Terry Pratchett - The Long Earth

Today Mr Henry showed us how to make a trout trap in the river. You make a sort of walled pool, and they swim in, and get stuck. Mr Henry grins when he clubs the fish. I felt like crying. Mr Henry says The Youngsters Have To Learn.

Marge Doak used to be a cheerleader! We practise routines.

Day Eight .

Yesterday we hit an ice sheaf.

We’re following a trail. There are markers and everything, and little cairns, and posts that tell you what number world you’re on like highway signs, and sometimes caches of stuff. Even little boxes you can put post in to be carried East or West, depending who passes.

So we came to a sign that said ICE NEXT. We passed through a few Ice Age worlds in the first day or two, but just one at a time, and you could just rush quickly through them. Now we were coming to a band of them. We all had to stop, and the porters came and handed out the Arctic coats and trousers and ski masks and stuff. The next morning Captain Batson had us all tie up in groups of eight or ten with ropes, and made sure the babies were snug in their little papooses, with no fingers or toes sticking out.

We stepped, and it was dazzling, no clouds in a bright blue sky, and not much ice, but the ground was frozen hard as rock under my feet. And then the cold got to me, like little needles working into my cheeks.

And we stepped on, again and again. More winter worlds. Sometimes you’d come out into a white-out, or a blizzard. And other times you would come out and it would be a bit warmer, and then the ground was boggy so we left tracks if we walked, and there were these strange dwarf trees, all bent over. And midges! I saw a huge deer, with antlers like a chandelier (spelled out by Dad). Ben Doak says he saw a woolly mammoth, but nobody believes anything he says.

This is why we had to come so far south, to Richmond, to walk West. Because Datum Earth is in the middle of the Ice Belt, a bunch of worlds where they have Ice Ages, so you have to go south of the ice to where it’s possible to step. But even away from the ice caps the whole world is affected by the cold.

Some people turned back after the first night in the cold. Said they hadn’t been told about that , although they clearly had been, and should have listened.

Day Twenty-Five .

At night you have to cram into these little tents. It’s a bit close. These are strangers after all. Marge Doak is OK, but Betty has this way of picking her teeth. And she snores.

Mom got in a fight with Mr Henry, who says the women should do all the cooking and cleaning! Captain Batson says Mr Henry’s not in charge. He didn’t say it to his face though, Dad says.

Trouble and strife, lah di dah!

Day Forty-Three .

I keep forgetting to write things down. I get too tired. Plus there’s too much going on.

In the middle of the ice worlds you get milder types that are like home, ‘interglacial’ worlds (spelled by Dad). The interglacial worlds are just FULL of animals. I saw huge herds that turned out to be horses and funny-looking cows and antelopes and camels. Camels! Dad says these are like animals that were probably around in America before humans came along. Wolves. Coyotes. Elk. Curlews. Bears! Grizzlies in the forest clumps, Captain Batson says, so we keep out of there. Snakes everywhere, you have to watch out for them. Crows, ravens, turkey buzzards, owls. By day you hear the birds, and at night the frogs croaking and the mosquitoes whining, if you’re anywhere near water. Sometimes the men hunt. Rabbit and duck and even antelope.

There are armadillos! Big ones, not like in zoos. Dad says they might have wandered up from South America where they evolved. Apparently people have seen apes, in America. Sometimes the continents join up and these animals cross over, and sometimes they don’t. Nobody really knows. Nobody has a map of any of these worlds.

In some worlds we can’t find any trees at all. Then we have to collect ‘buffalo chips’ for the fire. Dung!! It burns well, but you can imagine the smell, my dear.

And there are funny worlds, where everything is like ash, or like a desert, or something. Just one world thick. There are usually signposts if it’s dangerous, and we have to put on hats or cover our mouths with filters. Captain Batson calls these worlds Jokers.

Sometimes you see where people have been before. Scruffy places, the ruins of shacks, burned-out tepees. Even crosses, stuck in the ground. In the Long Earth, hoping for the best isn’t good enough, as Mr Batson puts it.

Day Sixty-Seven .

Ben Doak got sick. He drank from a waterhole that hadn’t been checked out. They get polluted by buffalo piddle. He got pumped full of antibiotics. I hope he’s OK. We’ve had a few people get sick, but nobody died.

More people have turned back. Captain Batson tries to talk them round, and Mr Henry laughs at them and calls them weak. I don’t think it’s weak to admit you made a mistake. That takes strength, if you ask me.

We must look very strange, to these animals who live here, and have never seen a human before, probably. What business have we got coming through here and messing everything up?

Day One Hundred and Two .

We’re out of the Ice Belt! And only two days behind schedule!

Strange to think we’ve travelled across thirty-six thousand worlds, but the distance we’ve covered sideways has only been a few miles. Well, we’re going to travel in earnest across this particular Earth, and go a few hundred miles north, to New York State. Then we’ll step on across another sixty thousand worlds or so until we get to the place we’re going to settle.

I thought we’d have to walk. No! There’s a regular town here, well, a small one, a trading post. Here we can trade in our Ice Belt gear for stuff that’s more suitable for the Mine Belt worlds.

And there’s a wagon train waiting for us! With big covered wagons that Dad says are Conestogas. They look like boats on wheels, drawn by horses — funny-looking horses, but definitely horses. There’s a foundry here to make the iron they need, and the wagons have got tires on their wheels, like car tires. When we saw the wagons we just whooped and hollered and ran! Conestogas! I wonder if it will be more fun than the chopper ride?

Day One Hundred and Ninety-Nine .

We are on Earth West Seventy Thousand Plus Change, as Dad would say. I’m writing in the early morning, before we break camp. Last night the adults stayed up late arguing about the chores. But when they’re all gassing in their Group Meetings, we kids can slip away, just for a while.

Not that we do anything bad. Well, not mostly. Mostly, we

(Pause for thought. Search for word.)

watch. That’s it. We watch. I know Dad frets that we’re all turning into zombies because there’s nothing to do out here but chores, and the schooling they try to force on us. But it’s not like that. We just watch, with nothing to distract us. That’s why we’re quiet. Not because our brains are mush. Because we watch.

And we see things the adults don’t see.

Some very odd animals and plants that don’t fit any storybook of evolution I ever read.

The Joker Worlds, in the middle of these boring, arid Mine Belt worlds. The adults think they’re mostly dead. They aren’t. Believe me.

And the Greys.

We call them that, even though they’re orange. They look like hairy little kids, but if you ever see one up close, and see the equipment in those orange crotches, believe me, they ain’t kids. And big eyes, like cartoon aliens. They flicker around the camp. There, gone. Stepping, obviously.

Animals that step!

The Long Earth is stranger than anybody thinks. Even Dad. Even Captain Batson. Even Mr Henry.