Here's the raw un-edited draft I have so far in the spirit of JMG's writing in public challenge. What do you think?
Ronnies mum came in and pulled open the curtans. Ronnie groned and riggled in his bed. “Come on ronnie, it’s time to get up” his mum said. Ronnie grumbled in response. “I’ll get some breakfast ready for you” his mum added, “you’d better not let it get cold” she warned. Ronnie struggled out off bed and got dressed. He sleeperly went into the barthroom and brushed his teeth, carefully squesing a little tooth paste onto his worn toothbrush. After his teeth were brushed he went to the kiction. Now a little more awake he warmed himself on the wood burner his parents had got a few years back. Sitting down on the warm cob he enjoyed the feeling of the warmth flowing into his body. “here you go” his mum handed him a bowl of warm porrage, spooned from a steaming pot sitting on the barral of the wood burner. The gentel roar of the fire provided a soothing background noise. As he ate the warm porrage, flavored with some beries from the cubbord, his mum fussed over him. “can’t you comb that hair of yours, it looks like you just had a fight with the bed and lost”. “it’s fine mum” ronnie grumbled.
They listened to the news and weather on the radio as they ate breakfast. “(news of sea level rise and a drought in the world. )”. “more of the same, well it’s not like there weren’t any warnings”. Susanne sighed. She saw the time on the solar clock by the window. “jeepers, you’re going to be late for school if we don’t hurry”.
“Off you go, put up with the teachers much as you can and I’ll show you some real things when you get back” ronnies mum prommised as he and his sister started the 10 minuite bike to school. “Come on ronnie” Tarra called. he’d got distracted by the little tree growing out of the pavement of the foot parth. It was a kophi, it’s roots lifting up the ashfelt like little mountans the size of fingers, ready the trip the feet of people walking past. Ronnie was only a few years younger than her so he peddled had and was soon crusing past her. “oi slow down” Tarra called after him while standing on the peddels herself. “If you make my makeup run I’ll get you for it” she yelled. He slowed down at that, she could hold her own in a wrestle and make him pay.
They arrived at school and locked their bikes to the bike rack and made their way towards their friend groups. Tarra’s friends were looking at stories of the latest boy band while ronnies friends were chatting about the racing results.
the bell rang and they made their way to their classrooms. The teacher started talking about algebra and they got out their books to do the exercies. Ronnie started to write but soon his pen ran out of ink. He quickly unscrewed the back end of it, got the little ink bottle out of his desk and filled up pen. He wrote quickly to catch up to where the teacher had got up to.
School finished so tarra and ronnie biked off to meet their mum. Susannne worked at the local urban farm. She mainly did office work, things like sorting the seeds from the latest collection or tracking which beds were due for which stage of the crop rotation.
She was on her lunch break as they showed up. “Hi you two” she called to them, “how was school?” “we were learning about how to keep track of accounts in books” Ronnie replied. “you’ll be able to help me with the account’s here then” their mum said as she laughed. “awww but that’s boring” Tara groned. “well it’s not like we can afford to get a computer to do it with what we make here, there’s almost no actual money that comes through here” their mum explained. “so how does that work anyway mum?” ronnie asked. “well” she started “you know the pumpkin soup we had for dinner last night; well that was made with a pumpkin from here”. “a bunch of the other ingredients were from here too”. “what about those peas, I remember you buying them in a sack from the shop” Ronnie countered. “ok you got me there, those came from the shop” mum answered. “that’s the dried peas; they can be stored or transported easily so we get them from the shop”. “anyway, lunch is over now, come help me with the accounts”. “Why don’t you show me what you learnt at school, see if you learn’t some tricks i don’t know about”.
