H2O (7 page)

“Hey,” I replied, ready to be told to get back in my cell. “I called—”

“Yeah,” said Simon.

“Um…Mrs. Fitch is—”

“I know,” said Simon. “Try not to look.”

“It's horrible,” I said.

“Yes,” he said.

“Simon, can I please just use the bathroom? And then please could I get some breakfast? And…” I stopped, thinking now didn't seem like quite the right time to raise the cell phone thing. I'd have to work up to it—plus there was the laptop. I wanted to ask about the Internet, but I couldn't without revealing I'd already been on the other computer without permission. (That's how strict he was.)

“I'm really sorry about last night,” I said, thinking that might get me one step closer to my phone, to my friends, to normal. To the things that counted.

“It's OK,” he said.

Huh?!

“You don't have to stay in the den anymore,” he said.

HUH?!
That was tricky, because I knew I didn't feel OK even if I didn't feel
that
not OK, but I knew I didn't want another zillion hours waiting on my own with Mrs. Fitch dead outside, and…then I thought about my mom and Henry. I couldn't make them sick.

“I don't really feel OK,” I blurted. “I don't feel
bad
bad, not like…you know. I just feel a little bad.”

“Ru?” he said. He looked at me, worried, freaking me out. “What feels wrong?”

I told him. It annoyed me that he smiled when I said it. He smiled—not some massive grin, but a definite flicker of a tired, “oh you, you're so young (and stupid)” smile. Only it was sad-looking somehow too—and not the usual, “I'm so disappointed in you (oh you, you're so young and stupid)” sad look.

“What did you drink at Zak's?” he said.

Yee-haa! I was just about to saddle up in outrage, deny I'd had a thing to drink and yell at Simon for even thinking such a thing, when—

“Zak made some punch,” I said. Double blurt. At least I wasn't to blame.

“Punch? Oh dear! What was in it?” he asked.

He was really weirding me out now, because normally if he even slightly suspected illicit activities, he'd flip out, and that'd be it: me grounded and scraping poop, pee, woodchips, and hay out of the guinea-pig hutch. I could just see it… Except I'd actually confessed, and he wasn't going ballistic. Weird.

“I dunno,” I said. “Cider?”

He was looking at me so strangely I voluntarily blurted out more truth.

“And gin,” I said.

Quadruple confession. (A record!) Any minute now, I'd be telling him I'd tried pot, had lied about the babysitting, and was in love with Caspar McCloud, so I searched my brain for something that would make it sound like I wasn't as bad as some people.

“Molly got sick from it,” I said.

Sorry, Mol. Normally that would have been a great rage-deflection tactic, but Simon didn't seem to care.

“I think you've probably just got a hangover, don't you?” he said, super calm and gentle. “You need to rehydrate—and eat.”

On that, we agreed. I grabbed the kettle. It didn't seem like there was enough water in it for the eight hundred cups of tea I was needing, so I turned to the sink.

“Stop,” he said before my hand was on the tap.

I looked around at him.

“I don't think we should use the water anymore,” he said.

I looked at the tap—dripping like it had been for weeks, waiting for Simon to fix it—and then at the thousands of containers full of water all over the kitchen.

“Not those either,” he said. “You'll have to get by with what's left in the kettle. There's orange juice and milk in the fridge.”

I put the kettle back. I kind of stared at it and then the tap, and then the sea of containers.
What?!
Was that disgusting little tentacle-y space thing in the house?!

“Don't touch any of that water,” said Simon. “I'll get rid of it.”

I was too thirsty and muddled to start thinking. I flicked the kettle on, poured myself a glass of orange juice, and glugged it down. My stomach gurgled horribly.

“I'm just gonna go to the bathroom,” I mumbled.

“You'll have to use the bucket,” said Simon, staring at his list.

“
What?!
” I said, but not a yee-haa “
What?!
” It was just a “
What?!
” kind of what, the kind of “
What?!
” that comes out of your mouth when your brain doesn't get it.

“We don't know whether the water's OK anymore. It's too risky.”

“But…I need to…” I wasn't going to put my rear end
in
the toilet, just
on
it.

“Sorry, Ru. Use the bucket.” He added something to the list then.

I pooped in the bucket (too much information?). I thought I wouldn't be able to, but I was desperate, and anyway I told myself it was just like one of the terrible camping trips Simon took us on before Henry came along: rain pouring down, squatting on a plastic toilet thing. (We didn't go to the kind of campsites where there were showers and toilets and swimming pools and entertainment. Or even other people. We went to cold, windy fields in the middle of nowhere.) I piled layers of toilet paper on top of my poo, and even though it was my own—and you can't smell your own like you can smell other people's, can you?—I felt so embarrassed. I felt…so…humiliated. Like it was so unfair—for me.

