The Chaos by Nalo Hopkinson

Author:Nalo Hopkinson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Social Issues, Family, Juvenile Fiction, Fantasy & Magic, General, Adolescence
ISBN: 9781442459267
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2012-04-17T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

“Here you go,” said Ben, handing a couple of water bottles to a scared-looking man who’d been flooded out of his home last night.

“You can wash your hands at one of the sanitation stations over there.” He pointed to where the temporary green carousels of hand sanitizers had been set up.

“Thank you,” said the man.

“Don’t clean your face with that stuff, though,” Ben told him. “It’s murder on your skin.”

The man nodded and wandered dazedly over to where Ben had pointed, picking his way through the crowds of people trying to settle down until God knew when on the flimsy green cots that volunteers like us were setting up as quickly as we could.

The great hall of the Convention Centre was a sight. Hundreds of cots in straggly rows. People’s belongings piled next to the cots. Some people had tried to build teetering privacy walls with the things they’d rescued from their homes. Every so often a pile of coats or something would topple to the floor. Volunteers kept asking them not to pile their stuff up like that, but there were always new people to tell. There were kids running everywhere. There were adults yelling at their kids who were running everywhere. Kids crying. Adults crying. People yelling at the volunteers. Volunteers yelling at the people. People yelling at each other. Did I mention the crying? People curled up on their cots, quietly or loudly sobbing. People on their cell phones, trying to locate people who had gone missing, or to let their friends and their relatives know they were okay. Volunteers trying to hand out sandwiches. Lines for the Johnny on the Spot portable toilets. The main Convention Centre toilets had all overflowed, and a couple of stalls had become tall, thin clock towers that played the Sesame Street theme song over and over. Out of sync. The floor was still wet in spots from the flooding last night. The whole place smelled of unhappy, and the hubbub was deafening.

Gloria used the sleeve of her green hoodie to wipe the sweat off her brow. “If I have to bend over again to pull one more bottled water out of this box, I think my back is just going to break in two!”

I grinned at her. “Good practice for the battle.”

I grabbed two of the bottles from the box underneath the folding cafeteria table we were working at, and handed them to the little boy waiting there. “Here you go.”

“Thank you.”

Maybe it was silly to be thinking about a dance competition now. But maybe the world would get back to normal soon. Maybe if we hung on to our memories of what it used to be just a few short hours ago, we could go back to that place. Not that I’d be taking part in the competition now. Not with my skin the way it was.

Glory stared blankly at me. “Battle?” Then her face cleared. “Oh! For a second, I had no idea what you were talking about.

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