As ronnie and his mum were working on the books Ronnie asked “mum Bethany wasn’t at school again today, do you know if she’s ok?”. Susanne paused adding up the column of numbers she was working on, she wrote the figure she had in her head down and then turned to Ronnie. “Ronnie you know that Bethany has diabetes right?”. “Yes I know, as long as she takes her insulin she’s ok though”. Susanne smiled sadly “that’s right, but that’s also the problem. You see back in the big day’s they could get all the insulin they needed and diabetic people could carry around a little computer which could test their blood to see how much insulin they needed to take.” “these day’s people like bethanie need to get by with things like the paper strips she uses to test her blood.” “the other day she must have given herself the wrong dose before she started playing. Her body ran out of energy while she was playing and she collapsed” by the time they got her to the hospital it was really serius and the only just managed to save her. She needs to stay in the hosbital for a while now.” “ but she’ll be ok won’t she mum?” ronnie asked worriedly. “I hope she will budddy, i hope she will”.
As the day came to a close they biked home. It was autum so there was lots of produce to bring home. Ronnie and tarra had trailers on their bikes so it was hard going while their mum’s bike had a big bin built into the front for carrying stuff so it could take a lot more. They arrived home and wheeled their bikes into the garrage. They could smell dinner cooking. They switched on the garrage light and shut the big door. Once that was done their mum wheeled aside a small rack of tools to reval another door. She unlocked it and they started lugging their hard won produce down the steps as they went down their breath frosted around them. They each had a lamp hanging around their necks so they could see. The sides of the passage were wood pannels with posts every meter or so while the steps were moulded earth with a plank across the top to stop it wearing away. “These potatos are heavy mum” Ronnie complained. “Would you rather not have them in the winter then?” susane repplied. Ronnie grumbled under his breath, “they’re still heavy”.
Tarra lugged her load down without complaining. She was just old enough to remember that year when the shops had run out. The only thing that had kept their house from running out were a few sacks dried peas that their mum had bought just in case. The weekends the next summer after that were punctuated buy the sound of digging with a shovel as some people tried their hands at digging root cellars. Nobody talked about it much and only got their best mate or two to help, with the only payment being help in return. The few people who knew how to do it became very popular over night. Nobody wanted to advertise that they had a lot of food stored so they did their best to hide them.
After they got the food unloaded they went inside and got their outdoor gear of. They followed the smells of cooking to the kiction where their dad was dishing up the soup that Susanne had heated to boiling and placed in the hot box that morning . Their dad had made this from some insulation and some wood he had managed to scavenge from somewhere. “Hey honey, that’s smelling good” susanne said as she greeted her husband with a hug and a kiss. “I just warmed it up this evening” he replied returning her hug.
They sat around the table and ate dinner discussing the event’s of the day. “How was your trip dad?” Ronnie asked. “I got there in the end but there were no air stations for the last 20 km to the delivery address so I was pedalling most of the way”. Ronnie’s dad worked as a cycle courier. He had a special bike with a big cargo tray on the back for carrying things around the city and nearby area. Ronnies dad jeff chatted to them about what they were doing at school the things they were learning. “we’re doing recent history now. I need to write a report on the cybre wars” tarra said. “Ha, i remember those” jeff replied with a laugh. “Eveyone suddenly found that connecting everything together wasn’t nessearly a good thing”. “but we still have the internet these day’s dad” ronnie butted in. “yes but now we’re not putting it into our shoes. They had to rebuild parts of it in this country. Back at the height of it you could go online and you wouldn’t know where in the world the thing you were looking at was actually coming from. You could be watching a video coming from America and it was almost the same as watching it from in the same city”. Ronnie found this a bit difficult to believe. These days when he went on the internet at school he could always tell when he was getting anything from out of the country. There was a little warning symbol and sometimes it just wouldn’t work at all. Sometimes they needed to quarantine the internet border if things were getting crazy in to rest of the online world.
Ronnie jumped up from the table and ran to his bag, got out a bundle and came back to the table. “i’m doing knitting” he declared presenting his work. “i’ve got one sock done and i’m working on the second one”. “That’ll keep your feet warm this winter, you’re keeping it nice and tight too, well done!”. Susanne congratulated.
