The Eleventh Plague Of Mobias

SIXTEEN

The next morning before school I helped Rouge carry tin buckets of hot water from the fire out back to a white tub in the bathroom upstairs. She said she figured I must be dying for a bath — meaning she was dying for me to take a bath but wanted to save my feelings. It was a good effort. And a few whiffs of myself confirmed that it was probably past due.

Once we were done and she was gone, I stripped and lowered myself into the tub. The homemade lye soap Rouge gave me felt like it was taking a layer of skin off with the dirt. As I scrubbed, I thought how easy it must have been when she and my dad were my age, back before the Collapse. Turn a faucet and out came hot water. Flick a switch and there was light. It must have seemed like magic.

When I was done, Rouge came back in with a razor and a pair of scissors. She trimmed my quills and shaved the light fall of whiskers on my cheeks, then sent me off to Shadow’s room. There I found a pair of nearly new-looking jeans, a red button-up shirt, and a handmade black wool sweater. There was even a slightly scuffed pair of brown hiking boots. On the floor next to the bed were my old clothes: a dirty, heavily patched heap of greasy cloth I had been wearing almost daily for the last year or two. I knew every hole, every tear, every patch, wrinkle, and worn spot.

I lifted my old pants and turned them over. Sewn on the right knee was a rectangular scrap of red cloth with gold ducks on it. Dad had put the patch on when I’d worn through the knee a few months ago. The square of cloth had come from one of Mom’s old dresses, her favorite one. After she died, Uncle Chuck had insisted we trade her clothes away, but Dad had kept that one dress, hiding it like I hid my books.

Standing there, I didn’t think I could do it — throw aside these old things for the new. I told myself I was being crazy. If I’d come across these new clothes on the trail, I’d have taken them. And if I’d come across my old clothes, I would’ve walked right on by.

“Sonic?” Rouge called from downstairs. “You okay?”

I dressed quickly in the new clothes before heading out into the hall. When I turned to close the door, there were my old clothes, blue and black with a flash of red and gold. Dad’s knife lying on top in its sheath.

They’re just clothes, I told myself and shut the door. When I came downstairs, Rouge was sitting at Dad’s side with a bowl of oatmeal in her lap. “Hey, Rouge, I …”

When Rouge turned back, I saw the feeding tube down Dad’s throat. He lay there, his mouth unnaturally wide, his teeth clamped down on the hard plastic. Something shuddered inside me, seeing him like that. Part of me wanted to run over and tear it out of him, to make her leave him alone, but I marshaled myself and crossed the floor slowly until I was just behind her.

“How’s he doing?”

Rouge spooned the last bit of food down the tube.

“About the same,” she said. “I wish I could say more, but without tests …”

“I’ve been talking to him at night.”

“That’s good.” Rouge looked back over her shoulder and smiled. “You look really great, Sonic.”

I pulled awkwardly at the new clothes. “Thanks.”

“You ready?”

Tails had just come down the stairs and was standing behind me.