Read The Rain for Free Online

brother-brat beloved was a bawling beast.
    I would have just texted Lee immediately, but – MY MOBILE! I DIDN’T HAVE MY MOBILE! IT WAS IN ZAK’S BARN WITH THE REST OF MY STUFF! – so I pounded at
the front-room door. I screamed and shouted – all sorts of terrible things, and all of them at Simon. I couldn’t believe it, what I had just been through, and now this. Then I started
chucking things around a bit. Yup.
    There was plenty of stuff to choose from, because that room was basically a dumping ground for all the stuff that wouldn’t fit in the rest of the house. There was a computer in there,
surrounded by junk, which was where I was supposed to do my homework – but there was usually so much junk dumped about the place I used that as an excuse to borrow Simon’s laptop and
work in my room – i.e. surf the net, do chat things and not work at all.
    I didn’t rage randomly. I picked out Simon’s stuff. I threw whatever I could lay my hands on . . . and then . . . I started breaking things. His laptop wasn’t there, or I
probably might have smashed it. I snapped some of his stupid CDs; dropped this hideous pottery vase thing he said he’d made when he was at school.
    Simon, doing art – can you imagine?!
    All the while, he stood outside the door, going, ‘Ruby, calm down, Ruby, calm down.’
    I suppose my mum must have gone upstairs; I could hear Henry crying.
    I told you I would tell you everything, except the swearing. But it’s hard, telling this bit. I’m not proud of how I acted. I am the opposite of proud. In my
defence, all I can say is that . . . it was all too much. Do you see? One minute my life had been the best it had ever been, kissing Caspar McCloud, the next minute it was . . .
    Ka-boom. I snapped the stupid walking-stick thing Simon took on country rambles. It was hard work snapping it but I was ultimately doing him a favour because it made him look
like an OAP and a nerd. Then I saw his binoculars. His new binoculars. His nerdish pride and joy. Simon liked to watch birds, you see. Can you imagine anything more deeply boring?
    ‘Ruby, calm down. Please, calm down.’
    I tried to snap them, to bust them in half. The walking stick thing had been hard, but these were impossible. And then I thought of it: I’d throw them out of the window. I yanked back the
curtain. And then I stopped.
    One little rainstorm. Only a shower.
    ‘Simon,’ I called. ‘It’s raining . . . ’
    ‘It’s OK, Ru. It’s OK.’
    ‘Please let me out!’
    ‘Ruby, you have to listen to me. Please: calm down and listen.’
    ‘I’ll listen! I’ll calm down! Please, Simon, let me out.’
    I heard my mum’s voice then; Henry grizzling. ‘Ruby, we can’t.’
    I pressed myself against the door, and I listened. All the while I watched the rain falling. I did get it, right away, when they explained it to me. I had been outside,
hadn’t I? For Henry’s sake, for my mum’s, they couldn’t take any chances.
    Then I talked, and they listened. Every word I said, about what had happened at Zak’s, about Barnaby saying it might be contagious, about Caspar, about Zak’s mum, about the cars
going to the hospital . . . all of it seemed to prove that it was right; that I should stay in that room until we knew.
    ‘I haven’t got it,’ I said. ‘I know I haven’t.’
    My chin, my lips, my mouth, my nose throbbed. That’s kissing. That’s just kissing.
    ‘It happens really quickly. It does. I’ve seen it.’
    My stomach churned. That’s gin and cider. That’s just gin and cider. And
fear
.
    ‘Yes,’ said Simon. ‘I believe you . . . but we can’t take any chances. Do you understand?’
    Yes – but
, I thought.
    ‘Do you understand, Ruby?’ asked my mum.
    ‘Yes . . . but—’
    ‘So please . . . just until tomorrow morning?’ said my mum.
    ‘It’ll have to be longer than that,’ Simon muttered at her – I heard him.
    ‘Just for tonight,’ said my mum.
    I could hear Henry gurgling.
    ‘OK,’