Bristling—that's what you call it, when you're trying to not be angry even though you're furious—I went back to the kitchen. Simon was making scrambled eggs.

“I suppose I can't even wash my hands,” I said,
bristling
, as I sat down at the table and poured out the last of the orange juice.

“Or have a shower,” Simon said, pointing at a pack of Henry's baby wipes across the table.

NO
SHOWER?!
ARE YOU KIDDING?!

Cell
phone, friends, Caspar. Priorities, Ruby
, I thought,
priorities
. I wiped my hands,
bristling
.

Simon put a pile of toast and eggs in front of me, plus butter and jam and the secret stash of peanut butter. He'd also made a cup of tea.

“Last cup in the kettle,” he said as I slurped.

“Thanks,” I mumbled, feeling totally, bristlingly depressed.

Simon didn't eat. He just kept staring at his stupid list. He didn't add anything to it; he just kept looking at it.

When I had finished, I got a glass of milk.

“Feel better?” he asked.

It was harder to bristle; I did feel better.

“Yes. Thanks,” I said.

“Good,” he said.

I glugged down the last of the milk—well, almost. I did what you always do, which is leave this little bit in the bottom of the carton so you're not forced to rinse it out and put it in the recycling. I felt about ready to tackle it: how I was going to get Simon to take me to Zak's—though I figured it would be pretty hard to persuade him until the rain stopped. I looked out the window; it was coming down in sheets, pouring down, from the kind of low, gray sky that's got no hope of sun in it.

That's nimbostratus; I know that now. I didn't then. All I knew was it looked like the kind of gloomy total cloud-out that means: forget it, you're going nowhere.

But I could in a car. If we could just get into the car without getting wet—like if we took that huge umbrella my mom used to keep her and Henry in his stroller dry—and then we could just drive into the carport at Zak's place…but maybe I should try for the laptop first, check email, and see what had been going on and—

“Ruby,” said Simon. “I need to talk to you.”

Here
we
go. Now I'm gonna get
it.

That's what I thought, you see. The whole world was in some kind of hideous death-fest space-bug meltdown, and I was still on the page before, still stuck in yesterday. I still thought… I dunno what I thought! That everything—well, if it wasn't exactly the same right now, that it would still be the same…later? Tomorrow?

I'm not stupid; I knew something really bad was happening, but at that moment in time, I just wanted to see my friends. I wanted my cell phone back so I could call Caspar, which I'd never actually done before—we'd just texted and done the whole virtual flirtation thing a little—but felt I could do now on account of the kissing and the suffering. I just wanted to call him, almost as much as I wanted to call Lee…but did Caspar even have his phone, or had he left it at Zak's? I could get it and take it to him and—

“Ruby! You need to pay attention,” said Simon.

I sure did! I was going to have to charm my way out of there. I helpfully grabbed my plate and had my hand on the tap before—

“No!” Simon bellowed. “Don't use the faucet!”

I sat back down with my plate and smiled sweetly at Simon.
Look
contrite
, I thought—which means looking really sorry, even if you're not. He sighed—not in a nasty way, in a sad way—and pulled his chair around next to mine.

“I need you to really listen,” he said.

OK
, I thought,
humor
him
. I nodded contritely.

“No one really knows what's going on,” he said. “Not for sure. But until we know, we need to stick to these rules.”

That's when the list came out. It was basically a to-do list from hell. A hideous, death-fest mega-crisis do-this-do-that checklist, only it was all don'ts and no dos. You can imagine what was on it: all the stuff that had been on the radio. All the stuff I'd been trying to block out, plus a few things I hadn't even remembered hearing and that, later on, I realized was stuff Simon must have thought of.

DON'T GO OUT IN THE RAIN.

(
Duh!
I thought.)

DON'T TOUCH ANYONE WHO'S TOUCHED ANY WATER. OR ANY ANIMAL. OR ANYTHING. DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING THAT'S TOUCHED ANY WATER.

It felt like his list was already losing it a little, but I did get what he meant. I could imagine that horrible microscopic bug thing creeping about everywhere.

“Zak's mom said not to touch the car door,” I said (to pick up some Brownie points).

“Good,” he said. “That's exactly what I mean.”

Maybe he'd just let me use the laptop; it was sitting right there, right in front of me, and—

“Ruby! Please! You need to concentrate.”

