I thought I was cold before, but this is the coldest I have ever been in my entire life. It’s so cold it hurts to breathe. I feel like I’m drinking a Slurpee through my nose. Sarah pointed out that we’ve got it pretty good. At least we get to stay in the tent with other warm bodies because we’re still kids, which is strange because I don’t feel like a kid anymore. Mom is having people guard in short shifts so they won’t have the chance to freeze to death, although Nadia thinks she shouldn’t have to because, “I’m almost as small as those kids and you’re not making them do it!” That kind of makes sense, but it still feels like it was a stupid thing to say. I bet Nadia would be happy to sell Granny or push Sarah and me under a bus if it would help her out. Too bad Kaboom’s standing guard now, normally he helps to keep Nadia from spouting out more stupid stuff.
It was kind of funny to hear KC agree with Nadia though when she said, “Nadia’s right, Mom, she’s almost as small as the kids.” But then she says, “And almost half as smart!” Nadia’s face turns ugly when KC talks, she looks like a snarling little dog that wants to take a bite out of my sister.
Mom starts to say something about Naked and Killer, but I let her know I’m okay with Naked’s decision to leave and get help. That’s why we didn’t hear her bark, she went to fetch Dad and show him how to get back here! It’s not like she’d be much help to us now. She used to warn us about the zombies with her bark, but we can see for ourselves that the zombies are all around us. Sarah gives me a weird sideways glance when I tell Mom that, but the others nod their heads in agreement.
“It was very good of Naked to go get help Jesse,” Granny says, and she’s right. I’m so proud of our brave dog…but I still wish she was here to keep me warm and help me feel safe. I also wish she’d hurry up.
The thing that’s worse than the cold and Naked being gone is the boredom. I find myself wishing for the days when I was able to run around the house or tear around the school. Mr. Cromwell tried to help out with this, and he did a good job for a while. He said we could call him Tom, but I still see him as a teacher and feel weird calling him by his first name. I think the rest are too used to calling him by his last name because they keep going “Mr. Crom—I mean, Tom…” and even when they use his name they say it like they’re not too sure they’re using it right. I asked Sarah if she knew his first name before we did and she said she didn’t know, she just liked to call him Dad. I saw Mr. Cromwell smile at that. Mom and Dorothy too.
So Mr. Cromwell starts by saying, “Hey, I’ve got a cool card trick for you girls—you want to play?” and I’m like, “Sure!” and Sarah says, “Yes!” and looks like a kid again. Mr. Cromwell tells us he will let us pick out a card without letting him see it and then he would use magic to guess which card we picked. It sounds impressive until he says, “Okay, pick a card, any card” …but there’s only one card! Sarah takes the card and looks at it, acting like she’s all serious and stuff, and then she hands it back. Mr. Cromwell pretends to shuffle it into an invisible deck, then shows the card to us and says, “Is this your card?” Sarah squeals with delight and says “Yes it is! How did you know?”
I think they’ve done this trick before.
I hear KC say, “All right, that’s enough” and then go on to say in a cheesy game-show announcer’s voice, “Now it’s time to play another rousing edition of ‘Guess What’s in My Bag’!”
“We played that already,” grumbles Nadia.
“This is version seventy-two point oh.”
“Yeah, the end-of-the-world edition!” says Doom. Mom shoots him a fierce look.
What a great idea! I liked that game the first time I played it. KC hands out pencils and paper so we can write down our guesses and see if we got some of them right and if someone else got the same right question that would cancel yours out. Whoever gets the most right answers that nobody else got wins. “I want to go first!” I shout out and this time KC doesn’t argue with me, though Nadia gives me the stink-eye.
Everyone takes some time to write down each other’s names and what they think could be in that person’s bag. Our kits are mostly filled with things like food and water now, so there’s not much else to write about. Almost nobody got points for my kit because everyone knows what my favorite toys are—the only toys in the whole school because they came with me: Legos, my plastic mini-animals and clay that I can model into even more animals. Only my mother guessed the one item the others would not have seen me play with—a small locket with my father’s picture in it and a necklace with a horse that he gave me for my last birthday.
