Free This World We Live In (The Last Survivors, Book 3) by Susan Beth Pfeffer

said.
    I know he's right, but there's nothing we can do about it. When Horton feels like eating, he'l eat.
    May 24
    We spent the day drying the cel ar out, pail by pail.
    The electricity came back on for the first time in weeks, and Matt got the sump pump running.
    Mom acted like this was Christmas and New Year's. I'm surprised she didn't burst out singing.
    May 25
    Matt and Jon are back chopping firewood. As far as I'm concerned, that means the official end of the school year. Nothing good happened to Romeo or Juliet.
    May 26
    The third day in a row with electricity. Al three days the electricity's been on for hours, and last night it came back on for a few hours as wel .
    We don't get any TV reception, and the news on the radio remains bad, but Mom announced that we should
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    spring clean. So that's how she and Syl and I spent the day. The menfolk chopped wood. Us women vacuumed and scrubbed.
    Matt came home exhausted, but when he saw how clean things were, his mood brightened. "Syl, you're fantastic," he said.
    Syl worked every bit as hard as Mom and me but no harder.
    Sometimes I'd like to kil him.
    May 27
    I can't remember the last time I was in a good mood. It feels like al I do is crab and mope and feel sorry for myself.
    Since the house is as close to spotless as it's ever going to get and Romeo and Juliet are total y dead, I told Mom I was going house hunting. I think she was glad to get me out of here, so she didn't put up a battle.
    "I'l go, too," Syl said, which wasn't my idea at al .
    "Laura, do you want to come with us?"
    Thank goodness Mom said no. "See if you can find any more books for me," she said instead.
    I didn't want to go house hunting with Syl. I wanted to spend time by myself. I was looking for a tactful way of explaining that to Syl, but before I could, she said, "Let's split up. We can meet here at noon."
    "How wil you find your way back?" I asked. Matt would kil me if I let Syl out of my sight and she wandered off, never to be seen again.
    "I never get lost," Syl said. "I'l be back here. Don't worry."
    I thought about how lost I'd gotten and I've lived here practical y my whole life. But Syl's an old married woman
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    and I'm just the kid sister-in-law. And I real y did want some alone time. "Fine," I said. "I'l see you, then."
    We biked together until Schil er Road, and she turned to the left. I kept biking down Howel Bridge Road until the right onto Penn Avenue. Lots of nice houses there. A very literate neighborhood.
    I real y do love breaking and entering, and I got positively cheery seeing how the wealthier people in Howel used to live. Not that I found that much we could use, since everybody else must have realized Penn Ave. would have good pickings.
    But there were books for Mom, and one space heater, and best of al , two pairs of blue jeans, price tags stil attached, in a size I never could have fit in before. I tried on one pair, and it was a little loose (I guess shad doesn't have that many calories) but definitely wearable. Syl weighs even less than I do, but I figured the second pair could stay up with a belt, and I was sure she'd appreciate having something new to wear.
    I also took a can of ocean breeze room freshener.
    Now that the temperature's up to 50, Mom's been opening the windows to air the house out, but everything smel s like fish anyway. That and a travel-sized bottle of aspirin were my best finds.
    I balanced the handlebars with one trash bag on one side and one on the other and began biking to the rendezvous spot. My mood was much better than it has been in ages. I pictured how pleased Syl would be with my gift of blue jeans, and how Matt would appreciate my generosity, and how Mom would love the books I'd found, and how Jon ... Wel , how Jon would turn out to be a secret ocean breeze air freshener freak. Okay, I couldn't think of why 85
    anything I brought home would make Jon happy, except maybe the aspirin, for when his muscles ache from chopping wood.
    Jon's never