Where were Mum and Dad? Why hadn’t they told me where they were going for lunch? I should have asked. I should have gone home with Shona and Katie. I felt utterly alone in this alien, ruined city.

Somebody, a policeman maybe, shouted to clear the square: the authorities were setting up an emergency response centre.

I started walking, one of a river of people leaving the city behind. Some of them limped, some bled from cuts. Bare-footed women carried their high-heeled shoes. Some of them ran – shoes in one hand, phones in the other.

I stopped, trying to remember what my parents had said about their plans this morning when the world was still safe.

A man put his hand on my arm. ‘You okay there?’

I shook my head. ‘My parents, my brother – I don’t know where they are.’ I couldn’t say any more.

He winced. ‘I know the feeling – but the best thing you can do is go home. Keep yourself safe. They’ll be expecting you to do that.’

‘Yes. Thanks.’

‘Want me to walk with you?’

His kindness helped steady me. ‘I’m okay. Thanks though. I hope your family is all right.’ My brain started working again. This morning, Dad had talked about going to Fazazz. He was excited about some classic car they had. He’d joked about buying Mum a model car kit for her birthday. Today was my mother’s birthday. I wanted to howl. I wanted to find her and Dad. I wanted Blake to text saying he was okay.

An image of Fazazz flashed in my mind. The showroom – on the bottom floor of an old building. It’d be okay, it had survived the September quake.

But it might not be okay. All the buildings now in ruins around me had survived September. I wanted to go and see for myself if my father was in that shop drooling over an ancient car. He’d be helping anyone who was hurt, if only I knew where. He was calm in a crisis. He made you believe things would be all right.

People everywhere, all walking away, intent on leaving the broken city. They looked shocked and dazed. I couldn’t look up, not after I saw a guy frantically waving his shirt out a fourth-storey window.

I edged past a pile of masonry. Men in high-vis vests clambered over it. I wanted to help too. Mum and Dad would be helping. Blake could be too. But what if …

I kept walking.

At the corner, I stopped. Which way now? To my right, the mall section of Cashel Street was a disaster.

Gaping holes in the buildings. Windows gone. Bricks and masonry lying shattered on the street. People searching, helping others escape through gaps in walls. My eyes skipped over a shape on the ground, covered by a couple of towels. Just beyond it, people clambered over a heap of rubble.

‘Mum?’ A chunk of something heavy fell from a building just ahead. I hurried, going faster where the buildings were higher. ‘Mum!’ It was her. She was up on the pile of bricks and concrete, clearing a path to the wrecked shop behind, her face intent.

A man with a helmet and orange vest said, ‘This is no place for you, kid. You need to get home. Off you go.’

‘That’s my mum. I have to tell her I’m all right. I have to find out where Dad is.’ I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

‘I’ll get her. But then you scarper. Deal?’

I nodded. ‘Thanks.’

The man called out, ‘Clemmie!’ She lifted her head to look at him. He pointed at me.

I saw her lips form my name. ‘Lyla!’ She picked her way down the rubble heap. Her feet were bare.

Her arms around me were bliss. ‘Lyla. Darling. You’re all right?’ She held me at arm’s length. ‘Is that your blood?’

I kept my grip on her hand. ‘No. Tell you later. Where’s Dad? Blake? Have you heard anything?’

She shook her head. ‘Nothing. It’ll take hours for texts to come through.’ She looked away from me – but I’d already seen her tears. ‘It’s terrible. Go home, Lyla. Keep safe. Please?’

I didn’t want to go home. I wanted to stay, to help. Another rule from after September thrummed in my brain: obey instructions. I fought not to argue. She didn’t need that. ‘Okay. You stay safe, Mum.’ I tried not to imagine the buildings around us tumbling down on her and the other rescuers.

‘Good girl.’ Another hug and she turned from me.

‘Mum! Wait.’ I tugged my shoes off. Shoes – not sandals. It had been cold this morning. I pushed them into her hands. ‘Put them on. Don’t argue – please. I want to help. It’ll help you to wear these.’

She brushed her feet clear of dirt and grit before she put them on. ‘Thanks, love. They’ll help a lot. Be careful, won’t you? There’s glass everywhere.’ Then she was off, back to the work of clearing a way to get into the building. I couldn’t remember what it had been before it fell into a pile of nothing.

I left my white socks on my feet. One of Mum’s high-heeled sandals lay in the middle of the street.

I swallowed a sob. Dad, please be alive.

I walked away from the city centre, one of hundreds, all of us with our shocked faces, some of us covered in dust and blood. Several people asked me if I was okay. A lot of Ian’s blood had got onto the white hotel robe. I hoped he was in hospital by now. I hoped he hadn’t…don’t go there.

Sirens shrieked and the sky vibrated with the throb of helicopters.

Where was Dad? Don’t think about piles of masonry, scattered bricks.

I walked, all the time checking anyone caring for the injured. I passed a couple of makeshift triage areas, but Dad wasn’t at either of them.

