Page 69 of Just Watch Me
“Let’s go,” she said, and began pulling kids to their feet. “Scarlett, Finlay, take a younger one’s hand. George and Georgia, come with me. Hold my hand.”
“Mum,”Finlay said. She couldn’t see him well; it was too dark in here. She could also barely hear him over the continuous announcements. The little room was crowded, and she forced herself to remain calm. They’d get out. One foot in front of the other. Was anybody hurt? She looked around. No, all the visitors were on their feet now, shuffling toward the door.
“Mum,”Finlay said again.
“What?” she asked.
“That kid,” Finlay said. “I think he’s alone.”
Oh. He was maybe six or seven, and he was standing alone in the corner, holding the wall, shifting from foot to foot.
You’re calm,she told herself.We have time.“Hi,” she said. “What’s your name?”
“F-Forrest,” the boy said, all wide, stretched eyes.
“Is your mum or dad here at the museum?” she asked.
“M-my big sister. But I don’t know where she is. She said she’d come find me, but she’s not— she’s—” He was trying not to cry. They were the only ones in the room now, and Scarlett was saying, “We have to go. They say we have to go.”
“Come with us, then,” Skylar said. “We’ll go where they tell us, and your sister will go there too, because those are the rules.” Kids were always comforted to know that. “We’ll find her there, but right now, you need to stay with us. Here. Take Scarlett’s hand. She’s a big sister too, and she’ll look after you.”
Scarlett said, to her credit, “Come hold my hand, and we’ll go together. We’ll be safe up there.”
Out into the main exhibit area at last, one of her handsholding George’s, the other holding Georgia’s. She wanted to hold all their hands, but she couldn’t. She could lead, though, so she did that.
There weren’t many people left, half an hour before the museum closed, but it seemed like all of them were milling around right here, talking excitedly. Going to the windows to peer outside, exactly as they’d been told not to do. Stepping on the broken glass that was everywhere. Display cases, that was. A staff member hurrying by, going to round up the visitors who were panicking or confused or merely excited and curious, as if this were a film. Another employee standing at the staircase, redirecting those who wanted to go down. “Not safe to go down,” she was saying. “Not safe. Go up.Up.”
Tsunami,Skylar thought as they began to climb the broad stairs with the others. They were at the water’s edge here. How long before a tsunami arrived, if the quake had originated close by? Minutes, maybe. An hour?
Probably not an hour.
Go up. Go up. Go up.
Zane was in the back of the bus, as always, with the rest of the leadership group. The bus was driven from the back, they said, and it was true.
There was pride in that gradual shift over the seasons. Match by match, row by row, until at last you reached the leadership group and were allowed to sit in those coveted back seats. Gordon’s spot near the front gnawed at him, Zane was sure, but being an All Black meant being tested in the furnace. If you made it through without cracking, your metal was harder. Stronger.
Not that the leadership group was chatting, or anybody else, either. The talking had been done already. Most of theplayers had on their headphones now, were going inside themselves, drilling down for their resolve and their calm, trying to harness the adrenaline, to control it. Zane didn’t have headphones, because he’d never got in the habit of it. He’d had kids too young for the head-banging type of music to ever have taken hold, and the inside of his head had to be a quiet place anyway, because that was how he worked.
A word with Gordon before the match? Definitely. He’d been called up as injury cover after that brutal match against the French last week, and Gordondidsometimes have trouble making his head a quiet place. You needed a blue head, not a red head, to play rugby at this level. It might not look like players were staying cool in the heat of the moment, but cool was exactly what they had to be.
He reminded himself to have that word, then let it go so he wasn’t thinking anything, just looking out the window at the green landscape. Ngauranga Station. Nearly there. Six or seven kilometers to go, and?—
It seemed like the whole bus rose into the air, then fell again with a sickening lurch, and then it was swaying and bucking. A screech of brakes like a scream, the rattle and crash of gear tumbling about in the baggage hold, and backpacks falling from the overhead racks. An “oof” ahead of him as one of them hit somebody in the head. A sharp, hard impact that made his head go forward, then back. A car smashing into the bus from behind. Had to be.
Most of all, though, a rumbling roar all around him, and the feeling of being tossed up and down, back and forth, as if you were on a raft in the rapids.
“Quake.” He didn’t realize he’d said it aloud until he’d done it.
“Bloody hell.” That was Marko Sendoa, beside him. Marko had one big hand gripping the handle at the back of the seat.The knuckles were white. Oh. Zane was gripping his handle, too. He hadn’t even realized it.
The noise was deafening. That roar, and the groaning and screeching of metal. He couldn’t hear voices, because nobody could talk over this. The motion, too, on and on. Up and down, side to side, forward and back. Sickening.
Surely they would overturn. Both hands on the handle at the thought, but the motion was finally lessening, and the noise, too.
It slowed, and then it stopped. The motion, and the noise. Backpacks in the aisles, men turning, twisting in their seats. Checking on the others. Checking to see how scared they should be.
My kids.That was the only thought in Zane’s mind, but it couldn’t be his thought now, could it? His mind needed to be clear. He shook his head as if that would settle his thoughts, and when the man ahead of him started to stand, put his hand on his shoulder and said, “Wait.”
