Soon enough Mum notices something’s not right.
‘You’re quiet, Pol,’ she says, studying me across the breakfast table. ‘You okay?’
I flop dramatically over my cereal bowl.
‘It’s too hot,’ I reply, which is the answer for everything these days. ‘And … I’m worried—’ I stop before mentioning Joel, who, since the swimming clip, has been glued to his device. Still, Mum pounces on what I’ve said.
‘Worried about what? Going back to school?’ She asks because Joel was bullied at school last term, though they never got to the bottom of who was doing it. I can’t imagine this film clip will help.
‘I’ve got some tricky homework to do,’ I admit. ‘But no, it’s not school.’ 12
‘Sasha, then? You’ve hardly seen her this holidays. Have you two fallen out?’
Reluctantly, I sit up. ‘She was mean to me at swimming.’
‘How?’
‘She joked about me. Said I swam like a poodle.’
‘Oh.’ Mum leans back in her seat. She gets that ‘poodle’ is a reference to my ridiculously curly hair. She knows how I wish I had straight, well-behaved hair like hers.
‘The whole class laughed,’ I add weakly.
It sounds childish now but I’d tried really hard to swim those fifty metres, so what Sasha said did hurt.
‘And it’s … it’s this.’ I gesture at our tiny kitchen. ‘Being stuck inside all summer. I’m sick of it.’
Then there’s Mum and Dad, super stressed about keeping their gardening business going in temperatures hotter than the Sahara. And Joel, who stays in his bedroom with the door shut. We don’t dare play our music loudly, or make too much noise, because our new downstairs neighbour bangs on her ceiling if we do. She calls our family ‘the Clydesdales’, whatever that means, and says we sound as if we’ve got cement in our shoes.
I take a spoonful of now soggy cereal.
‘Wish we could go to Jessie’s,’ I say, thinking wistfully about our favourite aunt. 13
In past summer holidays when the gardening business was booming, Joel and I were often packed off to stay with her so our parents could work. Jessie lives in an eco-house she built herself. It’s small and basic – bad internet, compost toilets – but the garden is huge and overlooks a reservoir. It’s all trees and water in every direction. Better still, she works long hours as a community nurse, so we basically look after ourselves.
Mum sighs. ‘Jessie did mention inviting you, love, but she thought you’d both get bored.’
‘I wouldn’t,’ I insist, though I daren’t speak for Joel.
‘Hmmm.’ Mum considers it. ‘Maybe we could sort something out, then. If we can find cheap fuel to get you there.’
I cross my fingers, double tight, on both hands, for what could be the best news in weeks.
*
Immediately, Mum sets off in a whirlwind of chivvying us, phoning Jessie, checking fuel prices.
‘I’m already packed,’ Joel calls from his bedroom.
I’d worried he wouldn’t want to go to Jessie’s and be responsible for his annoying little sister. But as he’s not 14normally this super organised, I take it as a sign he does want to come, which is a relief.
Once I’ve done my own packing – and even though I’m too excited to concentrate – I get out that piece of homework I’m stuck on. I join Dad at the kitchen table, where he’s researching drought-resistant garden plants.
‘Am I really the oldest person you know?’ he laughs when I ask him to help.
Mum’s parents are on a walking holiday in Scotland, and Dad’s died when he was a teenager. So yes, at this precise moment, he is.
‘Sorry, Dad,’ I say, pen poised. ‘Tell me something you were proud of in your life, please.’
He looks at the ceiling, thinking.
‘Tomatoes,’ he says. ‘I used to grow some real beauties from seed.’
I don’t write this down.
‘What about regrets?’ I try instead.
‘Tomatoes,’ he says again. ‘I wish I’d space for a polytunnel. Nothing beats the taste of a home-grown tomato.’
I give up. He’s not taking this seriously. The homework will have to wait.
Yet by nightfall our old hybrid van is part charged, 15part full of fuel, and everything’s arranged. We are going to Jessie’s, which I suppose proves I’m not completely useless.
*
The next morning we’re all up super early to beat the heat. Though it’s not yet seven o’clock, the sky is a pale, simmering blue, the warmth building. Outside on the rooftops, the seagulls screech half-heartedly, already too hot to care. With room for only three passengers in our van, it’s Mum who is driving us to Exmoor. Jessie is, after all, her sister, and Dad, for the first time in ages, has a day’s work on the communal gardens in the middle of our square.
Down in the street, he’s taking what equipment he needs out of the van. The pavement is littered with rakes, shears, hoes, hedge trimmers, and through the open kitchen window Dad’s good-mood whistling drifts up, as does his voice saying ‘Sorry, mate’ each time a passer-by has to step over the tools.
I’m in a good mood too. Even Joel, headphones on, slurping his breakfast, is tapping his feet to his music. He’s been as excited as me about going away, so I’m hoping I’m just about forgiven. His device has still been 16going off day and night with notifications about the clip. It’s going to be such a relief to get to Jessie’s, with its bad internet, and no signal for miles.
Mum joins us in the kitchen and pours herself some muesli. She’s fresh from the shower, her hair still wrapped in a towel. There’s a national bread shortage currently because the wheat harvest was poor. It means we can’t have toast, which is another reason why this summer has been so rubbish.
‘Aren’t you hungry?’ I ask, noticing the tiny amount in Mum’s bowl.
‘Oh, Polly, not with your mouth full, please,’ she groans.
She clutches her stomach suddenly and rushes off to the bathroom. Personally, I don’t think chewed-up cereal looks that terrible, but I’m pretty sure my mum’s just been sick.
