Storm (10 page)

“We really thought it was the best thing to do,” says Darius quietly.

I gulp and nod. I get it—just about. I still feel
violated
…and guilty. Some of those things I said about Saskia? They really were truly dreadful.

“Can I get you something, Ru?”

“I'd quite like to have my old life back.”

(Yeah—and with a phone that's safely locked.)

“But then I wouldn't be in it.”

I can't help it: some kind of cough that could almost be a laugh comes spluttering out. The Spratt grins.

“What would make you feel better?” he asks. “You want a shower or something?”

“That's not funny,” I tell him.

Indeed it is not. These
have showers. Apparently they only get one swipe-card-monitored, time-limited shower a week because—oh the poor lambs!—there's only so much FILTERED water available.

“
You can FILTER it?
!
” I whisper-screech.

“Shh!” says the Spratt. “Sure.”

We are standing in the corridor outside the aforementioned swipe-card-monitored, time-limited showering facility.

“
You can FILTER it?
!
” I do believe I just whisper-screeched even louder.

“
Yesss
,” hisses the Spratt, “but not like through a sieve or something. The bacterium is too tiny. It's like
0.1 micrometers in diameter
,” he says, like that explains it.

I don't have to tell you that I have no idea how big a micrometer is, let alone 0.1 of one, and only a hazy recollection of which part of a circle a diameter is—however, this does not seem to me to be the point.

“
But you
can—
”

“
It's a complicated process
. Trust me, it's really complicated.”

I open my mouth to tell Darius just how simple I think it is when someone opens their door. Darius shoves me into the aforementioned swipe-card-monitored, time-limited showering facility.

“
Can we just discuss this later
?” he hisses, pushing towels and clothes and toiletries into my arms. “You've got three minutes.”

“
What
?
” It's going to take me that long to get undressed.

“From when the shower goes on. Three minutes,” the Spratt hisses and shuts the door on me.

Whoa! My stepdad, Simon, if he were still alive, would have loved this. He moaned at me so, so, so, so, so many times about the amount of time I took in the shower—which was only partially my fault because, as I pointed out to him so, so, so, so, so many times, if the shower were a decent one, I wouldn't have to do that. I smile, just remembering that—and then the smile dies on my face.

Why can't the dead come back alive? Why not? Why shouldn't it be possible? What difference would it make to God—if there is a God (which I doubt—and if there is, it/she/he/the Supreme Panda is in BIG TROUBLE with me)—or what difference even would it make to the general
micrometer
mathematics of the universe if just one of them did? Henry! Could I not just be given back Henry, dearest babiest brat beloved? Surely the universe could give back just this one, small, baby life?

Don't go there
, I tell myself.
Don't think those
things
.

I tear off my witch-fairy frock, still thinking those things, and I storm at the mirror to give myself a pep talk and I…

Ooooooooh, gosh. In spite of everything, I almost want to laugh…I look SO bad. Grace's pretty design has been wrecked. It is nothing but a great band of smudgy black and gold across my face. You can think, right here, if you want to: so why didn't the Spratt tell me? Hah! Only a nerd would fail to mention such a crucial thing.

I get stuff ready. Three minutes, huh? I need to make them count. Since the rain fell, ignoring the time I had jumped into a swimming pool to escape death (then jumped right back out again for the same reason—don't ask me about that, and don't ask me what happened after, which involved Darius Spratt and kissing)—I'd had ONE bath. No showers, obviously. ONE bath. On a crazy, mad day when I'd scored six—count 'em!—six great big plastic bottles of water from a gym. I'd left five outside in the summer sun, heating up to a glorious lukewarm, then poured them into the bath. I'd got new batteries for Mr. Fitch's boom-box ghetto blaster especially for the occasion. I lit candles. I had prime beauty products lined up. Super-prime looted beauty products. I slicked my crackly, undernourished hair with a super-prime looted moisturizing treatment and slathered on a face mask. I pressed play on Mr. Fitch's brass-band music tape, though it was getting kind of wobbly and worn, and I got into the bath.

For approximately ten seconds, it was delicious.

I sighed into it. I laid back. Clouds of bubbles frothed around me.

In the candlelight, from the showerhead, which had not been used in weeks and weeks and weeks…I saw a single drop of water fall. It landed in the bathwater.

splip!

Drip, drip, drop, dead.

I jumped out of that bath like there were piranhas in it. I hugged towels around me, scratched and scraped them all over my body. No, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no. Oh no. OH NO.

All that water wasted. All that water wasted. Wasted.

But I was alive. I was still alive.

I told Simon to fix that shower.

