Chapter 8
September Rains
1
Into every life, a
little rain must fall. And although we
certainly felt "rained" on, there actually had been no rainfall since
the trap fell. The weather hadn't
actually varied much. It remained around
the high 60s to low 70s. Yes, the
weather was comfortable, but the constancy was almost depressing. We were Michiganders after all, used to wild
climate swings.
The sky was mostly
cloudy, with very little direct sunlight.
Some did what they could to lay outside and catch what sun they could,
but most of us just gave up. I was
mostly an indoors person, so it probably affected me less than some. My Dad, who had grown up on a large family
farm, and loved gardening and yard work, was irritated by it, in a way that
probably showed more to me than others.
We still met in a
group in the mornings, but our group was slightly reconfigured. The losses of Tom Bodell, Sue Boschman and
Jim Kurrash weighed heavily on us. Randy
Sherman was back in our group as a regular, having completely finished his 'flirting
with cheerleaders' stage. We also were
seeing more of Larry Wiseman, the very intelligent freshman, and one of the
only Jews at our school. Jerry Mack was
feeling better and hanging with us more often, quiet but polite. Robert Bond was still with us, Artie's oldest
and dearest friend.
Ginny and her
sister, Mary, were still with us. Ginny was often at Artie's side. Mary seemed a little lost, having gone back
more into a shell after the loss of her boyfriend, Jim. Arletta Mierkey, the short attractive girl
whom I had last seen at the first day's pep rally, had gravitated towards our
group. But we were bereft of other
females, including Lisa Carlton.
Lisa and I were
seeing less and less of each other. She
took the death of her friend, Sue, very hard.
Why that made her want to disassociate from us, I'm not sure. Maybe we reminded her too much of it. She was not rude to me, but I couldn't help
but notice that she was wearing a pin on her shirt, one that Ginny told me that
her boyfriend from Huron
University
"Wouldn't it
be better for the garden if it would rain?
Wouldn't it grow better?" asked Arletta. She still had the same hair style, her pretty
dark hair cut short in a shag. I
wondered if she had to get cut often, if she had someone styling it for
her. Myself, I had only had one haircut
in the five moths of the Trap, but it didn't seem to be growing as fast as I
thought it would. My facial hair hardly
grew at all, but maybe I was just young.
Come to think of it, I had noticed some guys with occasional five
o'clock shadow, but I hadn't really noticed any new out and out beards. We had a handful of guys who had a beard when
the Trap fell, but no new ones that I could recall. Oh, well.
Maybe we did. Another failure of
my powers of observation.
Larry Wiseman
answered Arletta. "We have a very
good irrigation system, designed by Mr. Bruchow, with David Yankovich's
help." David, for all his obnoxious
arrogance, was another huge loss. Nobody
seemed to have had a better handle on what we were confronted with and how to
deal with it than David. His theoretical
genius combine with Tom's practical genius was our best chance for finding a
way out, but now they were both gone. It
didn't matter whose fault the tunnel collapse was. They were no longer able to help us now, and
we would have to find our own way.
"But it is filtered water, coming inexplicably from the Loren water
system, which I don't really understand how that's possible, but there it
is."
"Well,"
interrupted Artie. "At least,
Lance, I bet your Dad is enjoying the water bill!" Everyone laughed. There was, of course, no water bill. And if somehow we were freed, and the city
presented the school the mammoth water bill we must be accumulating, well, paying
that up would be worth it, considering everything else.
"Nevertheless,"
Larry continued, "it would still be better, I think, if we could get some
rain. First, there may be nutrients in
the rain water that is missing from the city water system, things to help the
plants grow into larger and more nutritionally sound fruits, vegetables and
nuts.
"Second,
there are many parts of this uh, area we are confined in, that don't get the
water that the garden is getting. Why
other grass is not turning brown and withering, I don't know. Maybe the latent moisture in the area. I just don't know. I can't help but feel that rain would be good
for it.
"Finally,"
Larry said, as if he were summing debate points. Which is natural, I guess, as he was part of
a state 3rd place Debate team last fall.
Pretty neat trick for a freshman.
He was skinny, of modest height, big nose and thick glasses, moderately
shaggy black hair. "...I think the
psychological effect of rain would be a positive for us. It would make us feel like outside forces
could come into play, that we weren't so isolated. Without the influence of external weather
events, it just makes us feel more trapped, as if we were indeed caught up in
some kind of bubble."
"A bubble?
asked Robert. "You mean like a
dome?"
"I don't
think we're in a dome," Arletta answered.
"If we were in a dome, wouldn't we go like, bump or splat when we
hit it, instead getting like, you know...fried?"
"Yes, it's
not a dome, I agree," said Larry.
"I mean, god, if it were Plexiglas or something impermeable, we'd
all be suffocated by now!"
"That's one
good bit of news thing, then," chided in Artie. "I've always been fond of breathing." Ginny giggled and gave Artie a quick side
hug.
Jerry cleared his throat
and spoke for the first time that morning.
"So, you're saying it would be better if it rained?"
Larry seemed a
little surprised where the question was coming from. He'd had little interaction with Jerry yet,
and may have forgotten that he was there.
"Yes, I think it would. I
wouldn't want it to rain like, forty days and nights or anything, but I do
think a modest amount of rain would do both us and our garden a lot of
good."
Artie couldn't
resist. "Well, if it does rain that
long, somebody will need to make a really, really big boat!"
Yes. We wouldn't
want to get washed away.
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