Page 103 of The Two of Us at the End of the World

Things to do. Things not to do. Adjustments to be made.

Chapter 35

The last free elephant of England

Mouse – Year 201 AG

Cat telling me to find Bear Shirt winded me somehow. I’d lain in the dark and told her about what had happened in Stitch Country countless times. She liked to hear it so she could imagine it for herself. I had thought it was because she wanted all the details in order to figure them out. But telling me to find Bear Shirt showed she’d been figuring me out as well. As ever, knowing me better than I did myself. I paused and thought about it.

But, I said.

You need help, she said.

I’ve got you, I said. You’ll get better and better and then…

We need help, she said again.

But I could be wrong, I said. About them. I haven’t met enough people to know if I’m a good judge of who is good and who is bad.

Yes you do, she said.

And of course she was right, because she was Cat, and she always knew the inside of my head better than I did. If Bear Shirt and the girl with the scarred hands and the tough old woman had ridden into view right then I think I would have let go of all the tightness I was holding knotted across my chest and burst out crying in relief. And that, with Cat beside me, felt like a betrayal.

You need people, she said again.

We do, I said. OK. We do. You’re not getting better quick enough.

So, she said. Move fast.

I don’t know where to find them, I said. And Cat, there’s a lion out there. We could get stalked by it and it could kill us all.

You have Digger, she said.

Digger is not enough, I said.

You light fires, she said.

She said a lot of other things very forcefully as we went back and forth about it. Mainly this was because I couldn’t think very straight, or believe she was so convinced about all this. I was exhausted of course, and still in shock, and, though I didn’t know it at the time, brewing some kind of fever. That hit me later, on the road. When I had no choice but to ignore it and keep on travelling to keep everybody safe.

You go north, she said. Find the library.

I do remember saying that finding the library shouldn’t be a problem because I had the book of maps, but that there was no guarantee that they would be there or would visit it anytime soon.

So? she said. Keep going

What? I said. If they don’t come, if they aren’t there?

Find their island, she said.

It was annoying how she had a simple answer for everything when I knew that all that lay ahead of us was complication.

I can’t sail, I said. And we don’t even have a boat.

But I’d told her everything they’d said, including the name of the island. And that the library had a great store of maps and charts. She said if they weren’t there and didn’t come I’d still find maps. And if I found maps, I’d find the island, and if I found the island…

You find them, she said.

We would still need a boat to find their island, I said. And even if we did…