this morning that North Carolina has already had a frost, so she isn’t sure things are going to be much better anyplace else.
No one’s crops are doing well because there’s been no sunlight anywhere for over a month. Or rain, for that matter. So we’re all going to freeze and starve no matter where we live.
She didn’t exactly put it that way. Actually she said we’d be fine because we had heat and food and each other.
She also told Jonny and me to think about school. If we want to give it a try, that’s fine by her. If we want to stay home, she and Matt would teach us and that would also be fine. We shouldn’t worry if one of us wanted school and the other wanted to stay home. We should each decide what we wanted for ourselves, and she would go along with the decision.
I think I’m going to give school a try. It’s going to be so weird, school without Megan and Sammi and Dan and most of the other kids I know. But if I’m not used to weird by now, I don’t know when I will be.
Mom says we’re about equidistant from Maple Hill and the high school, and she doesn’t think anyone will care which school we pick. But if we do decide to go to school, she’d prefer it if Jonny and I went to the same one.
I talked to Jonny about it this afternoon. He said he wasn’t that crazy about going to school, but if he did, he’d rather go to Maple Hill. I guess it’s because it’s familiar to him.
Of course I’d rather go to the high school. Maple Hill is a real baby school: K through 3. I don’t even know if I’d fit in the desks.
Which is pretty funny because Jonny’s taller than I am.
An all-bad day.
First of all, my watch stopped. I guess it needs a new battery, only it isn’t like I can get a lift to the mall and have a new one put in. The clock in my bedroom is electric, so that hasn’t run for weeks now.
It used to be I could look out the window and get some sense of what time it was. Oh, not if it was 2 AM rather than 3 AM, but dawn looked different than midnight.
Only with the sky gray all the time, dawn’s harder to recognize. You can sort of see the sky is lighter, but there’s nothing like a sunrise anymore. So now when I’m in bed, I have no idea what time it is. I don’t know why that should be important to me, but it is.
When I finally did get out of bed this morning, Mom looked super grim. We had a choice of bad news.
First of all, there was a killing frost last night. Leaves are already starting to fall off the trees and now any plants that were outside have died. It feels like late October and we all know if it’s like this in August, it’s going to be hell this winter.
Mom had brought in what she could of the vegetables she planted last spring, but of course nothing had done very well. Tiny tomatoes. Tinier zucchini. We were glad for them, and, sauteed in olive oil, they were a real treat. But her dreams of canning pints and pints of vegetables vanished, and I know she’s worried about our food supply in a couple of months time.
We spent today digging out all the root vegetables, the potatoes and carrots and turnips she’d planted. They all looked smaller than normal, too, but at least they’re something and we can eat them for a few days and save on the canned food. Then when Mom was through telling us about killer frosts, she said the past two days when she’d turned on the radio, she hadn’t gotten any signal.
We have three radios with batteries, and she tried all of them. We all tried all of them, because nobody wanted to believe her. But of course she was telling the truth. All any of us got was static.
I haven’t been listening to the news for months now. I haven’t wanted to know any more than I have to. But I know Mom listens every morning for a few minutes and she tells us what we need to know.
Now we won’t know what we need to know. I guess the radio stations ran out of electricity. Matt says even if the most powerful stations had their own generators, those generators have limited capacity.
But without hearing what’s going on in the real world, it’s easy to think there is no real world anymore, that Howell, PA, is the only place left on earth.
What if there is no more New York or Washington or LA? I can’t even imagine a London or Paris or Moscow anymore. How will we know? I don’t even know what time it is anymore.
Something scary happened today, and I don’t know if I should tell Mom or Matt.
I volunteered to do the bike run into town today. I wanted to get the feel of biking to the high school, in case Jonny and I end up there. Maple Hill we’d do back routes, but it makes more sense to bike through town to get to the high school.
Also I had some library books to return. I don’t know what we’ll do when the library closes. It’s open two days a week, Monday and Friday, same as the post office.
I bundled up (temperature was 42 degrees, and the way the air tastes and how dark it is all the time makes you feel even colder), loaded the bike, and started toward town. I was pedaling downhill on Main Street when I felt like something was different. It took me a moment to figure out what it was and then I realized I could hear people laughing.
Nowadays, because nobody is driving anymore, sound really carries. Only there isn’t much sound to hear. There’s always a crowd at the post office and sometimes there are people at the library but that’s pretty much it for town. I guess the hospital is busy and noisy, but I haven’t been there in a while. So even though you could hear noise, there usually isn’t any noise to hear.
I didn’t like the way the laughter sounded. It was scary hearing it, and I slowed my bike down and kind of hid in a place where I could look down the couple of blocks and see what was going on.
There were five guys on Main Street. I recognized two of them: Evan Smothers, who’s a year ahead of me in school, and Ryan Miller—he was on Matt’s hockey team. The other guys looked to be about the same age, maybe a little older.
Ryan and one other guy were holding guns. Not that there was anyone there for them to shoot. The street was empty except for the five of them.
Two of the guys were removing the plywood off storefronts.
Then one of them would break the pane glass and go into the store.
All the stores in town are empty. There isn’t much to take out of any of them, so I don’t know why they even bothered. It was the plywood they seemed most interested in. They’d remove sheets of it, and put it into a pickup truck.
I stood there watching for 5 minutes or so (now that I don’t have a watch, time is a guess on my part). No one tried to stop them. No one even showed up on the street. For all I know, I was the only person who saw what they were doing.
Then I remembered if I backed up a block or two I could take the back route to the police station.
