The Last of Us. Rob Ewing

a book for reading practice, miss? And for Alex? He’s just started out.’

      When I relax into it the teacher is there. She’s sitting down, reading her own book. She takes off her glasses.

      ‘Go on,’ she says.

      I sit in my old seat. Beside me is Anne-Marie. On the other side is David. In front is Margaret-Anne, and behind, Kieran. We take it in turns to read a bit of story. The teacher says, ‘Very good: now it’s Anne-Marie.’ Then it’s my turn to read, which I do while everyone else listens. I’ve always been a good reader in English, so it’s easy, and I enjoy it and probably read longer than I should because the teacher forgets to ask me to stop.

      When I can’t read any more I close my eyes. I put my ear on the desk, ignoring the floor-noise, and try to hear them. I listen hard. Usually someone sniffing, or making a cough, or the sound when they move, a chair grating, a book opening, a pencil-scritch, anything.

      But there’s just the wind.

      Sometimes the quiet gets on your nerves. You can hear the whistle in your ears. The dogs and sheep are turned to dinosaurs. When it gets bad we turn on the CD player and listen to music. It’s one reason we collect batteries. The MacNeil brothers I’ve heard tooting car horns for the same reason, and once I stood beside the War Memorial above Nasg and screamed just to be rid of it.

      I get up, walk around the class. Some of my art is still on the wall from last autumn. Paintings of what our summer holidays were going to be this year. We were going to Glasgow, me and Mum, then on to a big water park in England which had blue and red slides, and a kids’ club and face-painting, and bikes and lakes and all sorts of fun.

      So this is what my painting shows: a water park in a forest. Except I never saw it in the end.

      Alex looks fed up with me when I get back outside.

      Alex: ‘You leaved me alone.’

      Me: ‘You look like you’re facing your worst enemy.’

      Alex: ‘A dog came and sniffed me. At least the dogs remembered to be my friend.’

      Me: ‘Was it in a pack? Was it a collie? Remember Elizabeth told us to stay back from them.’

      Alex: ‘Wasn’t.’

      We walk along for a bit, but he won’t be encouraged. Soon he wants to just sit and stare at nothing. Knowing the warning signs I take four pink wafer biscuits from my emergency supply and stuff them in his gob.

      After ten minutes he’s less grumpy. I take a wet wipe and wipe a window in his dirty face.

      He says, ‘Sometimes I don’t know why I get scared. I know I’ve got an illness, but it can’t always be that, right? If I’m scared that’s when I start thinking about zombies.’

      Me: ‘Well you shouldn’t, because there aren’t any.’

      Alex: ‘Not even new ones?’

      Me: ‘Not even.’

      Alex: ‘Not even of people?’

      Me: ‘Stop asking the same question differently.’

      To cheer him up I show him the book I got in the library: it’s called Dr Dog, and it’s about a dog who’s a doctor and who has to cure the Gumboyle family. The book is good, and makes him laugh. Job done.

      Elizabeth is nowhere around. But anyway, we don’t want to meet her because she’ll just take us New Shopping, which nobody likes.

      Instead we go Old Shopping, normal shopping, this time to the post office. I decide it’s a mission, so we have to take out her list of rules to remind ourselves:

      1 Stay together, and do not wander far.

      2 Keep warm.

      3 Put out something bright.

      4 Look bigger.

      5 Use the whistle for emergencies.

      6 Don’t eat anything you’re suspicious of.

      7 Stay away from deep water.

      She always has rules, which I don’t mind, though Calum Ian got fed up with it, and anyway said he was too wise for instructions coming from her.

      The post office door is blue, with peeling paint. For old time’s sake we knock on it. It’s open anyway, like all the doors around here; even the doctor’s surgery is open, though someone smashed the door for that.

      Being in the post office gives me sad memories. Alex, however, likes playing with the ink stamps behind the counter, so I put up with it for him.

      I borrow a sheet of first class stamps to take home for when we’re drawing. Meanwhile Alex stamps his hands, his cheeks where I wiped, his knees, his nose. Now he’s covered in POSTAGE PAID and looks chuffed.

      Me: ‘You’re a weird kid.’

      We leave the post office and go to the butcher’s, which sells butcher’s meat yes but also everything else. I mostly preferred the sweets. Mum likes the papers and rolls.

      Each time you look at an empty shelf something new comes out. This is a skill I’ve learned. At first we didn’t see the batteries – but then we did. Next came the tin of stew. Next came the big sausage of dog food (for befriending, not eating, Elizabeth claims). Next came the serviettes and cup-cake papers (spare toilet paper). We used food colouring to mark the water we’d sterilised: that was Elizabeth’s good idea. Drinking red water isn’t so bad when you’re used to drinking juice. But Alex thinks too much colouring makes it look like blood.

      Now the shelves are empty. Nearly. There are two farmer’s journals with red scribbled names on them. There’s swim-goggles, knitted jumpers, gloves. There’s a plastic cricket set no one ever wanted.

      I tug on the string of the cricket set. It’s jammed. No, snagged at the back. Alex helps me push the shelf. It’s easy to do cos it’s empty and not stuck or nailed.

      Dust, cobwebs, lentils. Then lucky kids on a mission: a packet of icing sugar! Squashed, yellow, but still sealed.

      Me: ‘The latest gossip is – I got a plan!’

      Alex: ‘I know your plan!’

      We heave away the rest of the shelves. Some of the metal arms drop clanking. There’s more cobweb-dust – then treasure. A tin of Scotch broth (unbuckled). A tin of hot dogs in brine. A packet of pastry mix. A packet of balloons. A plastic box of paperclips.

      The pastry packet is open, mouldy. But the tins are good. Eager beavers, we pull all the shelves. We can’t move the ones around the walls, they’re fixed.

      Still, it’s been a good mission, one of our best.

      ‘We got so lucky,’ Alex says.

      Calum Ian and Duncan are on the main street. We hide the things in our schoolbags, then shout on them. They’re on a mission as well: with the cars, sucking petrol for their bonfire. Duncan still has his hood up, zipped up high so it’s hard to see his eyes. From side-on I can only see his mouth: his lips are cracked and red from the petrol.

      Calum Ian’s lips are red as well. He wipes his mouth and spits like a granddad. ‘A bheil am pathadh ort?’ he says, to Alex, joking, while holding up the plastic milk bottle he uses to collect. Then says to me: ‘You do it.’

      He uses a stick to prise open the nearest petrol cap. When he gets the cap off I feed in the tube and suck, but I don’t have enough suck to get it going. Calum Ian gets it started – but when he hands it over it spills past my mouth and I’m nearly sick with the smell.

      ‘Gloic!’ Duncan points at me and laughs.

      Calum Ian demonstrates perfectly how it should be done: suck, finger on the end, drop the tube down, pour. Once it’s started the petrol pours all by itself, and doesn’t even want to stop. It