I guess KC’s stash easily; hers holds books, including that book written by
Ghost. I notice she’s been writing in it and when I asked her about that, she said she was documenting what’s been happening to us and what we’ve had to do to survive. She also has a sketchpad and some hand lotion. The thing I wasn’t expecting was the game Slamwich. She added it to her kit so Sarah and I would have something else to play.
Mouse’s entire backpack is taken up by her book, the one that’s full of pictures and names of everyone who once lived here. Mom’s has a first aid kit and her iPhone in case we ever get some power and a signal. She also has pictures of our family, with us in places that probably don’t exist anymore, or from events that will probably never happen again. There’s pictures of me hitting a cameraman with a pillow at the International Pillow Fight in front of the Capital, Houston flying our shark kite at DC’s kite festival around the Washington Monument, KC sitting with Naked watching the annual Cinco de Mayo Running of the Chihuahuas at the Southeast Waterfront, and Mom and Dad relaxing in front of the fountain in Georgetown watching the yachts come in for the weekend. She says she has a bunch of other photos, but they’re on the itty bitty memory cards you push into phones or cameras or computers. I’m glad she has pictures we can hold in our hands and look at without going on a computer ‘cause I like seeing what the neighborhood looked like before it got turned to ash. Maybe when this is all over, we can use those photos to rebuild what we lost.
Nobody guesses Houston’s stash. He has UNO cards for us to play with (thanks Houston!) which will really help us to pass the time. He has his iPod and speakers, which makes Nadia sneer and say that it’s stupid to have that when there’s no electricity. I tell her that we will have electricity when we’re rescued and that music is really important to Houston. I think she’s about to say something mean back, but Kaboom puts his arms around her shoulders and gives her a squeeze, which I think is his code for, “Be quiet.”
Doom has all sorts of clever little things in his bag, stuff like hand sanitizer and an inflatable pillow and a hand-crank flashlight and another first aid kit and a can opener and a sewing kit and some of those light glow sticks and some matches and some candles. He also has some dust masks that Ghost insisted he take from the janitor’s closet before they collected those cans of the freezy stuff. Mr. Cromwell has junk like Doom but with even more batteries and flashlights. He also has some scarves for our faces and winter hats and gloves. Granny didn’t come with anything to call her own when she got dropped off at the refugee center, so she filled up her bag with things for us from the other kits like funny comic books (thanks Granny!) and string so she can show us something she calls cat’s cradle. She also has a Shakespeare poetry book. That one is probably for her; it’s something she can use to get her to sleep.
No one guesses what Nemesis has or where she had got it from. She has a bag filled with many colors of yarn and some knitting needles so she can knit us mittens and hats and scarves. “It’s therapeutic,” she says defensively. I’m surprised she knows how to knit. I’m also surprised when Granny says she doesn’t know how. Don’t all Grannies know how to knit?
Kaboom’s is kind of better because he has this funny book called “F in Exams.” He says it makes him feel smart. But his kit is also kind of bad in a way because he took the jewelry from the other bug-out bags that he thought Nadia would like. I know he didn’t take it from any of our stuff and that the people they belong to no longer care; but still, something about it just doesn’t feel right.
For some reason, Nadia doesn’t want to share what’s in her bag. This actually makes KC and Nemesis laugh. “I bet it’s still filled with cash and makeup!”
Nadia glowers at them and growls, “So what if it is?” Then she says in a lighter voice, “Think about it. When we’re rescued, we’ll be celebrities! I’m not going on camera looking like, well, looking like you.”
KC and Nemesis stop laughing.
This game isn’t as fun as I thought it would be. Mom carefully distributes our allowance of food and water before she stands watch and Sarah and I snuggle down to try to sleep. The problem is, it’s too cold to sleep, at least for me. I decide to pretend to be asleep again because people say more interesting things when they think I’m not listening.
At first everyone is still because they want to make sure Sarah and I are sleeping. Doom is shifting around a bit, which means he’s dying to say something. It’s easy to tell when anyone’s moving about because we’re so tightly packed in here. Doom’s as impatient as me, so it isn’t long before he speaks up. “My dad was right; the government betrayed and abandoned us. We’re never going to be rescued.”
Nobody says anything for a while. This worries me. Someone should have said “Don’t be silly, of course we’ll be rescued!” Instead everyone keeps quiet.