*
Mum ends up back in bed. It’s really not like her to be ill.
‘Is she all right?’ I ask Dad.
‘It’s just the heat,’ Dad says, looking anxious enough for both of us. This isn’t like him, either. Of my parents, he’s the optimistic one, so his sudden seriousness is 17worrying. I guess it goes without saying the trip to Jessie’s is off.
But no.
Apparently, we’re catching the train instead. At the station, Dad comes in with us to buy our tickets on a credit card he rarely uses. The place is heaving with people in vest tops and sundresses, sweaty-faced, sweaty-haired, the smell of sunscreen everywhere. Our train is already boarding. It’s a rush to say goodbye.
‘Keep us posted on how Mum’s doing,’ I plead.
‘Course. I’ll let Jessie know the change of plan,’ Dad promises as we give him a last hug.
Inside, the train is packed. There aren’t any spare seats, so we stand in the aisle for the next few stops. Joel starts listening to music. I stare out of the window, glad of the change of scenery, though everywhere looks depressingly hot. We pass a park where the grass is bleached white, and the swings hang empty because no one takes their kids out in the daytime any more.
‘Even I’d think twice about having babies these days,’ I overheard Mum admit to Jessie recently. ‘Imagine the climate in fifty years’ time.’
I picture my aunt nodding: she’s always had strong views on this subject.
‘Another mouth to feed is not what this planet 18needs,’ she says, if anyone dares ask why she doesn’t have children. ‘Who’d want their kids inheriting a world that’s getting hotter and hotter?’
It made me realise how fast everything is changing. Grown-ups like Mum can remember when the damage done by fossil fuels was only just becoming obvious. Even now, when we’re living in forty degrees of heat, our air con and ice-cold fridges are only making the world hotter. And the saddest part of it is the poorest countries, with the smallest carbon footprints, are the ones suffering the most.
‘D’you know America generates eighty times more carbon than Sierra Leone?’ my aunt told me. It’s a fact I’ve not forgotten.
Joel taps me on the arm. ‘You still mad with Sasha?’
I blink. ‘What?’
For the first time in ages it had honestly slipped my mind.
‘You’re going on holiday so cheer up, misery guts,’ says Joel.
‘D’you think something’s wrong with Mum?’ I reply, because that is what’s bothering me.
‘Dunno. It’s probably the heat.’
I sigh. ‘That’s what Dad says.’
Realistically it could be any number of things: the 19stress of the gardening business not making money, or being stuck inside all summer with us two. Sasha’s cousin had cancer last year and lost all her hair, so I’m aware you don’t have to be old to be seriously ill.
*
Outside Exeter station there’s a bus idling and a few parked-up taxis, their windscreens glinting in the sun. The heat is so fierce I can smell the tarmac melting.
‘Where is she?’ Joel shields his eyes with his hand as he looks for Jessie.
‘There!’ I point. Our aunt is waiting in the only patch of shade. As she turns, sees us, her face piercings catch the light like stars.
‘Welcome, travellers!’ she cries, rushing over to throw her arms around us.
I’ve forgotten how much taller than Mum she is, and thinner. They barely look like sisters at all: our mum’s short-haired and dark, Jessie’s got copper-red hair down to her waist that she never brushes.
I hug her tightly. She smells like she always does, of patchouli and fusty clothes. I’m so glad to see her: everything feels better now, like a holiday and a birthday at the same time. When I pull away, I 20notice Joel turn his device off and tuck it in his back pocket. At last.
‘Great to have you here, blessed niece, blessed nephew.’ Jessie always calls us this.
Hugs done, I glance around for Jessie’s car: there doesn’t seem to be one.
‘I sold it ages ago,’ she explains. ‘Got myself an electric bike. We’ll have to catch the bus.’
Thankfully, the bus we need is one that’s already here.
Once we’re out of the city, the bus picks up speed. The trees are shimmering, drooping, and the fields, usually green and full of cows, are bare yellows and browns. A few miles into the ride Jessie’s device goes off. It’s the telltale ping-ping of the government alert, warning us the temperature has reached forty-two degrees.
‘Again?’ Joel groans.
‘It’s been like it every day this week,’ Jessie confirms. ‘And no end in sight, either.’
For once, I don’t mind: at Jessie’s there’s nothing much else to do but paddle in the lake and sit in the shade. Just being here is already making me feel better. I’m glad we came.
*
21The bus drops us at the top of a lane. From there we walk down a track that leads to Jessie’s house. Thankfully there’s some shade from the hedges, though the air is so hot it’s hard to breathe. Even here, deep in the hills, the grass is almost white. It could be autumn already from the reds and golds of the trees. Happily everything else looks familiar: the little sky-blue box for post at the end of Jessie’s drive, the wind chime in the tree, the boulder propping open the gate. I feel a rush of fondness for the place.
‘Wait until you see what’s happened to the lake,’ Jessie says.
She calls the reservoir a lake – everyone does.
Truthwater Lake.
Shouldering our bags, we follow Jessie round to the front of the house. The garden is looking more overgrown than usual, the straggly plants and trees throwing more welcome shade across the path. Joel is just ahead of me, hurrying, because any moment now he’ll get a glimpse of the lake through the apple trees, and Jessie’s garden slopes right down to the water’s edge. Already I can smell the muddy, silty murk of it that’s so different from the sea back home. I walk faster, eager to get down there and wade in till the water covers my knees. It’s going to feel wonderfully, refreshingly cold. 22
Joel stops so suddenly I walk into the back of him.
‘Whoa!’ he gasps. ‘Where is the lake?’
I dodge round him to see it for myself.