Survivors

That night Holly, Joe and Luke went back to their rooms after a pretty long and tedious evening of doing a whole lot of nothing much at all. Joe threw himself down onto his bed with a huge sigh.

“Bloody hell” he groaned “I thought tonight was never going to end. I was so bored”.

“I know what you mean” said Holly “I wish we had some of those old books Darius used to give us. I’d really love to read To Kill a Mockingbird Again”.

“You liked that!” Gasped Joe.

“Yeah. I thought it was fantastic, Scout, Homer and the others it’s brilliant”.

“No thank you! I’d rather have something like Dark Materials or Treasure Island” said Joe excitedly.

“Even something soppy like Little Women would do” sighed Holly.

“Well what are you going to do about it?” asked Luke.

Holly and Joe looked at each other completely non-plussed.

“I said, what are you going to do about it?” repeated Luke.

“Sorry Bro, no idea what you’re talking about” said Joe puzzled.

“What I’m talking about little brother is a town only ten miles from here. A town I’m guessing from the size of it is big enough for it to have had a pretty large library. A library where you can get all the books you want. All you have to do is go and get them!”

There was a moments silence while Holly and Joe processed what Luke had just said.

“How do you know this Luke?” asked Holly wearily.

“Because I spent the afternoon studying this” said Luke producing a map with a dramatic flourish and spreading it out on his bed. “This is us” he went on pointing at a large red circle he had drawn on the map. “And this” he said pointing at another circle a few inches away “Is the town”.

“Wow!” Said Joe genuinely impressed “And how far is that?”

“It’s only about twenty miles, we could fly there in about..”

“How do you know?” demanded Holly.

“Well there’s the scale on the map, so you can..”

“No!” interrupted Holly. “How do you know that’s where we are on the map, or that this is even a map of this area?”.

“Because I do!” snapped Luke defensively standing up from the bed.

“But how!” Said Holly even more firmly.

Luke looked somewhat taken aback by Holly’s reaction, it hadn’t been what he’d been expecting. For a few seconds he was silent, then he said with as much belligerence as he could muster.

“Because I’ve been there!”

The full enormity of this took several more seconds to sink in, or at least it did with Joe. To go out alone was something they had never done before. It was stupid, reckless and dangerous. It was something that Darius had been fanatical about them absolutely not doing for as long as they could remember. “You never leave the camp on your own” he’d used to say. “Always have someone to watch your back, always be on the lookout for each other, and always, always, always let someone else know where you are going”.

The first two rules they had always followed pretty much to the letter, the third rule they sort of twisted to suit themselves. As the three of them were always together they reasoned that two could lookout and watch each other’s back while the third always knew where they were. They’d followed Darius’ instructions to the letter whilst not actually following its intended spirit. It was a devious way of doing exactly what they wanted under the pretence of doing precisely what they were told.

Anyway back to the present!

“You did what!” shouted Holly.

“I went there and looked around”

“On your own”

“Well I wasn’t going to take dickhead with me was I” shouted Luke

“Who are you calling a …”

“He means Bretnel, not you Joe” interrupted Holly.

“Oh okay” said Joe reassured.

“No it’s not okay, it is very far from okay. What if he’d been caught? What if he’d been killed? What if he’s been followed back?”

“Well I wasn’t” yelled Luke.

“You’re an idiot, a stupid idiot, you say Joe’s stupid, but he’s never done anything half as stupid as this”.

“Yeah you’re right … I think” said Joe.

Luke was now almost boiling over with anger. He’d known he’d done something stupid, but having it pointed out like this really wasn’t helping. He stared hard at the ground. Then without saying anything else he went over to his bed. He threw his pillow on the floor. Underneath it had been hidden a tatty looking book. Luke picked the book up and tossed it at Holly.

“I got you this” hissed Luke “I thought you might like it”.

Holly caught the book but continued to stare at Luke with open hostility. They held each other’s gaze for a few seconds before Luke slowly turned away before stomping out of the room. Only then did Holly look down at the book in her hands. Almost instantly she burst into tears, dropped the book and then fled into the bathroom, locking the door behind her.

Joe who had been somewhat dumbfounded by all the emotional tension he’d just seen looked round the empty room. His His gaze fell upon the book discarded on the floor. He went over and picked it up, it was To Kill a Mockingbird.