People are worried about food shortages because everyone started using whatever cash they could find to spend on food just so they had it, but the supermarket ordering systems all went down and there’s a delay because people have to work out how to use pens again, and the rail network is down, and and and—
Mum switches off the radio and turns to me. Evidently my eyes are the size of a giant squid’s.
‘Stels, it’s important you know what’s going on, but it’s also really important you don’t worry. It’ll be okay. We’ll get to Grandma’s and everything will be okay.’
We zoom past another corner shop. A sign outside says
A few hours later, it’s that amazing time of day.
You know the time I mean? I think they call it Golden Hour. It’s when the sun is nearly setting and everything looks all dreamy and warm. We get some great ones in Mousehole, where the whole harbour lights up and the boats all cast long shadows across the water. Every little ripple has its own reflection of the sun and blinks it at you; thousands and thousands of them shining, all saying hello at a slightly different moment.
Where we are right now there are mainly hedges. We’ve stopped in a small gravelly car park by some woods and the only thing that’s spoiling Golden Hour is Dad kicking the front of the car.
He’s saying, ‘No,’ a lot to himself.
‘No,’ he’s going, as he kicks. ‘No. No. No no no.’
Mum’s trying to keep things light.
‘There was a petrol station back that way,’ she almost sings.
‘That was miles away,’ growls Dad. ‘There must be one closer?’
The second the car started to run out of petrol Dad had gone into complete denial.
Even though the car was juddering and choking and jerking and jolting, Dad had just kept acting like everything was absolutely fine.
It was only when it had died completely and slowly rolled to a halt in the middle of the road that Dad had accepted we were stuck.
That was when he took his foot off the accelerator, pulled up the handbrake, and folded his arms.
I read on a leaflet at the doctor’s once that when you get bad news, you go through all these stages before you come to terms with it.
Denial. Dad had already been through this. That was when he was saying NO a lot out loud.
Anger. That’s where he’d just been. Kicking a car in a car park he’d had to push the car into.
Now it was Bargaining.
‘I think we can make this okay,’ says Dad, nodding to himself madly. ‘If we just push on, we can find a petrol station – we can do this!’
‘Okay!’ says Mum, brightly. ‘I am sure there will be a petrol station just a little further on. And you can find it well before dark. And everything will be great!’
I’ve been telling Dad for ages he should get an electric car. One because it’s better for the planet. And two because all you have to do to charge it is find someone who’s got a toaster or something and then plug in the car instead. But Dad’s work car is petrol, meaning you have to rely on someone on these tiny roads going: ‘You know what this tiny road needs? A massive petrol station in case Stella’s dad inexplicably drives down here one day!’
However, I don’t think now is the time to remind Dad of my wisdom.
‘Okay,’ he says. ‘Only take what you need. From here we walk!’
Poor Dad. He’s only trying to do the right thing. For us. For my grandma. But everything that was normal has changed. Now it’s like the world is playing tricks on him every time he turns round.
And then he actually turns round, and it’s happened again.
He stares at Mum. ‘What do you mean, “You can find it well before dark”?’
It makes sense that Dad went off on his own. We are in the middle of nowhere. I am a ten-year-old child, Teddy is only just four and we should not be forced to walk down random country roads at night in search of petrol. Plus I don’t want to.
Instead, Mum has spread out our sleeping bags on the grass and found some snacks for us. Mum looks so beautiful in the evening sun. She’s lying down on her sleeping bag, smiling up at the sky. Mum always seems a bit happier than Dad, despite her shop not having many customers.
‘Mum, how much longer will it take to get to Grandma’s?’ I ask.
‘Oh, not too long,’ she says, which using my parental translation device means AGES.
I already know it will take ages. That was just a starter question. Sometimes I ask a starter question before I get to my main question, which is the question I’m a bit scared of.
‘Is it all going to be okay?’
Because you wouldn’t think it would be that bad, losing all the screens, would you? You’d think it’d be fine, but then you think about how complicated and big the world is, and how everything is connected to something else, and it makes your head spin, and it can make your tummy feel heavy, and—
‘Let’s play!’ says Mum. ‘Let’s pretend we’re camping in the Wild West. And I’m a cowboy. But you’re a robot sent from the future. And, Teddy, you’re—’
‘A dinosaur!’
‘Perfect!’ says Mum. ‘You’re a dinosaur sent from the past! And we’ve all decided to go camping together. Well, you know what we have to do first?’
‘What?’ I say, forgetting all our worries for a second.
The fire is still burning when I wake up. I loved making the fire. We’d collected so many sticks and dry leaves and old branches from the small woods around us. And we’d sung songs and even though Dad wasn’t there it had felt normal again. The moon was
