Under the Weather Page 9

  “Can you tell us about Houses, Great-Grandad?” I prompted. Fern clicked her Voicechip to record his answer.

  “Ah, Houses. Well, Rowan-love, we had Houses until well into this century. There were whole rows, whole towns of them – a House was for just one family, or sometimes for two people or even just one.”

  Of course, Fern and I knew that much – we all did – but it was unbelievable that Great-Grandad was one of the people who’d actually lived like that.

  “And every single one of those Houses,” he went on, “had its own heating, and its own lighting – no, I’m not exaggerating – and its own refrigerator and its own water-taps.”

  “But didn’t anyone realise?” Fern burst in.

  Great-Grandad shook his head. “No, not really, not back then. No one thought it was odd. We all lived that way. We took it for granted. And most people had a Car – you’ve heard of those, haven’t you? A Car was like a very small Transport. You’d walk along a road and see hundreds of them. There were Cars parked outside most Houses. Some families even had more than one.”

  “Solar-powered?” I said.

  Great-Grandad shook his head. “No. They ran on petrol.”

  “Petrol! But it’s –”

  “Yes, I know, love. Outrageous. Back then, you could just buy the stuff, from pumps by the roadside. As much as you wanted. And there were so many Cars that sometimes you could hardly move. I remember many a time, in my mum and dad’s day, sitting in a Car in a long queue, going nowhere.”

  “Well, what was the point of that?” Fern asked.

  “You may well wonder, Fern-love. But you see, people used to travel about, back then. That’s why the roads were so busy. They’d live in one place and work in another. Some people even travelled from here to London and back every day.”

  “What, in petrol-fuelled Cars? Just think of the – ”

  “I know, Rowan. But it was a different world, pre-Catastrophe. You’ll see for yourself at the museum tomorrow. I only wish I could.” Great-Grandad’s eyes had gone misty; he was looking back into himself, at the world of eighty or ninety years ago. “We never thought, back then, that we’d be able to nurse the planet back as far as we have today. Never thought we’d able to grow crops again the way we do, and trees. Seemed like we’d all starve, or frizzle up. Yes, we’ve done well – thanks to people like your mum.” He nodded in my direction. “And yours,” he added to Fern.

  “I’m going to work in Forestry, too,” Fern told him.

  “Good for you, lass. That’s where the future is,” Great-Grandad said. Then he turned towards the window. “Those birds out there – rollers, and hoopoes, and bee-eaters – they make a fine old din some mornings, but you can’t beat a nightingale or a song thrush. I’d give anything to hear a nightingale again. Or a skylark, the way they used to burble in the sky. They’re part of summer. Old summer, I mean.”

  I glanced out of the window at the birds flitting around the yuccas, oleanders and palm trees. A striped hoopoe was sitting on a canna lily to preen itself – pink bird against bright orange flower. Those nightingales and larks and thrushes Great-Grandad liked were just plain brown birds – I’d seen pictures. The ones we had now were far more colourful. But I said nothing, noticing that Great-Grandad suddenly looked very tired. Fern repeated the bird-names into her Voicechip; then I said, “We’d better go now, Great-Grandad. Thanks. We’ll come tomorrow and tell you about London.”

  I looked back from the door. Great-Grandad was getting back into his book, his bony, gnarled-twig fingers running expertly over the Braille letters.

  On the Transport, I forgot to be worried about feeling sick; there was so much to see. We passed an ox-breeding unit, a coconut farm and two other Communities like ours, with citizens tending the crops – grapevines, soya and rice.

  “On your left,” our Instructor pointed out, “is land farmed by the Watford Community. You see the special cooled domes used for growing wheat, barley and potatoes. Of course they’re still at the experimental stage, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we could grow potatoes ourselves before too long.”

  Soon we were in the outskirts of London, and could see sunlight glimmering on water ahead of us: the London Basin. It was a busy thoroughfare for all kinds of shipping, with floating residences fringing the edges. We could see right across to Kent, miles away. Our Instructor reminded us of the drowned buildings under the water: ancient places like Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament, and newer ones like the National Theatre and the first Millennium Dome.

