Have I ever messed something up as colossally as this?
“You did great, honey.”
I left the shelter door unlocked, but put the panel and the books back into their place.
“It was an important job, wasn’t it?”
“The most important,” I assured the girl and ruffled her hair. I realised that although I’d been busy, she had a bland, boring, and slightly scary day. “What would you like to do now?”
“Go on a trip!” she exclaimed immediately.
“We can’t do that,” I replied and felt terrible for not being able to do this for her. “How about a walk around the farm and a visit to the playground? I’ll swing you as long as you like.”
That made her feel better. We spent half the afternoon feeding the dog, chasing chickens, walking around the field, building a sandcastle. When it started to drizzle, I chased her back inside.
Someone was pulling on my sleeve and breathing into my ear. I was all ready to growl to chase the pest away so I could keep sleeping, when my drowsy mind registered the girl’s voice.
“Someone’s here,” she whispered.
I shot out of the armchair. “What?”
“There’s a man in the kitchen and he’s taking our food,” Ruby frowned.
How could I have fallen asleep? I remembered sitting in the armchair and watching Ruby play with her dolls. I had no recollection of my head growing heavy or my eyelids closing. And now the sun was setting!
“Stay here!” I sat her in the armchair I just got up from and handed her the elephant. “Do you understand? Don’t go anywhere, I’m serious!”
She nodded, fear shaking her entire body. Was she frightened by the stranger, or by my reaction?
I ran out into the corridor and caught a sight of a back, a heel and a bulging backpack disappearing through the main entrance. I could have followed the man and demanded our stolen things back, but what if it led to a fight and I got injured? How would I look after Ruby then?
I watched him from the patio. He staggered away as quickly as he could, occasionally glancing back. When he saw that nobody was chasing him, he slowed down. He coughed wildly a few times before disappearing through the main gate. Why was he robbing our pantry? Was the situation in the world really so bad that people had bought out all the food in the shops already and had nothing to eat?
This was exactly what the shelter was supposed to protect us from. I didn’t want to use it just yet, but it seemed like it wouldn’t be sensible to stay up in the house for much longer.
I went back to Ruby. “He’s gone, don’t worry.”
“Was it a criminal?”
More like a desperate man, I wanted to say. But to prevent her underestimating the situation, I nodded. “Yeah. It’s possible that more will come, so we’ll play hide and seek, so they won’t find us.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“You’re with me, you’ll be perfectly safe.” I took her in my arms and hugged her tight. I was determined not to let her out of my sight again, not even for a minute. “It’ll be an adventure!”
She was holding onto me tight as I was walking around the house. I opened all the doors and windows and propped them up with furniture, so they’d stay that way; we needed to get rid of the smell of rotting bodies. Plus, when people are desperate enough, they can break into any place, and no amount of protective window shutters or barricaded doors will stop them. Then I moved all our suitcases including Connie’s one, the toys from the living room, and the rest of the food from the kitchen in front of the shelter. The man hadn’t taken everything, he’d left us fresh fruit and food that needed to be cooked. I added Hugh’s fishing rod I’d stumbled upon while looking for a shovel in the shed. There wouldn’t be any use for it in the shelter, but I didn’t want to risk somebody stealing or damaging it during our quarantine. How would I fish afterwards?
We repeated our guardian game. I was hurriedly moving our things into the shelter as Ruby kept vigil. When everything was all safely down there, I reached for my granddaughter.
“Okay, come on, we’re going to hide.”
As soon as she climbed in, I put the missing shelf back in its place and returned all the books to their places. It was a lot harder from the inside. I was clumsy and slow, but in the end I managed. I secured the panel with hooks on the inside I hadn’t noticed before. I’d be surprised if anyone discovered the entrance.
It started growing dark. There was a torch somewhere in the pile of stuff, but there was no time to look for it, so we ended up closing and locking the sturdy basement door almost in the dark.
“We’ll be safe here,” I told the transfixed girl and hoped that I could believe that too.
Ruby finally went to sleep. She refused to decide between the top and the bottom bunk bed, for seemingly silly reasons–It’s too high up there, what if I fall down? Not down there, the tentacle monster would be able to reach me!–but I understood her unwillingness. It was unbearable for her to have the single person she had left in the world out of sight. No wonder, after everything she’d been through? Suddenly she didn’t have a Mum anymore, she quite possibly watched me dig a grave for the people who were hosting a dinner party for us just a few days ago, and she was in a foreign country. She had also watched me cry, listened to children’s stories about death, caught a strange man stealing in our house, and then she was forced to descend into this underground tomb