The next day was saturday so as soon as he had finished breakfast ronnie ran off to play. The was an abandonded area of houses not too far from where he lived. Since the sea had risen They had been built too close to the river so as the sea rose the started to flood in bad storms every 5 or 10 years. Then as the storms kept rising they flooded more often.
Ronnie was exploring to see if there was anything he could sell. He walked his bike down the street and around the trees growing up through the road. Ronnie got to a house he hadn’t explored yet. He left his bike becide the road and fought his way into the over grown garden. He looked around and saw a tangle of plants fighting to get to the light. Although they had that kind of order which plants often manage to find in which each plant had it’s own space and grew in it’s own way reaching a
balance with the plants around it. As he looked around he saw some that he didn’t recognise and took a few leaves and carefully put them in his bag.
As he worked his way around the garden carefully looking at everything he saw a shed around the back of the house. “oh I wonder what’s in this one” he muttred to himself. He went over to it and tried the door. It was locked but a few quick kicks took care of that. It was dark inside so before in, he went back to his bike and took off its lamp and the battery pack. It was fully charged by him biking there from home. He got back to the shed and shone the light inside.
He saw racks of tools on the walls all covered in dust. There was a welder under the bench and one wall of shelves of plastic containers. He took out a notebook and started writing down what he could see. He worked his way around to the shelves of containers and was trying to make out what was on the labels. “ you should take that one” a voice said behind him.
Ronnie whipped around, tripped over something in the dark, fell over and hit his head. The figure in the doorway sighed and walked over to him. Ronnie was gronning on the ground. The figure bent over and poked him on the shoulder, it didn’t need to bend far. “Why did you do that” the figure said. The voice was like that of a child. “Why did you sneak up on me” Ronnie groaned. He looked up and tried to focus on the figure. There was a young boy bending over him with an amused and confused look on his face. The sun shining into the room lit up his face from the side. “I didn’t sneak up on you, I was here before you were”. “This is my find, you didn’t claim it!” ronnie exclamed and then colapsed with a grone. “What do you mean” the boy replied looking confused. “I don’t want this stuff; i want you to take it away”. That got ronnies attention. “oww, give me a minute ok” he said rubbing the bump on his head. The boy reached out. Before ronnie could react given his recent fall, the boy gave his head a few quick pokes near the bumped spot. “oi, get off me” ronnie said waving the boy’s hand away. Though he didn’t say it too loudly to avoid making the developing headacke any worse. Then he stopped. The spots which had been poked were tingleing strangley and the headake was fading rappedly. “what did you do?” he asked as he looked at the boy strangley. “I fixed it, most of it anyway. Now you’ll be able to take some of that stuff away today.”
Ronnie carried a few tools and some of the plastic bottles out to his bike by the road. Then he loaded them onto his trailer and headed off. He needed to stop for a rest a few times but he eventually got home. His dad, Jeff, was in the garage tinkering with his bike. It was a three wheeled cargo bike where he would lie back in the seat and pedal hard to move a lot of stuff around. It even had a compressed air motor to take some of the peddling load. “Hey dad, look what I found!” Ronnie called out. “What is it kido?” he replied. “I found an abandoned old house with a shed and a bunch of stuff inside”. “it was all locked up but the door had rotted and I managed to get in”. “well let’s see what you found”. You couldn’t see into the garage from the road but jeff got up and closed the big door just in case. Then they uncovered the load of stuff which ronnie had brought back. Ronnie pulled out his note book and showed the list of things he’d seen in the shed and written down.
