The Last of Us

Back Bay

It’s no fun staying up if you can’t be blamed for it.

I’ve just one clock to tell the time, now. I put all the rest in the garden – which turned out to be a mistake, because the electric ones stopped working after it rained. Then the wind-up ones stopped because I forgot to wind them up.

So my last clock, with its true time, is precious.

I’m dressed first. Everyone else is bleary this morning. ‘Rise and shine, time to dine,’ I shout out. Alex wanders out to the toilet. Mairi gets dressed and just sits waiting at the table, holding her spoon up.

Breakfast is wafer biscuits, then the powder from chocolate sponge mix, mixed with water. It looks like mud at first but be patient, it will come right. Alex has a fierce hunger and eats while it’s still powder-dirt. Mairi has the least appetite of us. I tick her off and she bunches shoulders but it doesn’t make her eat good.

After breakfast, we pile up the plates and get ready for school. First there’s fly-killing time. I’m the winner at that with twelve. After this we check the radios. Static. Then the light switches. No lights. Then I write up our shopping list for today: Batteries. Sweets. Gaelic stickers for remembering. Fizzy cans of juice. Better water.

Then it’s calendar time. That’s next door. I’m in charge, so the others have to wait. The calendar has pictures of trucks with blown-up wheels. We found it at a house in the village. It’s just me that gets to mark the days.

I put a cross over yesterday. I used to use circles, but circles can mean red-letter days so I stopped, in case it made a confusion for rescuers. Last week I even drew circles on days ahead to make things happen. So I wrote on the 23rd of June: ‘When the radio will start working!!’ Then on the 26th: ‘Electricity working again!!!’

But I passed those circles. And when you pass too many circles you get fed up with doing it.

At the door it’s my job to check everyone has their bags. Plus pencils, felt-tip pens, mid-morning snack.

Me: ‘Ready?’

There has to be a rule about not answering.

I wait for the leaves to settle in the corridor. I don’t like to look at them in case they’re true ghosts.

We started to use the P4 classroom now. It’s the brightest, plus there isn’t any broken walls or ceiling. Plus it’s as far as can be from the big school, which helps.

The kids in here were making shields out of cardboard, tinfoil. On the front of the shields there’s coats of arms.

They never got started on their December projects in P4. Which is why I prefer to use this room. Because everywhere else is always stuck on Christmas.

Today’s lesson is Gaelic speaking. This is especially for Mairi, who’s only learning. In the teacher’s cupboard I find Gaelic weather labels and reward stickers.

Even though I’m not sitting at the front, I’m the one in charge. It’s the new rule we have to follow.

‘Tha I garbh,’ I say. ‘It is windy.’

Everyone has to write it down. I wait until there isn’t any more sound of pencils scratching.

‘Tha I frasach,’ I say. ‘It is rainy.’

I listen for the time of their pencils stopping.

The classroom fills up behind me. Calum Ian comes in, then Duncan. They are quiet getting to their seats.

Then Mum takes a seat. She’s at the back, sitting beside the classroom assistant.

‘I’ve forgotten how to say “It is sunny”,’ I say.

Nobody helps. They all just wait, including Mum, who could be the biggest help if she wanted.

Feeling nervous, I eat my mid-morning snack. Even though it’s still early. Nobody tries to be helpful. They don’t join in with eating their snacks, either.

‘Did you read what it says on the wall?’ I ask everybody.

Nobody answers, so I have to read it:

‘Be honest. Be responsible. Be trustworthy. Be respectful. Be kind ♥ – and see the love heart after kind. That’s emphasis.’

Nobody says anything, so I have to put my head on the desk. Have to listen to the sound of the floor, the hissing sound that’s near or faraway.

‘What’s under the floor?’ asks Alex. ‘Ground. Then under the ground? Dirt. Under that? More dirt. Under that? Lava.’

But his voice isn’t true. It’s mean and scary. So I cover my ears and do lalalalas until he stops.

It’s been fifteen days. He never said what to do if it was longer than five days. I checked the rules, but it doesn’t say.

Sometimes it’s easier to pretend they’re here.

