Rob Ewing - The Last of Us

‘Fine day for it,’ Mum says, as she unlocks and empties the postbox beside the sheep. She’s mostly polite to animals in case they’re the departed returned.

When she gets back in the car I answer, ‘Stamp.’

Mum draws a tick in the air. ‘Full marks, a ghraidh ! Around the world, yet stays in the corner. You got it perfect.’

‘But that doesn’t work, Mam. What if you posted a coconut? Or any round thing, like a ball? There wouldn’t be corners then.’

‘ Seadh? When did you hear of anyone posting coconuts or footballs? Is that even likely?’

‘It’s exactly where your riddle doesn’t work.’

The ribbon road shines with sun and rain. Eilean Mor shows through rags of cloud.

On the drive around to the south road Mum stops to ask the cows if they’ve ever heard the like of posting coconuts.

The cows look up for a bit, before going back to their usual grass-chewing.

It’s like stones you find on the beach. Polish them, make them shine. Keep them warm in your hand.

Make a new ending. Where nobody gets sick, and the electricity comes back, like it should’ve done, like it always did when there was only a storm.

It’s a clock which wakes me, which means I’m in trouble, as the alarms were meant to be turned off.

There’s a big mess in the room. I only notice it when it gets bad enough to hide nearly all the floor. There’s dirty clothes belonging to Alex: hanging in fankles from the pram we brought in last night. I think the pram was from a game he was playing: another game where he fell asleep and had to be lifted to bed.

We began shopping for clocks to keep time. Best of all is the radio-clock which Calum Ian found, which even tells the day of the week and the date. Still though, it doesn’t remind you of what dates are important, or the dates you might forget. Alex couldn’t remember his birthday: was it the 11th or 12th of March? Then when the lambs came nobody knew if that meant it was Easter, or spring.

We found a diary in the post office which gave us the date of Easter. But what about spring? Then Duncan noticed we’d passed a day called British Summer Time Begins. That told us it was summer, and that we were already in it. But where had spring gone?

I looked in the library, but there wasn’t any useful books on it, not even in Space & Time.

Elizabeth is writing a new sign. She adds to the bottom of it then pins it between our beds, next to the posters for Health and Wellbeing and Food Groups and How We Grow.

Alex stands in front, reading slowly with his finger.

Rules for our Home

1. Tidy as you go.

2. Share food & don’t waste food.

3. Paper plates save water.

4. Make your own bed. } I am not your mother {

5. Don’t go to the toilet too close to the back door.

6. Dog poo on shoes indoors – bad!

7. Save batteries – don’t leave torches on at night.

8. Matches, matches do not touch, they can hurt you very much.

9. Ghosts & zombies are not real.

10. If it smells – don’t eat (main exseptions food in tins, vinegar, food in jars, mushroom soup.)

11. Teamwork will work!

12. Alarm off on every clock!!

Alex and I stare at the rules, wondering who’s to blame. I decide that the rules fit most for him – apart from the mushroom soup and vinegar and alarms bit, and the bit about dog shit, which was anyway a mistake.

Me: ‘All we needed to do was check our feet. And paper plates, they get mushy after a while.’

Alex: ‘A minute after you put me to bed I’m asleep and the torch stays on all by itself.’

Me: ‘All flavours of soup stink.’

Alex: ‘Would we get a dog? If we had a stray dog we wouldn’t need to waste a single drop of food.’

Me: ‘You can’t trust dogs to watch your food. Anyway, Alex always stands in dog shit. It’s disgusting.’

Alex: ‘You’re a dog shit.’

Me: ‘You’re the king of dog shits.’

Elizabeth: ‘Stop it, both of you! OK? All I want is for you to help me a bit more, that’s all.’

We go back to staring at the rules. Most hark back to something that’s happened. It’s hard to get everything right all of the time. Still, Alex does need to be reminded about matches. That’s a big fascination of his.

We get up, get dressed, do the routine: radios (fizzing noise), teeth (gums fine). I put batteries in the portable TV/DVD player. Snowstorm. Alex takes his injection without fuss this morning, then we have our breakfast. Today for a treat it’s creamed rice, which I used to hate but now love, especially with jam. Then when we’re done Elizabeth goes through the cupboards, making notes of anything we need. I have a suspicion of what she’s going to say before she comes out with it.

Elizabeth: ‘There’s a big issue I kept off the rules. It would be great if you’d help.’

Alex’s eyes swing up from sucking his sleeve.

‘It would really help if you’d come New Shopping. Even if you end up staying outside, it doesn’t matter. It’d just be a help to have the company.’

Alex switches from sucking his sleeve to the neck of his T-shirt. The drool on his clothes makes him stink like a dog’s bone. I tell him to pack it in.

Elizabeth: ‘I’d appreciate it.’

Alex: ‘What about Duncan, and Calum Ian? Can they not be your sidekicks?’

Elizabeth: ‘Maybe they’ve decided to do their own shopping? I didn’t even ask. All I know is I can’t do ours all by myself.’

We think about it. Alex looks very doubting. He plays a blasting game with the lightsaber I made him out of yellow card and tinfoil.

Alex: ‘There is actually a black lightsaber.’

He says this when he’s trying to put you off. Usually the conversation goes: There is a black lightsaber – No there isn’t – Yes there is – No there can’t be because light is not black – Yes there is cos I saw it in my Star Wars Clone Wars Encyclopaedia. And black light is radiation. So there. This is what he says when he’s trying to pull the wool over.

Me: ‘Can we do something fun first?’

Elizabeth: ‘Like—?’

Me: ‘Can we go to the rocks and chuck bottles?’

Elizabeth: ‘We don’t just chuck bottles: we send messages . There has to be a purpose to everything.’

Alex: ‘Why?’

Elizabeth: ‘Because we lost our adults. Because we’re alone. So we do all we can, every minute of every day, to get help. Agreed?’

It isn’t always nice when she spells it out. Anyway, school’s cancelled. To make the agreement proper I head up to Elizabeth’s rule list and add underneath:

13. All go shopping (after nice stuff.)

This settles the business for the three of us. Then we shake on it so nobody can go back on their word.

We take the shore road towards Leideag. Some birds flap around like flags. Out to sea, those islands I can’t remember the names of. We always look for boats, though our eyes are getting used to not finding them.

Further along we join the beach. There’s a lot of mess on the sand, though nothing new. A jumble of rubber tyres with faded labels on them. Hundreds of kids’ plastic chairs, the sort you’d find in a playhouse. There was a skeleton in oilskins, now there’s just oilskins. Now and then the beach changes and a bone sticks out. Calum Ian and Duncan hate this beach, because they’re scared the bones and skeletons could be one of their uncles.

We come to the life jacket that used to be around the skeleton. It’s got foreign writing on it. It might be Spanish, or French? Anyway, it isn’t a local fisherman. Elizabeth has told this to the boys, but they’re too superstitious to even come close and they won’t ever listen.