‘Totally. If you asked me to talk about how I feel about stuff, I can’t. But I can draw it.’
As she looked at me I could feel her gaze reaching right inside of me. Like she could see into the tunnels of my mind that no one had ever seen before. She didn’t speak. I inhaled slowly, trying to get the balls to do what I wanted to do. I leaned toward her, testing a little to see if she would shift away. She didn’t.
My phone rang, shrill in the quiet of the library. I grabbed it. Mum. I blocked the call. It rang again.
‘Jealous girlfriend?’ asked Lucy.
‘Yeah. Sorry, I better get this.’
‘It’s your mum, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah.’
She laughed. I gave her the finger and answered the phone.
‘Fin?’ Mum was panicked. I could tell from the pitch of her voice. It wasn’t an unfamiliar sound.
‘Yeah, Mum. Who else would it be?’ I rolled my eyes at Lucy.
‘Where are you?’
‘School. The library.’
‘Have you seen the news?’
‘What? No. What’s wrong?’
‘God, Fin. Get home. Where’s Max?’
‘I don’t know. What’s wrong, Mum? Would you just chill for a minute?’
‘Fin, go to the supermarket, get as much non- perishable food as you can carry. And water. Get water —’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘The missiles, Fin. Something’s gone wrong, very wrong. We don’t know much, but it looks as though regions in the north of Asia have been hit as well as the Gobi Desert. Word is it’s a nuclear test gone wrong, but it might have been deliberate. We don’t know—’
She dropped out.
‘Mum?’
‘Fin? Can you hear me?’
The line crackled. ‘Just,’ I answered.
‘I’ve tried to get on to your dad but I can’t. I can’t get Max either. I want you both at home as soon as possible, but you need to get food and water, Fin, understand?’
Lucy was making faces at me, trying to make me laugh.
‘Yeah, Mum. It’s cool, it’ll be fine.’
‘Call me when you get home, promise.’
‘Yes, Mum.’
I hung up. Lucy frowned.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I think we should go.’
‘Sure, you know we could grab a coffee—’
‘No—’
The wail of a siren sounded over the loudspeakers: the evacuation alarm. It was usually reserved for bushfires. An announcement followed, it told anyone who was still on the school premises to go to the quadrangle immediately.
‘What’s happened?’ Lucy asked.
I told her what my mum had told me.
‘We should go to the quad,’ Lucy said.
‘No, I reckon we should get out of here. Go into town, get food. Get a bus from there.’
We shoved our stuff into our bags and left the library, ducking down a side path that led behind the science blocks. Soon we were on the driveway and then out onto the main road.
By the time we got into town the sky had changed. It was like the sun was being choked with thick orange dust. The sky glowed, throbbing with colour, but it was like it had swallowed up all the sunlight. Everything beneath the sky – the streets and buildings – was monotone. People were standing out on the street looking up, like they expected to see Godzilla crash through the streetscape.
‘Oh my God,’ Lucy whispered.
We looked up, absorbed by it. It was beautiful – and wrong.
Lucy tried to call her mum but couldn’t get through. She tried again and again. I could see her bottom lip starting to tremble. She put her phone away and took my hand.
We went to the big supermarket near the highway. The aisles were already half empty. Mute, we both grabbed trolleys and filled them with whatever was left. Baked beans in barbecue sauce, canned sausages, creamed corn, canned baby carrots, as much bottled water as we could carry home.
We carried the shopping bags up to the bus stop.
‘It’ll be okay,’ I said, even though I had absolutely nothing to base that on.
I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Lucy was distracted and she twisted a strand of hair around and around her pinkie. When the bus came we got on and I sat next to her. I wanted the trip to be over because I felt awkward, like I was failing. But at the same time I didn’t want the afternoon to end. The sky was weighed down with colour and light and under any other circumstances it would have been romantic. We didn’t say anything the whole way. The bus reached our stop and we both got off.
‘Can I help you carry some of your stuff?’
‘No, it’s okay, it’s fine.’
‘Really, it’s no problem.’ I held out my hand. She gave me one of her grocery bags to carry. We walked across the road and down the street a bit to Lucy’s house. I followed her up to the porch and waited while she unlocked the door. I handed her the grocery bag.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘I’ll call you, okay?’
‘Bye, Fin.’ She leaned over and kissed my cheek. I watched her go inside and disappear from my life.
Three
I dropped my keys twice trying to open my front door. When I got inside I dumped the shopping bags and called my brother’s name. There were no signs of life. I went through to the living room and there he was, game console in his hands, eyes on the TV screen.
‘Max, why didn’t you answer the phone? Mum’s been trying to call you… Max?’
His eyes didn’t leave the screen. I took the controller from his hands.
‘What are you doing? Fin! You dickhead! I’d almost finished level seven!’
‘Haven’t you seen outside?’
‘What?’ He went to the window. His eyes widened. ‘Whoa. Cool!’
‘Not cool, Max. Definitely not cool.’
A thin woman with too much make-up told us that the nuclear missiles had been launched around four pm, Australian time. The woman looked out at us from the television screen and told us that it was unclear what had gone wrong. She crossed to a concerned-looking man who said that firestorms from the blasts would have incinerated cities and wilderness areas. According to scientific modelling it would be a matter of days before clouds of dust and ash choked the atmosphere and, as a result, the temperature would begin to drop. He made cheery predictions about infrastructure collapse, crop shortages and global famine.
I called Mum again. She made me list every food item I had bought from the supermarket. At the same time I was talking to her, Kara, my step-mum, arrived home carrying grocery bags, still in her yoga outfit.
‘Is that your mum?’ she asked. ‘Tell her I got water, so she can stop calling me.’
‘Did you hear that?’ I asked Mum.
