George had been six years old when the first long drought broke. It was the middle of summer. Heavy black clouds filled the sky for a whole day.
When the rain finally fell, it thudded against the ground so noisily you couldn’t talk.
George angled his face to the sky and let the water slap against his skin and run down his throat. He had never been happier. It poured for three days and, when the sun returned, the first new shoots of green were already pushing out of the brown grass, and through the grey branches of trees.
Then the heat raged again. Puddles evaporated. Leaves wilted. Grass sprouts burnt and turned the colour of straw.
George reached his seventh birthday without seeing it pour again. Then his eighth. Occasionally it drizzled, but the droplets vanished in the heat without even moistening his skin. The idea of cool, clear water gushing from the sky seemed almost too strange to be true.
With each year, the heat became worse. The lawn died at the root. Crops too. The soil began to lift with every puff of wind. The bare trees were hollowed by insects.
The school hall was the first building in George’s street to collapse. He was nine at the time. That was easy to remember because the school was still open. The walls slowly subsided as the scorched ground shrunk beneath them. Eventually, the roof buckled and fell in. Later, the telephone tower across the valley leaned and then toppled, flattening a row of houses and causing a fire that burnt all night.
As the earth dried, underground cables and pipes stretched, cracked and snapped. Telegraph poles tilted in every direction. Phones stopped working. The airborne sand and grit worked its way into televisions and computers. They stopped working, too.
Sometimes houses caught fire, and there was no water to put out the flames. Roads were buried in sand, train lines buckled in the heat. People dug boreholes into the ground to find water. They made spider webs of cables to tap into the haphazard electricity. They traded and stole solar panels.
George turned twelve. Tomorrow, he would be thirteen.
‘Just doing a run to see what’s open,’ Dad had said this morning. ‘I’ll get some food, we’re running low. Maybe even some birthday cake, if we’re really lucky. Need some fuel too, now that I’ve cleared out the engine filters again.’
‘Can we come?’ asked George. As he always did.
‘Not this time,’ said Dad. As he always did. ‘I want to be quick, and you know how long things take with Beeper.’
‘What do we do while you’re gone?’ asked Beeper.
‘Your letters and numbers, Beep.’
‘What if there’s a blaster, Dad?’ asked George.
‘You know what to do. And if I hear a siren, I’ll be back as fast as I can.’
‘Be quick, Dad!’ George said.
Dad nodded and smiled, then left. But he was not quick. Maybe the supermarket was closed, or empty. The fuel station too. Things had become much worse in recent months. Maybe Dad had taken a chance on the open-air markets near the city centre. To swap some tools, kitchenware or ration coupons for a drum of petrol.
‘Where’s Dad?’ Beeper asked. It had been at least three or four hours. Dad should have been back. Beeper had lost interest in his work and was pacing around the room. ‘And where’s the cake?’
‘Stop it, Beeps,’ George said, forcing a smile. ‘You’re behaving like a six-year-old.’
‘I am a six-year-old,’ Beeper howled.
‘It’s going to be all right. Trust me.’
Beeper did not calm down. His ears and cheeks burnt red. He demanded they go outside and stand on the front wall. ‘We’ll see Dad sooner.’
‘What?’
‘Please.’
George hesitated a long time before walking Beeper out to the sandstone wall. It was a silly idea, but he didn’t have a better one.
The air was still, but it was scalding; the hottest part of another baking afternoon. The heat of the stone percolated through the soles of their shoes.
‘Dad’s hurt, isn’t he!’ Beeper said.
‘Don’t be silly.’
‘Why’s he not back then?’
‘He might have gone to the port. He used to work there, remember?’ George sounded unconvinced. And knew it. ‘He might be helping to fix a ship, or unload one. Might have been given a whole day’s work.’
Beeper opened one hand and punched the palm with his other fist. He switched from hand to hand, shifted his weight from foot to foot with each punch. ‘Dad! Dad! Dad!’
‘Ssh! Mr Carey will hear you.’
Beeper’s cap fell off. His shirt was soon soaking with sweat. He finally climbed off the wall, and sat on the edge of the front porch. His eyelids were sagging.
‘You need to lie down,’ said George. ‘You’ve worn yourself out.’
‘No I don’t,’ was the firm reply. ‘I’m not tired!’ Yet Beeper still allowed George to take him inside, give him some water and help him onto his bed. He was asleep within minutes.
George had chores to do, but couldn’t concentrate on them. So he went back to the wall and stared hopefully.
When the blaster hit, George stumbled through the dark house and found Beeper awake and huddled under the sink in the bathroom.
‘It’s okay, Beeps,’ he said, as the walls seemed to bend around them. ‘It won’t last long.’
George felt his way around with his hands. He opened the cabinet, and pulled out two dust masks, two pairs of goggles, a candle and some matches. The water jar was empty.
George struck a match but a gust of wind blew it out straight away. He should have come in earlier and put rags under the doors.
He spluttered and coughed. He struck another match, but it blew out too. A new barrage of wind and dirt thrashed against the side of the house. The third match stayed alight long enough to produce a low, flickering flame on the candle stub at the bottom of the jar. The dusty air glowed red.
‘Dad’s missing, isn’t he?’ Beeper said. His eyes were puffy. Sweat had made streaks in the dirt on his temples and cheeks.
‘I told you: he probably found a chance to earn some money. Had to sit out the blaster somewhere else.’
‘He’s hurt, or even …’
‘Stop it, Beep.’
Beeper began punching his palms again.
‘It’s not a big blaster, Beeps. Dad will be back the minute it finishes. With cake.’
‘He might have been bitten by a snake. Or attacked by a wanderer.’
‘He’s safe. I know it.’ George had to shout above the noise. He tried to sound calm but his voice was cracking. He knew that people going missing was nothing unusual. Not with the heat, or the lack of food, water and fuel. Not with the snakes and wanderers, not with the sandblasters that hurtled across the city every few days.
Many people went outside and never came back. Two years ago, George and Beeper’s mother was one of them.