Mr. Cromwell finally breaks the silence. “Actually,” he says, “I don’t think the government has it in for us. There’s not a lot of power when there’s no one left to rule. It would be in their best interests to take care of the few people left alive. We’re valuable resources now.”
“Funny, I didn’t feel too valuable when the soldiers discarded us,” Nemesis mumbles.
“I don’t think those soldiers are with the government,” Houston says. “And I don’t think anyone knows we’re here because of them.”
“Than what were they, some kind of rogue splinter group? A newly-created division of the armed forces?” Nemesis seems to be more awake now.
“Well, yeah. Think about it, they never identified themselves. They had camouflage uniforms, Jeeps, weapons, etcetera…but did any of that stuff have distinguishing features to identify what branch of service they were a part of?” Wow. I’m not used to Hou being this assertive. He used to be so shy.
“I’m with Houston on that one,” Mr. Cromwell agrees. “Remember how we felt when they were here? They were more about control and power than protection. Do you recall the lesson I started teaching the day they pulled me out of the classroom?”
KC is suddenly awake. “I remember. You looked a bit shaken when you returned and you were careful with what you taught from then on.”
Mr. Cromwell pauses and I can feel his eyes on Sarah and me like he’s trying to make sure we’re asleep and can’t hear what he’s saying. He drops his voice almost to a whisper and says, “They threatened to send Sarah away like the others if I didn’t watch what I said.”
“What others?” asks Nadia, not bothering to whisper.
“The others whose split kits Jesse found stashed behind some bathroom sinks,” Kaboom says heavily.
“Oh.”
Things are hushed up for a little longer and I feel myself starting to drift off. Then Doom pipes up again. “It doesn’t matter whether the government no longer cares about us or is fighting a battle of its own, the outcome my father predicted will be the same. No one is coming for us because no one knows we’re here. We’re on our own. The soldiers have probably told the others that we’re dead. To anyone else this is a refugee center empty of anything living. That’s why the dead aren’t working too hard to get to us right now.”
“What do you mean?” growls Nemesis. “They seem to have done a pretty good job up till now. Look around you—they managed to drive us out of the last protected environment we had left!”
“So,” Mouse chimes in, “what more can they do to us?”
“They could start piling up on each other till they’re high enough for the others to climb up and over onto the roof.” Doom sounds proud to come up with an idea before anyone else, even though it’s a really horrible one.
“I didn’t need to hear that,” says KC. She sounds like she’s going to be sick. I know how she feels ‘cause I feel the same way. Now there’ll be something new to be scared of in my nightmares! It makes me all barfy just thinking about a big dog pile of zombies.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t thought of it!” Doom snaps.
“I don’t like to think about things I can’t do anything about.” I can tell it’s Nadia who said that by her little pipsqueak voice. It sounds like she’s back to her old self now. Well, almost her old self. What she said makes a lot of sense to me, and I’m not used to Nadia making sense.
But Doom likes to think about things we can’t do anything about, or maybe he just can’t stop talking. “Where else can we go? Has anyone thought of a backup plan? Whatever reason they have for staying down there can’t be a good one.”
Houston says gruffly, “Maybe they haven’t breached the roof because they know they have all the time in the world to think about how to get to us.”
“Or maybe because they’re too frozen to move.” Mouse’s voice is hushed, but it carries the force of a smack. “I don’t think we have anything in our kits that can hold them off when they thaw out.”
Then KC goes and changes the mood by saying, “Maybe Nadia can give them makeovers with what’s in her kit…” But before she gets to say anything else, the door to the tent unzips and my mom sticks her head in. “That’s enough!” she barks. “I will not hear any more of this talk. I’ve only been at this door for a minute and I can’t believe what I’m hearing.” So that’s where she was! I was wondering why I didn’t hear my mother’s voice before. I had completely forgotten it was her turn to stand watch.
As she lectures the others, I feel the cold flutter of fear melt away. Mom is here now, so we’ll be all right. Just before I fall asleep I hear her say stuff like, “We’ve made it this far through impossible odds and we will find a safe way out of here,” and, “Leave Nadia alone. If makeup makes her feel better, if it’s an anchor back to her old life, than who are you…” I bet she’s talking to KC now “…to judge her for it. We all deal with stress in different ways…”
I hope it’s not this stressful tomorrow.