I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in my life. The gang didn’t seem to realize I was there, but if they did, they could have shot me. Maybe they wouldn’t have. Maybe they just would have laughed at me. There was no way of knowing.
But it made me so mad to see them destroying the stores and stealing the plywood and having a truck that must have had gas. I thought about Sammi and the guy she went off with and how gangs like this must be all over the place, taking things from people who need them and selling the things to people who could pay.
However they pay.
So I got more angry than scared and backed up the hill very quietly and biked around to the police station. I had no way of knowing if the cops could get to Main Street in time, but at least I could identify two of the guys.
Only when I got to the police station, it was closed. The doors were locked.
I banged hard against them. I didn’t want to yell because I was only a couple of blocks away from where the gang had been taking down the plywood and I was scared they’d realize I was there. I peeked into the window. Of course things were dark, but I couldn’t see anybody.
It isn’t like Howell has a big police department. We never needed one. But I figured someone was there all the time.
I guess I was wrong.
I tried to figure out where else I could go. My first thought was the firehouse. But then I remembered that the last time Peter came over he said that people were setting fires in their houses to keep warm and then the houses caught fire, and the firehouse had been closed and they were seeing a lot of burn cases in the hospital. We should be careful with fire.
It was a very Peter speech. At least he’s stopped saying we should be careful with mosquitoes because they vanished when the frosts started.
Thinking about Peter made me think about the hospital. At least there’d be people there. I biked around an extra half mile or so to avoid going straight through town and went to the hospital.
Things really were different there from the last time. There were two armed guards standing in front of the main entrance and another two by the emergency door. There must have been 20 people standing by the emergency door.
I went to the main door.
“No visitors allowed,” one of the guards said. “If you have a medical emergency go to the emergency door and wait for a nurse to admit you.”
“I need to talk to a police officer,” I said. “I went to the police station and there was nobody there.”
“We can’t help you,” the guard said. “We’re privately hired. We have nothing to do with the police department.”
“Why are you here?” I asked. “Where are the police?”
“We’re here to make sure no one enters the hospital who isn’t in need of medical care,” the guard said. “We keep out people who want to steal food and supplies and drugs. I can’t tell you where the police are.”
“They’ve probably moved out,” the second guard said. “I know a couple of them took their families and started south about a month ago. Why do you need the police? Has anyone attacked you?”
I shook my head.
“Well, it’s not wise for a girl your age to be out by herself,” the guard said. “I won’t let my daughters or my wife go outside anymore unless I’m with them.”
The other guard nodded. “Times like these, you can’t be too careful,” he said. “No place is safe for a woman anymore.”
“Thank you,” I said, although I have no idea what I was thanking them for. “I guess I’ll go home now.”
“Do that,” the guard said. “And stay home. Tell your parents they need to be more careful with their children. One day a girl like you might go out for a bike ride and never come home.”
I shivered the entire ride home. Every shadow, every unexpected noise, made me jump.
I won’t go to the high school. The only way of getting there is through town. But the only way of getting to Maple Hill is by back routes. And anyone could be there as well. It isn’t like I can count on Jonny to protect me.
When I got in, Mom didn’t notice that the library books were the same ones I’d taken with me. She asked if there were any letters from Dad, and I lied and said there weren’t.
It probably isn’t a lie, but I felt bad saying it just the same.
I don’t know what to do.
At supper tonight, Mom asked Jonny and me what we’d decided to do.
“I don’t think I’ll go to school,” Jonny said. “It isn’t like anybody else is going to.”
“You do realize you’ll have to study here,” Mom said. “You can’t just sit around and do nothing.”
“I know,” Jonny said. “I’ll work hard.”
“What about you, Miranda?” Mom asked.
I immediately burst out sobbing.
“Oh, Miranda,” Mom said in her Not Again voice.
I ran out of the kitchen and flew upstairs to my room. Even I knew I was acting like a 12-year-old.
After a few minutes, Matt knocked on my door and I told him to come in.
“You okay?” he asked.
I blew my nose and nodded.
“Anything bothering you in particular?” he asked and the question was so ridiculous I began to laugh hysterically.
I thought Matt was going to slap me, but then he started laughing right along with me. It took both of us a few minutes to calm down, but finally we did, and I told him about what had happened in town. Everything. I told him who the guys were and how the police station was closed and what the guards had said at the hospital.
“You didn’t tell Mom any of this?” he asked. “Why not?”
“She has enough to worry about,” I said.
Matt was silent. “The guards are probably right,” he said after a little bit. “You and Mom shouldn’t go out alone anymore. I guess it’s safe going to Mrs. Nesbitt’s, but no farther.”
“So we’re prisoners,” I said.
“Miranda, we’re all prisoners,” Matt said. “You think I want to be living like this? I can’t go back to Cornell. I don’t know if there is a Cornell anymore, but even if there is, I can’t drive there and I can’t bike there and I can’t hitch a ride there. I’m stuck, too. I don’t like it any more than you do.”
I never know what to say when Matt admits he’s unhappy.
So I kept quiet.
“You’re right about high school,” he said. “It’s not a good idea to go to town anymore. I’ll go to the post office and library from now on. But if you want to go to Maple Hill, I’ll go with you in the morning and pick you up in the afternoon.”
I thought about it. It isn’t like I was all that excited about going to school. On the other hand, it makes me mad to think of being forced to stay home. I may never leave Howell again. I’d like to at least be able to leave my house.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll try Maple Hill. But don’t tell Mom what happened. I don’t want her to worry any more than she has to.”
Matt nodded.
I guess tomorrow is my first day of school. Whoo-whoo.