After they’d gone through everything dad sat back and thought for a little. “what is it dad? isn’t it very good?”. Ronnie looked crestfallen. “no, no, it is good” dad reassured. “it’s almost too good” he added. “what do you mean?” Ronnie was confused. “Well the tools are great and what you’ve got on your list looks just as good.”. “Then what’s the problem?” ronnie asked now even more confused. “it’s the chemicals in these bottles, they’re useful and some of them are very valuable these days but some of them are on the deep green church’s list of forbidden relics.” “They demand that any of these which are found are to be given to them so they can be destroyed.” “now if I sold them to the right person I could get a lot of money for them. But if they find out that I sold them it would make our life very hard.” “what are we going to do then dad?” ronnie asked worriedly. “I’ll need to think about it, leave it with me for a while. In the mean time don’t tell your mum about the chemicals. Come and help me with my bike now anyway”.
When they went inside for lunch Tarra was cooking it with mum. They’d baked some bread and cooked up a soup along with getting dinner into the solar cooker to be ready for later. “what are you planning to cook for tomorrow Jeff” mum asked dad. “I’m thinking of salad sandwitches for lunch with some scrambled eggs”. “oh i’ll look forward to that. I’ve been watching those tomatoes in the green house”. They sat down at the table to eat. “What did you find this morning ronnie?”. “there’s an old shed with a bunch of tools and things in it he said”. He left out the chemicals he’d found. “those sound useful, what do you think jeff?”. “yes” he said though a mouth of soupy bread. He swallowed and continued. “I looked over what he found and I think I can get a good price for it.” “will it be enough?” mum asked. Tarra paused and listened. “we’ll have to see” dad answered. “enough for what?” ronnie asked. “don’t worry about that” mum said, then she changed the subject. “what are you working on at school next week”. “we’re doing ways of getting around and their limits; i’m going to talk about dad’s bike” Ronnie explained. “that sounds very interesting, I’m sure the teacher will be fascinated” mum encouraged.
After lunch ronnie went to visit a school friend of his. Barry lived in a big square house and his mum worked for the mayors office and was important in the church of (). it was one of many new faiths which people had been taking up since the old world started to crumble. This one was focoused on trying to recreate the aboundance of that old world. It tended to be more popular with those who had more money and wealth to spend. Ronnies friend barry me him at the door and they went inside. Their house was so different from ronnies, it was huge in comparison for a start and the garden looked like it was controled by someone with an obsession with stright lines. Everything was just how they wanted it to be. Anything which didn’t perform was pulled out and replaced. Ronnie and barry climed the stairs to Barry’s room. “where are your parents” ronnie asked as they climbed the stairs. “mum’s off meeting the goverment about something and dad’s at work”. “what do you wnat to do?” barry asked changing the subject. “would you like to play block world?” “that sounds cool” ronnie replied “but i’m not very good”. “that’s fine, you can be on a team with me”. They got into barries room. There were a couple of platforms with a hollowed out middle and a ring at about waist heigh with buffers on it. Barry explaned how to use the system and they each got on one of the platforms. They put on some gloves and helmets with vizors which cover your face. Ronnie put down his visor to see a logo flashing with the word loading underneth it. That vanished to reveal a room with a strangley dressed person with Barry’s face. “what do you think?” he asked. “This is my base, it’s hidden inside a mounten and the entrance is hidden so it’s the one safe place for me in this world”. Ronnie looked around to see a world where everything was made of different sized cubes. “so you said there were other people playing this game” Ronnie asked. “yes, there are normally about a hundred people playing from all around the country.” “lets go where there are more people” ronnie asked.
After playing for a while barry’s dad got home and it was time for their dinner. They had a chef to cook for them. Ronnie went home for his dinner. As he went home he had a bit of a headacke from being in the game for a while. He wondered if playing that sort of thing inside all the time was part of the reason that barry was so chubby and pale. Being outside most of the time meant that ronnie had a healthy tan. He was rather skinny like the rest of his family because they didn’t always have a lot of food. His parents focused on making sure they stayed healthy and had enough with a bit put aside just in case.