Three minutes? This is going to be a luxury. I will not miss a second of it. Pre-shower gelled loofah at the ready (I'm surprised the Spratt takes skin care so seriously; it might be Saskia's influence—certainly I suspect there must be something other than
le
fine French cuisine to account for the improvement in his skin), I stand under the showerhead.

I stare up at it. It is one of those big, fat daisy-head showers. Is it going to come out cold? Do I care? I care enough to crank the setting thing up to hot. Am I really ready for this? Oh yes. I am so ready. I press the lever—nothing happens. I have that moment of frustrated confusion you have in any new shower—OH! Maybe it's like—I lift the lever.

The daisy head bursts into life, water pours—pours—down—but HOT! SO HOT! I have to scrabble around immediately to work out how to cool it down.

And I work it out.

And I shower, scrubbing frantically…but I tell you: that—those three minutes—was the best, the most appreciated shower I swear I will ever have in my life.

I swung open the door, clean and serene, in a pair of the Spratt's pj's.

Darius, waiting outside, took one look at me and said, “Oh my
.”

He hustled me back into the room.

“
What happened to you?
!
” he hissed—even though there was now obviously no need to hiss at all.

I knew why he'd be asking that.
Sans
Grace's makeup, I had reverted to…pure Panda Ruby, I suppose. You can't scrub away major bruising.

“I…” I said, flopping onto the bed and trying to work out what I did want to say about it…but I was too
dog dead
just plain tired. “Let's not talk about this now,” I murmured.

“OK,” said Darius, leaning across me.

My eyes snapped open in panic. He was staring at me in—ah—um—a
tender
manner
.

WERE WE GOING TO KISS?!

“I need to get the other mattress, Ru.”

“What?”

“It's underneath you. Can you get up, just for a sec?”

“Yeah, course,” I said, flustered.

I got to my feet and stood by the closet as Darius sorted out beds. A sticky fug of embarrassment filled the room. And I reckoned it wasn't just me either.

I climbed into bed and pulled the covers up to my chin.

Darius started taking his shirt off.

“Hn. Um, maybe I'll just…” He pointed at the light switch.

“Yes!” I squeaked—and I turned over anyway, trying not to think that maybe it might be a nice thing to do right now to curl up in bed with the Spratt.

“Night, Ru,” whispered Darius.

“Night,” I squeaked back.

“I think you're really brave, you know.”

I grunted squeakily.

“You really are. Even the shower. Most people around here are too scared to use them.” He yawned.

Sometime in the night, I woke up. I was hot, and I kicked off the duvet. And I lay. I just lay. The Spratt was reading—with a flashlight—on a bed on the floor, down beside me. And I knew he knew I'd woken up, but neither of us spoke.

In the light from his flashlight on the wall, he did a shadow thing. He waved. Waggling fingers that looked way too much like the wiggly space bug thing-in-the-rain for my liking shook shadowishly about.

When the Spratt knew I was watching, he spoke.

“You do know nothing…you know,
happened
between me and Sask, don't you?” he whispers.

“Hn.”

Oh my
, did I just say “Hn”?!

“She was just there, on her own, so we teamed up—but not, you know, like
that
.”

“Whatever,” I say. And the second it comes out of my mouth, I feel a bit bad about saying it and I feel cross with myself that I feel bad.

“I was going to come and look for you, Ru,” he whispers.

“But you didn't, did you?”

“I couldn't see,” he says—and for one beautiful, weird moment I think he means that he must have kind of lost sight of my exquisite beauty or something. “I had to wait an age for new glasses.”

Those glasses. Those
glasses. I do not want to talk. I just want to sleep, but my eyes, staring at the wall in front of me, refuse to shut.

“I crashed a Ferrari,” I tell the Spratt. “That's how come…you know. My eyes.”

“You crashed a Ferrari?” he says.

“Yeah. Totaled it.”

I smile in the dark.

“You TOTALED a Ferrari?” he says. His voice is about ready to burst with laughter.

Ah! How
can
this be happening? “Yeah,” I tell him, with something that feels like a giggle rising in my throat.

I hear the Spratt spit laughter into the dark—and oh, oh, oh, oh. What is this? I laugh too.

The flashlight beam on the wall shakes—and HA!—a dog-head shadow puppet, formed by the Spratt's own hand, appears in it.

“What's that supposed to be?” I laugh, even though I know perfectly well. Didn't Simon play that game with me when I was little, making shadow puppets with his hands, trying to win a smile?

That thought could almost make me stop laughing, but—ha!—the Spratt shadow dog tips back its head, opens its jaw, and HOWLS.