The End: Surviving the Apocalypse Read Online Free

on playground duty today?” Jab after jab after jab. Q didn’t know how much more she could take.
    “What’s eating you?” Hannah said during fruit math.
    “A German software programmer.” Q giggled, then sighed. She drew three oranges next to her kiwifruit. “It’s no good, Hannah Banana. I can’t even cheer myself up with my fabulous wit.”
    “Must be serious,” said Hannah. “Did you call Rabid Narayan?”
    “I did. It was the wrong number.” Q pulled out her mobile phone and selected the name she had so recently entered next to a love heart icon. She held the phone between them so that Hannah could share her grief.
    The line connected and they heard a recording of Mrs Mason’s meat-grinder voice. “ Hi. If you’re calling this number, you must be a dirty rotten thief. I trust you’ve found something interesting. I will catch you. ”
    “Found something interesting?”
    Q jumped and swore beneath her breath. How did that woman keep creeping up on her?
    “Sorry, Mrs Mason,” Q said. “I was showing Hannah my new ring tone.”
    “Which is why mobile phones are banned in my classroom, Quentin, as you know.” The woman held out her hand in ridiculous demand.
    “But that’s my phone!” Q said.
    The hand remained.
    “I’m not even a student! I’m a teacher! Almost.”
    The hand remained.
    Q succumbed and sulked.
    “And the principal would like to speak to you, Quentin.”
    *
    Q sat on the kiddie chair outside Mr Macklin’s office with her knees in her armpits and her spirits around her feet. What had Mrs Mason dobbed her in for this time? Was she finally getting the sack? Could you get the sack when you weren’t being paid and if so, how did you explain it on your CV?
    The principal opened his door and waved her in. Q sat in the chair in front of his desk, feeling even more awkward than she had on the kiddie stool outside. Perhaps her best bet was a preemptive confession, but which one to start with?
    “Quentin. You’ve been doing your placement with us for a month now.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “It seems like longer.”
    “For me too, sir.”
    Mr Macklin flicked through the pile of papers on his desk. Q tried to read them upside down to discover which of her crimes he had documented. She hoped it was the squid ink gag. She could explain the squid ink gag.
    “Natolia has some concerns about the Kindy Koalas,” he said.
    Q’s belly filled with bile. Natolia was the school counselor. This could get worse before it got better. No. This would get worse, and then get worse again.
    “Very bright woman, Natolia,” Mr Macklin said. “She’s got two degrees, you know.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Everything she knows is in her head.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    Mr Macklin extracted a few pictures. Q recognized them and cursed herself for sloppy espionage. Mrs Mason kept putting these drawings in the counselor’s pigeonhole. Q thought she had intercepted them all, but she must have missed a few.
    “This one in particular grieves me,” Mr Macklin said.
    Q considered the picture. “The sun’s pretty. And the feathers are very detailed.”
    “Yes,” said the principal. “But the chickens have blood spurting from the holes where their beaks used to be.”
    Q glanced through his collection of farm animal drawings. There were pigs behind bars. Calves being shot in front of their mothers. Chickens on twenty-four-hour work detail. It was a bloody, furry, feathered holocaust. Rabbit’s song, “New MacDonald,” had certainly made an impact. She probably shouldn’t have done that research to help answer the kids’ questions. And perhaps the follow-up class she led yesterday when Mrs Mason stepped out had been a mistake. Had the time for an early confession and light sentence passed? Maybe she should skip straight to the inevitable career change of flipping burgers and, thanks to Rabbit, feeling sorry for them as she did.
    “To be frank,” Mr Macklin said, “I’ve become concerned about Mrs Mason’s