White Teeth by Zadie Smith

Suddenly the saved and the unsaved had come a miraculous full circle. Hortense and Ryan were now trying to save
her.
    â€œGet on the bike.”
    Clara had just stepped out of school into the dusk and it was Ryan, his scooter coming to a sharp halt at her feet.
    â€œClaz, get on the bike.”
    â€œGo ask my mudder if she wan’ get on de bike!”
    â€œPlease,” said Ryan, proffering the spare scooter helmet. “’Simportant. Need to talk to you. Ain’t much time left.”
    â€œWhy?” snapped Clara, rocking petulantly on her platform heels. “You goin’ someplace?”
    â€œYou and me both,” murmured Ryan. “The right place, ’opefully.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œPlease, Claz.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œ
Please.
’Simportant. Life or death.”
    â€œMan . . . all right. But me nah wearin’ dat ting”—she passed back the helmet and got astride the scooter—“not mussin’ up me hair.”
    Ryan drove her across London and up to Hampstead Heath, the very top of Parliament Hill, where, looking down from that peak onto the sickly orange fluorescence of the city, carefully, tortuously, and in language that was not his own, he put forward his case. The bottom line of which was this: there was only a month until the end of the world.
    â€œAnd the fing is, herself and myself, we’re just—”
    â€œWe!”
    â€œYour mum—your mum and myself,” mumbled Ryan, “we’re worried. ’Bout you. There ain’t that many wot will survive the last days. You been wiv a bad crowd, Claz—”
    â€œMan,”
said Clara, shaking her head and sucking her teeth, “I don’
believe
dis biznezz. Dem were
your
friends.”
    â€œNo, no, they ain’t. Not no more. The weed—the weed is evil. And all that lot—Wan-Si, Petronia.”
    â€œDey my friends!”
    â€œThey ain’t nice girls, Clara. They should be with their families, not dressing like they do and doing things with them men in that house. You yourself shouldn’t be doin’ that, neither. And dressing like, like, like—”
    â€œLike what?”
    â€œLike a whore!” said Ryan, the word exploding from him like it was a relief to be rid of it. “Like a loose woman!”
    â€œOh bwoy, I heard
everyting
now . . . take me home, man.”
    â€œThey’re going to get theirs,” said Ryan, nodding to himself, his arm stretched and gesturing over London from Chiswick to Archway. “There’s still time for you. Who do you want to be with, Claz? Who d’ya want to be with? With the 144,000, in heaven, ruling with Christ? Or do you want to be one of the Great Crowd, living in earthly paradise, which is all right but . . . Or are you going to be one of them who get it in the neck, torture and death. Eh? I’m just separating the sheep from the goats, Claz, the sheep from the goats. That’s Matthew. And I think you yourself are a sheep, innit?”
    â€œLemme tell you someting,” said Clara, walking back over to the scooter and taking the back seat, “I’m a goat. I
like
bein’ a goat. I
wanna
be a goat. An’ I’d rather be sizzling in de rains of sulfur wid my friends than sittin’ in heaven, bored to tears, wid Darcus, my mudder, and you!”
    â€œShouldn’ta said that, Claz,” said Ryan solemnly, putting his helmet on. “I really wish you ’adn’t said that. For your sake.
He
can hear us.”
    â€œAn’ I’m
tired
of hearin’ you. Take me home.”
    â€œIt’s the truth! He can hear us!” he shouted, turning backward, yelling above the exhaust-pipe noise as they revved up and scooted downhill. “He can see it all! He watches over us!”
    â€œWatch over where you goin’,” Clara yelled back, as they sent a cluster of Hasidic Jews running in all directions. “Watch de