Arrival by Chris Morphew

Author:Chris Morphew
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
ISBN: 9781742733289
Publisher: Hardie Grant Egmont
Published: 2010-08-08T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

WEDNESDAY, MAY 13

92 DAYS

‘Pregnant?’ I repeated. ‘Isn’t that…? That’s good news, right?’

‘Is it?’ said Jordan heavily. ‘A new baby, here in this town? With everything that’s going on?’

‘But still,’ I said, trying to be encouraging, ‘a new brother or sister…’ ‘Yeah,’ she nodded, standing up. ‘And there’s part of me that…’ She sighed again and threw up her hands. ‘I don’t know.’

‘What about your mum, though?’ Peter asked, obviously trying to recover from Jordan’s brush-off. ‘How come she’s so upset? Like, I get that you’re worried about all this apocalypse stuff, but she doesn’t know anything about that.’

‘She’s not stupid, Peter,’ Jordan snapped. ‘She might not know everything we know, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that things in Phoenix aren’t exactly normal.’

‘Sure, but –’ Peter tried again.

‘She doesn’t even want to be here! She only agreed to come because Dad got laid off back in Brisbane and then both of them magically got offered these great jobs in Phoenix, and so we fly all the way out here and suddenly we’re cut off from everything and we can’t even call back home –’ She glared at Peter as he opened his mouth again, ‘– and I swear, Weir, if you try to tell me one more time that none of this is real, I’m going to smack your little –’

‘Okay, fine, but –’

‘But what?’ she demanded.

Peter shrank back against the bed.

Jordan turned away from him and went over to the other side of the room. She leant back against the wall and sank down to the carpet, worn out from the effort of getting that off her chest. It was like this news about the baby had shaken some part of her that none of the rest of it had been able to touch. She had a look on her face like she didn’t know whether she wanted to cry or punch someone.

I went over and sat down opposite her, a bit out of arm’s reach just in case. ‘Jordan,’ I said, with no idea how I was going to finish the sentence. ‘It’s not going to happen. This whole end-of-the-world thing, we can’t – we won’t let it happen. We’re going to do something about it.’

Of course, I realised immediately how ridiculous that sounded.

But Jordan looked at me and nodded. Not like she believed me, but I think she at least appreciated the attempt to make her feel better. She closed her eyes for a minute, then took a breath and said, ‘I just keep thinking about – by the time this baby is born, Mum’s only a couple of months pregnant, she won’t even give birth until after…’ She trailed off.

Across the room, I saw Peter sitting up. He stared down at us, like he was itching to say something, but he didn’t open his mouth.

I glanced back over at Jordan, but I still didn’t have any answers for her. The whole thing was just too big. Coded messages and secret conspiracies and super-powered homeless people.

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