When he got home his mum and dad were getting dinner ready. “where’s tarra?” he asked. “she’s out on a date” mum repplied with a laugh. “did her face go bright red we she said it?” ronnie asked with mirth. “oh yes, like a beetroot”. They all had a laugh at that. “ but seorisly be nice to her, she was really nervice”. “I will mum”. “it’ll be your turn eventualy and you don’t want her to have anything to get revenge for do you”. Ronnie shivvered at the thought of that. His sister would fight becide him aganst any outside threat but if he crossed her he worried that he wouldn’t live to regret it. “don’t worry mum, i won’t” ronnie said veomently. “i told the boy to have her back here by 7 so she should be here after dinner” dad said. “be gental on him dear, i don’t want you to scare him away from her” mum admonished him. “he’s got nothing to worry about” dad said defending himself. “unless he hurts her in which case he has a great deal to worry about”.
They chatted about various things as they ate but ronnie was distracted. Mum noticed and asked “what’s on your mind?”. “i’m just thinking of how barry lives, he almost never sees his patents and spends all this time inside. After playing at his place this afternoon i had a headacke and it made me wonder what living like that does you you after a long time.”
The next day Ronnie’s dad went with him to the shed Ronnie found so they could collect the stuff that they would be able to sell openly. “So where’s this shed” he asked as ronnie stopped by the side of the overgrown road. “just in here” ronnie said as he disapeared into the overgrown bushes at the side of the road. “How do i get in there?” Dad asked looking at the wall of greenery in front of him. Ronnie popped back out and beckoned him through “come through here”. Dad fought his way into the bushes. Ronnie was watching from a meter in. “come on!” he said, exasperated at how long dad is taking to get through the bushes. “let him through, he’s here to help me take the chemicals away”. Dad’s clothes suddenly came free of the bushes and he stumbled through into the clearing in the middle. It was very gloomy in here and dad switched on the light he’d removed from his bike. “so where’s this shed?” he asked ronnie. “back here” ronnie said leading him around the corner. Dad followed him to the shed and to the broken in door. “ i’m supprised you were able to break through this door” dad commented. “it fell appart easily enough when i kicked it” ronnie said. Dad looked skepital but didn’t say anything.
They went into the shed and saw the tools and shelves of chemicals. “well ronnie you’ve struck gold this time” dad said with a smile. “Where?” ronnie asked confused. dad smiled and clarified “i mean that this is a very good scavange”. Ronnie smiled and showed his dad what he’d found.
They did a more thorough search through the stuff in the scavange. Once they’d finished and dad had written his own more thorough list they sat back and ate their lunches. ... dad was very pleased with what they’d found. (what did they find that was very valuble)
Ronnies dad organised to meet up with a friend of his who would swap some things for the location of the scavange Ronnie had found. He asked ronnie and tarra what they would like to get. Tarra asked for makup while ronnie asked for a radio. Dad met up with his friend guy he’d found to buy the chemicals and things which couldn’t be sold openly. He organised to get the medicine for mum in exchange for the location of the shed. He didn’t know where his friend got the things he’d asked for.
One day dad came home with the things that they had agreed to exchange for the location of the scavange. They were all excited to see it. When dad got home he drove stright into the garrage and closed the door before starting to unload. They all gathered around to see. Dad got out a box of makup for tarra along with a book on how to make your own makup. When she saw it she squealed in delight “thanks so much dad!” she exclaimed. “now you’ll be able to look preity for that boy” dad said. Tarra went bright red and stammered out a denial. “it’s ok” mum said putting her arm around dad. “we know he’s a good boy, just be safe”. Tarra smiled and said in a small voice “i will”. “Now Ronnie” dad said reaching into the trailer with a smile. “you wanted a radio and I thought that i wouldn’t just get you a radio. I got you a short wave radio. With this you’ll be able to talk to people at the other end of the country. You can be the family radio opperator.” Ronnie stood there in astonishment and then cautiously reached out for the radio set his dad had revealed.