  “But why did they build the Millennium Dome in a place that was bound to be flooded when the polar ice melted?” Fern asked me.

  I shrugged. “How would I know? It’s hard to tell how their minds worked.”

  Our Transport circled the Inner Ring to Hampstead Heath, and there it was, ahead of us, glittering in the sunlight like an enormous diamond. Millennium Dome 2. The Transport went down a ramp that led right under the Dome, and a short lift-ride took us into the vast, airy atrium. We stood there under the tinted glass, blinking in the strong filtered light.

  “Don’t leave the building, and be back at this Collection Point by sixteen thirty,” our Instructor told us.

  There wasn’t time to see everything, so Fern and I concentrated on what we needed most for our project. We headed for the tunnel that led to the early twenty-first century, emerging into a dark, eerie room lit only by the screens and displays.

  We walked cautiously, even fearfully, as if we might get contaminated. Then I stopped dead and pointed. “Fern! Oh, yuk!”

  “What – oh, that’s disgusting! Were they mad?”

  We were looking at a set of images from old magazines. To us, a magazine was a satellite programme, but these seemed to be large, soft books made of glossy paper. The one that had stopped me in my tracks showed a pale-skinned woman lying on sand. She wore hardly any clothes, just brief blue underwear. Her skin – repulsively pale and bare – made me think of the soft white slugs you find when you turn over a decaying log. But the really gruesome thing was that you could see the sun in the picture, shining down on her, and she was turning her face up to it like a tropical flower – smiling, as if she was enjoying it.

  I shuddered. “Uurgh, that white skin! How did people survive? And what’s she doing? Is it some sort of religious sacrifice?”

  “No, silly! They used to do that on purpose. They liked it.” Fern pointed to the lettering on the magazine: Our Guide to Sunbathing. It was written in English, but she knew enough to translate.

  “Sunbathing! Another weird word.” I entered it into my wordbank, and the answer came up.

  sunbathing noun, or participle of the verb to sunbathe; English (obsolete) the act of exposing one’s body to the warmth of the sun

  So it did sound like a sacrifice!

  “Puh!” I went. “Did she want to end up with skin cancer, or blind like Great-Grandad?”

  “They didn’t know, did they?” said Fern. “It wasn’t really their fault. They were just ignorant.”

  There were so many things they didn’t know, Back Then. The displays and interactive screens left me dazed and horrified. The twenty-first century was a desperate, savage one. I took in images of wars, famines, burning rainforests, shrivelling crops. And some of the things Great-Grandad had told us about: Rubbish Tips, and queues of Cars.

  We were glad to get away, back to the clean air of our own time.

  When we visited Great-Grandad later that evening, he had a soggy parcel to give Fern. “Here,” he told her. “I’m entrusting you with something precious.” He put it into her hands.

  She lifted the damp cloth. “What is it?”

  “Bluebell bulbs,” said Great-Grandad.

  “Bluebells?”

  “There are very few of them left now, so treat them carefully. You’re going into Forestry – maybe you can save them from extinction. You’ve seen pictures?”

  Yes, we thought we had.

  “When I was a bo
y, there used to be woods full of them,” Great-Grandad said, looking somewhere into the distance, as if he could see them now. “Whole drifts of them under the trees, in May, like cool blue water. The smell of them aah!” He breathed in, then sighed. “But we were too stupid to know what we’d got. We cut down the trees and dug up the earth and didn’t realise what we were losing. What you must do,” he told Fern, “is put those bulbs back in cool storage till you’re ready to grow them. Cool, damp conditions, that’s what they want. It’s too warm for them to grow outside, these days. But you’re the girl to do it. Trees,” he added. “Those are the things. Trees to keep the air cool.”

  Fern looked doubtfully at the saggy bundle in her hands. “Well, I don’t know if I can. What if it doesn’t work?”

  “But you’ll try for me, won’t you?” pleaded Great-Grandad. “I’d like to think that when I’m gone, there’ll still be bluebells.”

