The Last of Us. Rob Ewing

windscreen, for mptied.

      Seeing my bag he asks, ‘What you got?’

      Trying not to sound boastful about it I show them our treasures. Both of them whistle, then look very interested. Calum Ian checks the dates on the hot dogs, then the broth.

      ‘Share and share?’ he says.

      I look for getting something back. But all he does is take the hot dogs, and the broth, and the icing sugar, leaving us just with the balloons and paperclips.

      Alex, looking disappointed, asks if he can dip his thumb in the sugar just once.

      ‘We’ll need it for emergencies,’ Calum Ian says, waving him away. ‘All right then – swap you for petrol?’

      ‘We don’t want petrol.’

      ‘All right. So have nothing.’

      They pack our treasures away in their bags.

      We follow behind, hoping to share back over as they suck more cars. It gets to me that I’m the smaller kid, and thinking of our reinforcement back at home I say, ‘Why’re you mean to Elizabeth at school?’

      Calum Ian rubs his red mouth. ‘She’s fucking stuck-up.’

      ‘No she isn’t.’

      ‘Aye she is. She’s an incomer. Thinks she knows it all because of who her mam and dad were. But what did they do? Sat on their arses in the end. Never helped anybody. She only pretends being leader, I can tell it.’

      ‘You aren’t better.’

      ‘Gloic, you should stick up for the island folk.’

      ‘Stop calling me Gloic.’

      Duncan gets between us. I think he’s trying to get us to stop arguing, but I can’t always feel he’s on my side if Calum Ian is standing near.

      ‘Just tell us your real nickname,’ Duncan says, ‘the secret one your mam used. What was it again? Then we’ll stop using that one.’

      I think it might be a trick, so I don’t tell.

      In the end it becomes a big deal. Duncan puts his hands together like he’s praying for me to tell any answer: and I get so annoyed at him for this that I say, ‘Your nickname is Scab Face.’

      It makes him pull his jacket up high. He kicks at the wooden post of a fence, rather than me.

      Calum Ian doesn’t stand up for him with his sadness, which makes it worse, really.

      They put the plastic milk bottles they filled in a shopping trolley, then begin to push it home.

      We follow them for a bit, and I say they’ll not be wanted if they come to visit later. Calum Ian makes an O with his mouth to show he doesn’t care. Duncan has gone back to being invisible.

      ‘Why’d you even collect petrol?’ I shout. ‘Your last fire didn’t work.’

      Calum Ian: ‘So we’re going to make the next one bigger. Plus I got a better idea for how to start it.’

      ‘Your ideas never work.’

      Now I get annoyed that they won’t share food or plans. So when they’re not looking I throw a stone which whizzes past Calum Ian’s head. He just waves back.

      Elizabeth is waiting for us at home. We tell her about the badly shared hot dogs and broth and icing sugar. She doesn’t say much, just tells us how clever we were with our mission in the first place. Turns out, though, she’s been New Shopping – and on her own.

      There are new sheets on Alex’s bed, plus tins of fruit and peas and carrots, and packet soups and biscuits. It’s a very, very good result!

      We don’t ask where she went shopping, and she doesn’t offer to tell. We look through some of the other things: candles, raisins, ancient treacle, coffee filter papers, even two packets of Jammie Dodgers.

      Alex: ‘Were these from a good house? I mean, were they opened already or near to—’

      ‘All houses are good,’ Elizabeth says quick, holding up her hand for no more questions.

      ‘Can there be poison that gets—’

      ‘Shut up, OK?’

      For dinner we have to put all the food we might eat in a square for choosing. With the power of three we decide on chicken soup, beans on crackers, then raisins dipped in treacle. I like to spend ages reading the sides of the packets. Ingredients. Contents. Est weight. Best before.

      Me: ‘You know why they call them ingredients?’

      Elizabeth: ‘What’s your idea again?’

      Me: ‘Because it’s the stuff that makes you greedy. In-GREEDY-ents.’

      Elizabeth does a half-and-half smile.

      I go on reading the packets as she makes our soup. Wheatgerm, rice syrup, flavourings, colourings, E116. This is how clever the world once was! Not just cream with chicken. Your statutory rights. What about statutory wrongs? Customer queries, call this number. I’ve tried to call these numbers before, on our spare charged-up phone, but there’s never any answer.

      Just when I think Calum Ian and Duncan aren’t coming because of the stone I threw, they do come.

      They smell of bonfire. We don’t ask what they’ve been doing. Their knees are scuffed and dirty and Duncan has black scorches on his shoes. In the shadows made by our torches his skin looks even bumpier.

      We’ve all got scars: on our faces, on our backs and necks, from the sickness. I remember a lady on TV saying that the worse your scars, the worse the illness.

      Duncan got the worst of all of us. After that it’s Elizabeth, then Calum Ian, then me, then Alex.

      Adults and littler kids had the worst scars of all. That’s why they became so sick. That’s why we have two separate places to go and remember them. See them.

      We eat dinner, which is great because it’s warm, then Calum Ian takes the best seat on the couch and says, ‘Press play, Bonus Features.’

      Alex gets called Bonus Features because that’s what he thought the seventh Star Wars film was called. He’s in charge of our battery-powered DVD player. Tonight he does adverts, by using some recordings we found, and then we get a film: Tin Toy from the Toy Story DVD.

      It’s very short though, and awful soon it’s over.

      Elizabeth: ‘OK, batteries out.’

      Both Duncan and Alex thump their arms and feet on the carpet.

      ‘No no no!’ shouts Alex.

      ‘You’re not the ruler of me!’ says Duncan. Alex becomes unmanageable for a bit. We try to ignore him but then Elizabeth remembers: his injection. He’s in a different mood from this morning, though, and he struggles and cries and Calum Ian has to get involved to hold him down, which only makes things worse.

      Afterwards Alex rubs his stomach and cries.

      ‘I forgot not to be angry,’ he says.

      For a treat he’s allowed batteries in his DS. For me, I decide to draw, so I tear a stamp from the book of stamps we found, and stick it in my drawing jotter. Beneath it, under the Queen’s head, I draw a fat body with an old woman’s stern hands and knees. Mum once said that the Queen had jewellery dripping off her, so on her wrists I draw pearl bracelets with richness oozing.

      Alex: ‘The Queen lived on a farm in London.’

      For some reason Calum Ian and Elizabeth find this funny. I find it a bit ignorant.

      ‘D’you think the Queen died?’ Alex asks.

      ‘She