I peeled my eyes off the laptop and focused on the list. The next item was the freakiest:

DON'T TOUCH ANYONE WHO'S SICK. OR DEAD.

“That's horrible,” I said.

He grunted.

DON'T TOUCH OR DRINK ANY TAP WATER.

He rattled on for a while then, about how although no one had actually said the tap water was bad already, it probably was or would be very soon because people had probably panicked like he'd panicked and emptied their water tanks, which would just speed up sucking the bad water into the pipes unless you could shut the water off, which he couldn't because he'd have to go outside to do that, so even though the water he'd filled up every last container in the house with was probably OK, you couldn't be sure, could you?

“No, Simon,” I said, and before he could go on about it anymore, I read the next part out loud.

DON'T USE THE TOILET. NO BATHS. NO SHOWERS.

DON'T EAT ANYTHING THAT'S BEEN OUTSIDE. NO FRESH FRUIT, VEGETABLES, FISH, MEAT.

The meat part annoyed me; technically, apart from eating fish, I was a vegetarian. It was just that it was a little hard to keep it up sometimes, and there'd been lapses—that Simon knew about and never let me forget.

“Yup. Got it!” I said brightly.

“And, Ru, this is the most important thing.”

At the top of the list, he wrote one word, in capitals, underlined. Then he wrote over it again and again. One word:

THINK

“Do you understand?” he asked.

It was too much; I just wanted to get this mini-lecture/test thing over with, but I knew “OK!” wouldn't cut it.

“Like filling the kettle?” I said.

“Like filling the kettle,” said Simon.

Phew. Comprehension test passed. But no—

“Do you understand, Ruby? You have to think. You have to stop and think, whatever it is, whatever you feel, you have to stop and think.”

“I get it,” I said.

“What?” he said. “What do you get?”

“That I've got to think,” I said.

“About what?”

“About… I dunno, about the water and stuff.”

“Yes,” he said.

He turned and held my face in his hands; it scrunched the Caspar-kissing sore patch a little and made it hurt, but I was too freaked out to even say “ow.”

“Ruby,” he said. “You have to think.”

It was the worst eyeballing he'd ever given me.

“You have to think about yourself,” he said. “You have to put yourself first.”

Huh?!
My whole life, I'd been told I was selfish. Simon, he'd just say, “Will you please stop being so selfish?!” while my mom would say something like, “Oh, Ruby,” and I just knew she meant the same thing. And now?

“You have to think about yourself first, Ruby. About your
survival
.”

Yup, he'd gone from weirding and freaking me out to full-blown scaring me out. He wouldn't let up.

“Before you do anything, what are you going to do?” he asked.

My chin hurt.

“Think,” I said.

“About what?” he demanded.

“About me,” I said. Said? Any second now, I could feel I was going to be forced to shout a little, just to make him lay off.

“What are you going to do?”

“Think.”

“About?”

“ME. Leave me alone, Simon—I've got it, all right? I have to think!”

“About?”

“Survival!”

“Whose?”

“MINE!” I shouted. I hated him then, more than I had ever done. “MINE! ME!”

He let go of my face.

The house was still quiet. I'd shouted and the house was still quiet.

“
Mom?!
” I shrieked.

Shrieked—that's a word for a kind of scream, isn't it? Not some great howl of a scream, when you know, but the kind of scream you make when—

“Think!” Simon shouted, trying to grab my arm.

I was too quick for him. I stormed up the stairs; I flung open the door to their room.

Oh…oh…oh…I saw my mom.

She was just lying there, curled around Henry, like she might be asleep. The bedsheets were all rumpled up. I didn't fling myself at her, in case she was just sleeping. Yes, I still thought that was what it could be.

“Mom?” I said.

The way she was lying, on her side, she had one arm stretched out across the pillow. Her hand was all bloody. The blood had soaked into the pillow. Her other hand, not bloody, lay on Henry's tummy. He was lying on his back, completely still. Only the tiniest little red sore on his cheek.

“
MOM?!
”

Simon's hands snatched around my middle and pulled me back. He pinned me to him.

My scream died in the air; it died and joined all the other screams. They live like ghosts, like echoes in the minds of the living.

My scream burst out and died, and my lungs refused—
refused
—to suck in air. I wanted to stop, to die with that scream.

“Breathe, breathe, breathe,” Simon kept saying. He was crying. He would not let me go.

Then it comes. Your lungs suck in air; your body decides for you. You will live.

You're one breath away from her, then two, then three, then four, then five.

Mom, I am still breathing.