There are no small dogs left. Also, the sheep stopped coming near the village. I never knew what happened to the small dogs, until I saw one of them being chased by five big dogs, and then I knew.

Yesterday I left the school door open. Now it’s off its hinges. That was a daft thing to have done. I write the rule on my hand so I remember it for later: No doors left open.

Shopping got harder. I can only go shopping the old way for now, because it feels safer.

In the Co-op, some of the lights fell down. Also part of the roof, where the wind got in. Now I go to the back store instead, where there’s tall shelves, no windows. A big stack of wooden squares which I forgot the name of, beside the world’s biggest roll of clingfilm. Plus a machine that looks like the crusher at the back of a rubbish truck, only it’s indoors.

I find a packet of orange jelly down the back of the shelves. Beside, a buckled tin of sweetcorn.

When I tear open the pack of jelly I find it’s gone mouldy. The tin, though, is a good result.

I open the tin, sit out on a bench to eat it.

The wind isn’t blowing too hard. There’s kid-spots of rain, but also sun. I look for a rainbow, don’t see one.

Sometimes I cry just when I didn’t think I was going to. Like now. I mean, the food is just stupid sweetcorn. And there’s not too much wind, or rain. So why?

Up on the road I meet three big dogs. They stop to sniff. I keep an eye on their tails to make sure they’re friendly.

I also make sure I’ve got my knife.

Mostly the big dogs are friendly. But after what happened to the little dogs, I’m not playing with any chances.

In the butcher’s shop I find something we missed before. It’s called a mood-ring. It tells you how you’re feeling. Right now I’m passionate and sad but also with a hint of mixed emotions. But maybe that’s because I’ve been holding the ring for too long. Still, I think it might be true magic, because when I woke this morning I felt a mixture, and that’s what the mood-ring has shown.

The sea got something bad in it. Maybe that’s what happened to the world. Maybe I remembered it wrong. What truly happened is – the sea got greedy. It wanted everyone, so it sent poison into the air. That made everyone walk towards it. Except for only a few, like me, and the people who’d already gone. It’s like the opposite of the zombies that Alex worried about: the ones that could walk across the seabed to get to him. The ones that walked up out of the sea.

Maybe that’s why Duncan and Elizabeth, and Calum Ian and Alex and Mairi, all left. The sea wanted them. Because it was greedy then and it still is now.

My tooth hurts. At first it hurt just a little, but now it hurts a lot. Can’t put my toothbrush anywhere near it because it’s too sore. I should’ve remembered to brush before now, but I forgot and that was a lot of my fault.

Can’t remember if it’s not all right to eat toothpaste. Or the best way to brush? Was it around, or up, down? Plus my toothbrush got yellow and chewed. But that’s easy to sort: there are about a hundred toothbrushes still on the shelf at the Co-op. Enough to last for years.

I add Toothbrush to my shopping list. Then beneath that, Medicine for tooth hurting.

Now I wake up and it’s been ages and I’ve fallen asleep but forgotten when. The light is different in the window, so it’s been a while. Hours? Days? My head feels sweating hot. My mouth is truly very sore. My gum feels like it grew, like it belongs to a bigger person.

Elizabeth’s books are no good, they don’t tell toothache. It’s too sore even to drink.

I look for Elizabeth’s medicine bag, but she took it, it’s not there. Then I remember – ice cubes might help: but there’s no fridge plus no electricity so no ice cubes.

The best plan is to sleep beside my teddies. I gather all the teddies of mine plus Alex’s and Elizabeth’s, and I just hold them. It’s a bit of relief, especially if I pretend they all have sore teeth, and I’m the one helping.

In the morning it’s less sore. My mouth tastes yuck. When I try to speak my gum feels sore but less big.

There’s yellow water, sterilised. It hurts to drink at first but I’m thirsty so I don’t mind too much.

My tooth comes out. I almost wrap it in tissue and put it under my pillow, but that’s stupid.

‘There’s no tooth fairy,’ I tell myself in the mirror. ‘You knew that for ages, stupid dummy. What – you going to expect the Easter bunny next year as well?’

After this it’s too sore to talk, so I shut up again.