  I saw Fern make up her mind. “Yes. Yes, I will,” she promised.

  For the next fortnight, we worked hard on our presentation. I just knew we’d win. Ours was so brilliant that the judges hardly needed to bother with the other entries.

  Everyone in the Community assembled in the Central Hall. The whole of the platform and gallery was taken up with displays. Fern and I sat with the other young folk at the front of the auditorium, and I fidgeted through all the presentations until at last it was our turn.

  “Wasters, by Fern Glade and Rowan Fen,” my own voice said, booming into the darkness, and then it began: our look back at the last century. All the citizens sat in silence, watching image after image of life Back Then. Grassland being ploughed up. A Road, hazy with Car fumes. Revoltingly, there were people eating chunks of dead animal. We’d shown a House, with someone tipping rubbish into a dustbin – Fern’s voiceover explained what these old words meant. Then a picture of Earth seen from Mars, and Fern’s voice saying, “They didn’t mean to, but they almost killed the planet. Everything we do now is to compensate for the damage done by the Wasters.”

  “We’ve won. We must have!” I said into Fern’s ear – almost shouting, or she wouldn’t have heard for the applause that crackled into the air. I glanced at the audience, where I could see my mother sitting in a row with her father and my three grandads: Grandad, Great and Great-Great. I could tell by their faces that they all thought we’d won, too.

  Ours was the last presentation, so now came an interlude for judging, with food served by the Community Catering Unit. It was a pity that I was too nervous to bite anything other than my nails. I was sure we’d be called up to receive the prize, though; so confident that I did something I never thought I’d dare. “Fern?” I said quietly. “When you’re eighteen, do you think you might choose me as your breeding partner?” And I felt myself going red, because boys don’t usually ask girls; they wait to be picked.

  Fern looked startled, but seemed to give it serious thought. “If you get genetic clearance, I’ll consider you.”

  “We’re a winning combination!” I told her. “We’re about to prove that.”

  At last everyone came back to their seats for the prize-giving. The Community governor stood up to introduce the judge, Citizen Whitrow, a very old, white-haired man of about Great-Grandad’s age. Citizen Whitrow got shakily to his feet, supporting himself with a stick. Then he held up his handscreen to read out the results.

  “Third prize goes to Abraham Bud and Joseph Whitebeam for their collection of seaweed recipes.” Applause. “Second prize is awarded to Sarah Baobab and Ruth Apfelbaum for their work on solar-cooled propagation units.” More clapping, and a few cheers. I glanced at Fern, hardly daring to breathe; I saw Great-Grandad with his ears tuned for our names, and his hands held ready to clap energetically when our victory was announced.

  “And now, citizens of the Community,” Citizen Whitrow went on, with nerve-shattering slowness. “It gives me very great pleasure – very great pleasure indeed – to award first prize to – to... ” Here he lost his place, fumbling with the handscreen. Fern nudged my foot with hers.

  “...to Bullrush Greensward and Coriander Goldheart for their underwater topographic study of the London basin.”

  Applause and cheering crashed into my head and made my eyes sting. I couldn’t look at Fern. When my eyes stopped blurring, I looked up to see Bullrush and Coriander being presented with their carved Oak Tree trophy. Then all the important Citizens on the platform crowded round to congratulate them.

  I couldn’t believe it. Not even a mention for Wasters! Nothing! After all that work!

  Fern was tougher than me. She joined in the clapping, wearing a that’s life expression.

  “We got it wrong, Rowan, that’s all,” she said to me. “If I’d known who was judging –”

  “What d’you mean?” I asked, thinking she meant it had been fixed.

  “He wasn’t going to choose Wasters, was he?” she said. “Guilty conscience. He’s so old that he must have lived in a House, and driven a Car that ran on Petrol. I bet he threw away Rubbish. He was one of them, wasn’t he? A Waster. He probably doesn’t like being reminded.”