High-vis vests were everywhere. I’d thought we were done with them by now. They’d been all over the city in the months after the September quake, along with the men in hard hats driving cranes and diggers. There hadn’t been a street in the city without orange road cones. Now they were back. The road I walked on was split and buckled, great rifts torn in the seal.

It took me ages to get home. There were so many people, so many cars crawling along choked roads whose signs had either gone or pointed the wrong way. I walked through a city I didn’t recognise, its familiar landmarks pulverised. A tree Blake and I had climbed when we were small lay on the ground, its roots sticking up.

I came to a street that was open. I couldn’t think of its name. I joined the mass of people, all of us walking in the middle. Cars and pedestrians mixed together on the shattered road.

On every road leading out of the city, cars were nose to tail. They bounced up and down whenever another shock hit. So many cars. It would be quicker to walk.

Grey muddy eruptions spurted up through cracks. I dodged around the ones I could until a woman touched my arm. ‘It’s just liquefaction. The quake’s turned the ground to mush, just like last time.’

I should have worked that out for myself but I’d only seen it then when it was like lakes spread all over the ground.

I saw a convoy of huge cranes heading into the central city. I wouldn’t let myself think about why they were needed.

Puddles of grey liquefaction stretched right across the roads. I abandoned my socks after I’d waded through the first one.

The danger of high buildings falling faded as I reached the suburbs. Now the danger was of stepping into a deep hole hidden by the horrible liquefaction.

I walked past houses shoved off their foundations. Past people sitting outside, too stunned to move, too frightened to go into their wrecked homes.

As I drew nearer Ireland Street, I sped up. Our house would be all right. It had survived September. It would be fine. I slowed down again. The turning into Ireland Street was just ahead. What if…

A woman ran past me, looked around frantically, then clambered over a collapsed stone wall and started sloshing through liquefaction towards the house, shouting, ‘Roger! Where are you? Oh, I knew I shouldn’t have left you all by yourself!’

She’d left a kid at home by himself?

‘Can I help?’ I started picking my way through the sticky mess.

She gave a sob. ‘He’s so little. My husband said he needed to get used to being outside and now he could be dead. Roger! Come on, darling. Mumma’s home.’

This wasn’t making any sense. ‘Um, how old is he? Has he got a favourite hiding place?’

She stared at me as if I was the crazy one. ‘I told you – today’s the first day he’s been outside.’ She started squelching towards the back of the house.

I yelled, ‘What’s he look like? Can he walk?’

She didn’t even turn around. ‘Of all the stupid questions! Did you ever meet a puppy that couldn’t walk?’

‘Well,’ I muttered, ‘it’s pretty stupid to expect me to know Roger’s a dog.’

She heard me and came sploshing back. ‘I’m so sorry. I’m just so worried. Roger! Tell Mumma where you are!’

‘Listen!’ I waded closer to the house. ‘I think he’s under the deck.’

She just about fell headlong into the liquefaction, she was in such a hurry. ‘Roger darling, it’s all right. Come out now. Come to Mumma.’

I bent down to look under the deck. All I could see was his head and his terrified eyes – he was up to his belly in gunk. He whimpered when he saw me. ‘Hang on, Roger. We’ll soon have you out of there.’

Mumma just stood there, wringing her hands. I had to shout at her to get her to listen. ‘Have you got an axe? Or a crowbar? Something we can use to take boards off?’

That got her attention. ‘We can’t do that! The house isn’t damaged. We can’t just start ripping it up!’

I couldn’t be bothered arguing. It seemed that shock took people in different ways. Selina from the square became calm. Ian was polite even though he might have been dying. I felt better if I could do something. So I took off the bathrobe and crawled under the deck. Liquefaction up to my elbows, halfway up my thighs.

‘Hey, Roger. It’s okay, buddy. You’re in a bit of a fix there, old fella.’

There can’t be many things as sad as a puppy stuck in liquefaction. Roger didn’t take his eyes off me as I crawled towards him. I reached out to give him a tug, but my hand got the most slobbery licking ever. ‘Okay! You’re pleased to see me. I get it!’

I had to get both hands under him to haul him free. He rewarded me by washing my entire face with his tongue. Oh well, one way to get a clean face.

I wriggled backwards with him in my arms. Mumma seized him, mud and all, smothering the un-gunky bits of him with kisses. Roger might be a terrier, and very possibly his coat might be white. Bits of it, anyway.

I sat on her steps, clear of the mud. ‘Can I have something to wipe this stuff off?’ No point asking for water. We’d been without water for days after the September quake, and this one had to be worse.

She stared at me, horrified. ‘But I’ll leave mud on the floor if I go inside!’

I’d had enough of her. ‘Fine.’

I got to my feet, but she thrust Roger into my arms. ‘Sorry! I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Wait here. Please.’

I sat down again and Roger and I had a good chat. I swear he smiled at me. ‘You’re quite sweet, you are,’ I told him. He needed a good clean-up too.

Mumma came back with a pink towel. ‘It’s one of my best ones. You deserve the best.’

I choked up, but shook my head. ‘S’okay. I’m glad we found him.’

I cleaned the stinking muck from my arms and legs as well as I could and put the bathrobe back on, glad of its warmth even though by now it was an artistic mess of blood and mud.

