Instructions for the End of the World by Jamie Kain Page A

place is normal? Or are we supposed to pull out our nonexistent handyman skills and fix everything?
    He explains nothing. Instead he says, “All right then,” and walks down the hall and out the front door, suitcase in hand.
    Izzy and I follow behind, dumbstruck.
    I stand on the front porch and watch him drive away, his truck leaving a cloud of dust on the parched gravel road, and I keep thinking he will change his mind, realize how crazy it is to leave two teenage girls alone in the wilderness for however long he’s going to be gone. But then, when has he ever changed his mind about anything?
    Pretty much never.
    I turn and see the expression on Izzy’s face. Already, I suspect, she is imagining the vast possibilities for trouble she can get into with her newfound freedom.
    â€œWe’re staying right here,” I say, which is kind of ridiculous, since we don’t have a car to go anywhere and we’re probably five miles from town.
    Where would we even go?
    She shrugs. “Suit yourself, but if we’re here alone? I’m going to find out what people do for fun around here.”
    â€œNo, you’re not. You’re going to stay here like Dad said and help me.”
    I realize I sound like the biggest dork on earth, but what else am I going to say?
    The truth is, I really have no idea how to control Izzy. For her entire life, she’s been this hurricane force I have to live with, always wary of what havoc she might wreak.
    She rolls her eyes. “Whatever.”
    â€œNot whatever. If you don’t do what Dad said, I’ll be sure to let him know exactly how you behaved while he was gone.”
    â€œYou tell Dad and I’ll make sure you live to regret it,” she says in a fake-sweet voice, then turns and walks back inside.
    For the first time, I miss Mom. We are not the closest mother and daughter pair, and I know I disappoint her by taking my father’s side, but still. How could she have left us here like this, with no explanation, no good-bye—nothing?
    My fingers itch for my journal and a pen, because I want to write out this riddle, put it on paper, where I can arrange and rearrange my thoughts until they start to make sense. I guess I got the writing habit from my dad, the doomsday author, though he doesn’t even know I keep a personal journal, aside from the survival skills notebook he makes me keep. It’s my one rebellion, the only place I can say what I want without his approval.
    I have never been good at getting inside my mother’s head. Some things about her are so familiar—her warm jasmine scent, her voice, her wide cheekbones—and some are as foreign to me as if she is an alien being. My mother is not the type to talk about her feelings, or her past, or anything about herself, really. She issues orders, asks us about our day, explains how to do things. But she herself is a closed book, I realize.
    But now I have to wonder about this other side of my mother, the one willing to pick up and leave without saying good-bye, the one who is, unlike me, brave enough to stand up to my father. Maly is my mother’s name, and for the first time in my life, I see that she is a whole separate person who is not just a mother. The side of her we’ve been oblivious to all this time, the side with hopes and dreams and interests that have nothing to do with our family, is the side I’m starting to wish I knew.
    Maly, I think, is possibly a more complicated person than any of us noticed.
    When I realize I’m still clutching Dad’s household binder, I fling it to the ground and go inside.

 
    PART TWO
    You’re on Your Own
    Every prepper fantasizes about being put to the test. There is no point in prepping if you don’t really believe the world is going to end, right? There is always the fantasy of the heroic deeds, the adventure, the feeling of living on the edge. I see this in all the prepping magazines my dad leaves