  “But that’s not fair!” I protested. “All that effort – ”

  Fern shrugged. “At least we did it, and everyone saw. Anyway, we’ve got a new project now.”

  I wasn’t sure I had the energy after today’s defeat, but Fern obviously had. She looked across at the audience, where Great-Grandad sat looking sad and bewildered.

  “The twentieth century wasn’t all bad,” she said. “You know those bulbs? If we get to work on a sealed, climatically-controlled dome, we can try to recreate a bluebell wood.”

  “All right,” I said grumpily.

  But she had a point. I thought of Great-Grandad’s face when he talked about that sea of bluebells, and their cool scent.

  We’d have a go at getting them back: for him, for everyone. We’d try to bring back something beautiful from the twenty-first century – that dangerous, short-sighted, narrow-minded Waste Age.

  OK, Fern was right. It wasn’t all bad.

  But I wouldn’t want to live there.

  Now meet the authors...

  Candy Gourlay wrote How to Build the Perfect Sandcastle

  Candy had many amazing adventures as a journalist in the Philippines. To make ends meet, she took photographs, drew cartoons and dubbed movies with a fake American accent. Apart from the fake American accent, she has used all these skills to become a web designer in England where she now lives. Her amazing adventures inspired her to write books for children. She is currently writing a novel about a boy who is eight-feet tall, based on a true story.

  Sea Canaries was written by Susan Sandercock

  Susan lives near the River Thames in Essex, England, and overlooks fields and marshland whilst eating breakfast. She’ll often be seen walking in this location, which inspires her writing, and always takes her binoculars. Last year Susan sold her car to minimise her carbon footprint, which has given her extra money to spend on eco-friendly mini breaks by train. Susan loves cats, reading and all things pink and sparkly.

  Francis McCrickard wrote As Busy As...

  Francis was born in Cumbria, has lived in Africa and now works with young people at a retreat centre in Ilkley, West Yorkshire. He is married with three children. He has written books for teachers; a novel and short stories for children, and programmes for radio and television. At the retreat centre, he encourages young people to be more aware of how the way we live is affecting our climate and, with them, has planted nearly five thousand trees and a wildflower meadow.

  Tommo and the Bike Train was written by Miriam Halahmy

  Miriam writes fiction and poetry for children, young people and adults. Although she is a Londoner, her parents lived by the sea for twenty years, so her stories are often set by the sea, as well as in the Inner City. When she is not writing, Miriam loves to travel. She collects oceans – by paddling in them – and has four so far. Her ambition is to sleep out on the Antarctic ice an
d her favourite book is The Secret Garden.

  Climate [Short] Change was written by Lily Hyde

  Lily is from Britain, but has lived in and travelled around Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union for over ten years. She’s seen many climate changes in that time – in the weather, the economy, in society and families – and she writes about how they affect the places and people she’s met. Her novels Riding Icarus and Dream Land are published by Walker Books.

  Karen Ball wrote Moonlight

  Karen was born and raised in Derbyshire, England. As a child, she spent many weekends walking in the Peak District with her family. She writes children’s fiction, and her books have been about many different subjects including school plays, Pompeii and even samurai warriors. She writes in her spare bedroom, at a desk overlooking her back garden. Foxes, cats and magpies are often responsible for distracting her from her work. You can see details of her books at www.karen-ball.com.

  Future Dreaming was written by George Ivanoff

  George is an author and stay-at-home dad residing in Melbourne, Australia. He shares a house with two cats, two daughters and one wife. They have a 22,000-litre rainwater tank buried in their backyard, which waters their garden and flushes their toilets. George has written over 30 books for children and teenagers, and there are more on the way. Check out George’s website at: www.georgeivanoff.com.au

  Linda Newbery wrote Wasters

  Linda Newbery has written more than thirty books for children and young adults, ranging from Posy, a picture book, to Set in Stone, winner of the Costa Children’s Book prize, which was published for both teenagers and adults. She lives in a village in Northamptonshire, surrounded by trees and lush green countryside which she hopes will stay green and lush forever. Linda loves animals, so she doesn’t eat them.