The Human Condition

lemonade and cans of Coke had gone. I had to drink orange juice straight from the bottle because there wasn't any water to make it properly with. It made me feel a bit sick but I was really thirsty so I kept drinking it.

    It didn't feel like home anymore. Everything felt different and strange without Mum and Dad and it seemed to be getting colder and colder. I didn't want to go upstairs so I put my coat back on and my dirty school jumper that I'd thrown downstairs that morning for Mum to wash. Thinking about Mum and Dad made me upset again. I was starting to think I was never going to see Dad again and that he wasn't coming home. I was glad I'd missed two days of school but I would have rather gone there and have everything back how it used to be.

    I've made a real mess in here. They're going to be mad at me. The dark frightens me so I tried to light the big yellow candle that Mum keeps on the sideboard. I took it under the table with me and used a match from the box out of the kitchen. Anyway I lit the candle and I must have had it too close to the tablecloth because it started to burn. It burned really, really quickly. I crawled out from under the table and used the bottle of orange juice to put out the fire. I tried to pull the tablecloth off. I didn't know that there were plates and things on the table. I pulled it and they fell on the carpet and most of them smashed. That made me upset again because the noise made me jump and because I knew that Mum would be cross that I'd broken her plates. She always got cross if I broke a plate or a dish or a cup. I didn't want to move because was scared I might cut myself on some of the broken pieces.

    I think I fell asleep soon after that. When I woke up I was wet. I thought it was just orange juice at first but then I realised it was all over my trousers and all over the floor and I knew that I'd wet myself. I haven't wet myself since I was four. It was all over the carpet and I tried to clean it up with the burnt tablecloth but all that did was make things worse. My trousers were soaked so I took them off. I didn't want to go upstairs so I put my coat over the top of me and tried to keep warm but I couldn't stop shivering.

    Exhausted and suffering from shock and mild exposure, Dean slept intermittently for a further few hours. The morning finally arrived, bringing with it some welcome light and warmth. Tired and aching, he crawled back upstairs and got himself dressed in some clean clothes. He smelled from the accident he'd had in the night but he couldn't wash because he couldn't get any water to come out of the taps. He used some of Dad's deodorant spray to try and cover up the smell.

    Dean was finding it harder and harder to come upstairs on his own. Dad had recently decorated the spare room ready as a nursery ready for the birth of Dean's baby brother. He'd painted teddy bears and cartoon characters on the walls. When Dean walked past the open door of the room he felt like their eyes were moving, watching him as he crept around the house.

    While Dean was up in his bedroom getting changed he noticed that his mum had gone. For a second he was excited and relieved and he ran back downstairs to find her, expecting that she'd be back inside, cleaning up the mess in the kitchen or sitting on the sofa waiting for him. When he discovered that she wasn't there he slumped down at the bottom of the stairs and began to sob. Where had she gone? Why had she gone? Why had she left him and why hadn't she come back to the house? The pain of this sudden, unexpected rejection was in many ways worse than the unexplained loss and confusion he'd been trying to deal with for the last two days.

    He had to go and find her.

    Dean grabbed his coat from where he'd left it at the bottom of the banister and put on his trainers. He filled his school bag with all the food he could find in the kitchen, swung it onto his back and stepped out into the open. He shut the door behind him, locked it (he was pretty sure he'd done it properly) and then put Mum's keys in his trouser pocket.

    She hadn't taken her bag. Strange that she'd left it there in the middle of the street. And her phone too.

    He picked up the phone and held it tightly in his hand. He picked up the bag too but then stopped and put it down again at the end of the road because it was quite big and heavy and because he didn't think there was anything that important in it. Mum always carried her purse and her money in her coat