Mumma came out to the road to say goodbye, holding Roger in her arms. I gave him a rub under his chin. ‘Bye, old fella.’

They were still watching when I got to my corner. Roger gave a yipping bark when I waved.

There was liquefaction in our street too, great lakes of the evil stuff.

A whole entire corner of the Jaffries’ house had gone, exposing the lounge. Nothing was left on the walls. Liquefaction covered the lawn. The foundations of the Chans’ house had been punched up about half a metre on one side right under the two youngest kids’ bedroom. The house looked okay except it was on a wicked tilt.

Nobody home in either place that I could see. I hoped I wasn’t the only one here right now. I couldn’t stand not knowing if we still had a home, or if it was just a pile of sticks.

I began running.

I sprinted through the sludge, forgetting to be careful of holes, turned the corner. We still had a house. The walls were upright. The roof looked okay. Blake’s bedroom window had a jagged hole, but apart from that it seemed fine.

I didn’t have my key. It was in my backpack and I hadn’t remembered to pick it up after I’d taken it off to help Ian in Cathedral Square.

There was a spare one stashed in a fake rock by the garage, but the garage had taken a massive sideways hit and there was no sign of the rock.

A big crack ran the length of the step into the house. I eased myself down onto it. I didn’t want to go inside. I didn’t want to see the mess the earthquake had left us. I didn’t want to be by myself.

I checked my phone. No messages from Dad or Blake. My head sank to my knees. My legs were filthy. My feet stung. The earth shook.

I should go and check on the neighbours. Five minutes. I’d go in five minutes. I just needed to stop shivering.

‘Lyla! You okay?’

It was Blake, dirty like I was, worried like I was. I threw myself at him and for the first time in years we hugged, holding each other tight.

‘The parents?’ he asked, still keeping hold of me. ‘You heard anything?’

‘Mum. She was rescuing people in Cashel Street. Haven’t heard from Dad.’

His arms fell away from me. ‘Me neither.’ He pulled out his key. ‘Your mates? And Greer?’

‘Katie and Shona were okay. They were going straight home. Not sure about Greer. Shona didn’t know where she’d be.’ I pulled the robe tight around me. ‘Were you at uni when it happened? Are people okay?’

Blake nodded. ‘There’s only a bit of damage from what I could see. Didn’t hear of any casualties.’ He put the key in the lock. ‘You ready for this?’

‘Yeah. It’s cold out here.’ There’d be no way of getting warm inside, though. We’d had to wait a few days in September before water and electricity worked again.

It took both of us to wrestle the door open. The entrance hall didn’t look too bad, although the bookcase had shed its five shelves of books, just like last time. The mirror was on the floor with a wide crack running across its back. We stepped over everything.

In the lounge the TV lay facedown among the DVDs. Pictures hung askew, but at least they’d stayed on the walls. The nest of small tables lay on a pile of Dad’s car magazines. ‘Blake – Dad was going to Fazazz. It might have collapsed. He might…’ I gulped.

He stepped over Mum’s beloved house plants lying in a mess of spilled dirt on the carpet. ‘Nah. It was nearly one o’clock when the quake hit. He’d have been on his way to meet Mum for lunch. You know where they were going?’

I shook my head. We should have asked.

Blake gave my back a pat crossed with a bash. ‘Come on. Nothing we can do about the parents except wait for them to turn up. Bet they will, too.’ He headed for the kitchen and stopped, shaking his head. ‘September all over again.’ He booted the dishwasher door shut.

He was right, damn it. It was stupid to worry. It didn’t make anything different. I kicked stuff out of my way – rice, flour, sugar, pasta, something red – paprika? Chilli powder? A bottle leaked oil into a spill of yellow mustard.

‘Watch it, Lyla! That stuff’s full of busted china.’

I picked my way to the sink, turned the tap on. Nothing. September all over again with the water situation too. The emergency water container was intact. We each downed a glass of water – and jumped through the roof when the landline rang. It was a plug-into-the-wall job with the handset attached to a cord and it worked without electricity or internet. Dad – and heaps of other Christchurch people – had bought one after September.

It was Dad’s parents ringing now, all the way from the Sunshine Coast. Blake grabbed it first. ‘Oh hi, Nana Lilith. Yeah, it’s big. No. Just me and Lyla. Mum’s okay – well, she was when Lyla saw her just after. Haven’t heard from Dad.’

A squawking panic erupted from the receiver. My brother rolled his eyes at me. ‘Yeah, we’ll call you. But listen, Nana – you know what Dad’s like. He’ll be right in there helping people.’

He’d only just put the phone down when it rang again. The Wellington grands this time. ‘Mum’s okay. Lyla talked to her just after…No. But the phones are jammed…Lucky you hadn’t taken off. Yeah, we will.’

He hung up. ‘Dad’s going to be fine, Lyla. They’ll be home at some stage, both of them.’

I swallowed a hard knot of fear. ‘I know. I just wish…’

He gave my back another brotherly swipe. ‘Yeah. Me too.’