How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff

Author:Meg Rosoff [Rosoff, Meg]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 0100-12-31T22:00:00+00:00

20

Now you might have gleaned from some of the hints dropped so far that food was not my best subject. So it was kind of ironic that the part of the army I got enlisted into was the one trying to provide it for everyone.

There was the whole milk operation, starring Piper and Jet the Wonder Dog, and the part that came after milking was complicated by having to heat and sterilize the milk since there were no fridges to keep it cold and that turned out to be so hard that eventually they gave up and just served it the old-fashioned way straight from the cow. Everyone worried about uncontaminated containers but the best solution turned out to be making people Bring a Bottle, then at least the army knew the milk was OK when it left them and if it poisoned anyone later it wasn't their fault.

There were a couple of local guys who knew all about butchering so they were the lucky ones who got to kill and divvy up the cows which was a lot bloodier than you might want to find yourself thinking about on a dark and stormy night. They were popular though, and suddenly had whole bunches of friends they'd never noticed before queuing around the block clutching barbecue tongs.

Chickens were having their necks wrung all over the place especially if they didn't keep churning out eggs, and it was pretty surprising to me how many of the older folks seemed to be right at home strangling a chicken. Piper said it was because of the Last War and rationing and everyone keeping chickens and I was pleased to hear that some of the skills I was picking up would stand me in good stead in Later Life, assuming I had one.

And finally, anyone who was healthy enough and willing enough to pick crops was hauled in to help and that was where I came in.

My first job was picking apples, which was somewhat more useful than hanging around on the outskirts of the Piper Appreciation Society. I got a lot of doubtful looks at first about whether I was strong enough to work so hard but these days determination was nine-tenths of the law and also as time went on there were a lot more thin people around and I didn't stand out so much.

I worked with eight other army people including three soldiers and their wives and two other civilians. We started early in the morning and worked until it started to get dark and after only a few hours we drifted into cliques like we were all back in school.

My partner was a local woman called Elena who was from Liverpool originally so I didn't understand most of what she said for the first few days and vice versa. Eventually we started chatting about this and that and soon the stories started coming out and I heard all about how she and her husband Daniel met and what were their

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