Margaret Atwood - The Year of the Flood

When they spot us – first one of the children, then a woman, then all of them – they stop whatever they’re doing and turn to stare at us, all together. They don’t look frightened or threatening: they look interested but placid. It’s like being stared at by the Mo’Hairs, and they’re chewing like the Mo’Hairs as well. Whatever they’re eating is green: a couple of the kids are amazed enough by us that they keep their mouths open.

“Hello,” says Toby. To me she says, “Stay here.” She steps forward. One of the men stands up – he’d been squatting beside the fire – and moves out in front of the rest.

“Greetings,” he says. “Are you a friend of Snowman?”

I can hear Toby pondering her choices: Who is Snowman? If she answers yes, will they think she’s an enemy? What if she answers no?

“Is Snowman good?” says Toby.

“Yes,” the man says. He’s taller than the others, and seems to be their spokesman. “Snowman is very good. He is our friend.” The rest nod, still chewing.

“Then we are his friends too,” says Toby. “And we are your friends as well.”

“You are like him,” says the man. “You have an extra skin, like his. But you have no feathers. Do you live in a tree?”

“Feathers?” says Toby. “On his extra skin?”

“No, on his face,” says the man. “Another came, like Snowman. With feathers. And one with him, who had short feathers. And a woman who smelled blue but did not act blue. Perhaps the woman with you is like that?”

Toby nods as if she understands all of this. Maybe she does. I can’t ever tell exactly what she understands.

“She smells blue,” says another man. “That woman with you.” All the men are now sniffing in my direction, as if I’m a flower or maybe a cheese. A number of them have sprouted huge blue erections. Croze warned me about this, but I’ve never seen anything like it, even at Scales, where some of the clients went in for body paint and extenders. Several of these men are giving out a strange humming sound, like the kind you make by rubbing your finger around the rim of a crystal glass.

“But the other woman that came was frightened when we sang to her and offered her flowers, and signalled to her with our penises,” says the chief one.

“Yes. The two men were frightened also. They ran away.”

“How tall was she?” says Toby. “The woman. Taller than this one?” She points to me.

“Yes. Taller. She was not well. Also she was sad. We would have purred over her and made her better. Then we could have mated with her.”

It must be Amanda, I think. So she’s still alive, they haven’t killed her yet. Hurry up! I want to shout. But Toby’s not going anywhere yet.

“We wished her to choose which four of us she would copulate with,” says the main one. “Perhaps the woman with you will choose. She smells very blue!” At this, the men all smile – they have brilliantly white teeth – and their penises point at me and wag from side to side like the tails of happy dogs.

Four? All at once? I don’t want Toby to shoot any of these men – they seem so gentle, and they’re very good-looking – but also I don’t want those bright-blue penises anywhere near me.

“My friend isn’t really blue,” says Toby. “It’s just her extra skin. It was given to her by a blue person. That’s why she smells blue. Where did they go? These two men and the woman?”

“They went along the shore,” says the main one. “And then, this morning, Snowman went to find them.”

“We could look under her extra skin and see how blue she is.”

“Snowman has a hurt foot. We purred over it, but it needs more purring.”

“If Snowman was here, he would find out about the blue. He would tell us how we should act.”

“Blue should not be wasted. It is a gift from Crake.”

“We wanted to go with him. But he told us to stay here.”

“Snowman knows,” says one of the women. So far the women have been taking no part in the conversation, but now they all nod and smile.

“We must go now and help Snowman,” says Toby. “He is our friend.”

“We will come with you,” says another man – a shorter one, yellow in tone, with green eyes. “We will help Snowman too.” Now that I notice, they all have green eyes. They smell like citrus fruits.

“Snowman often needs our help,” says the tall man. “His smell is weak. It has no power. And this time he is sick. He is sick in his foot. He is limping.”

“If Snowman told you to stay here, you must stay here,” says Toby. They look at one another: something’s worrying them.

“We will stay here,” says the tall man. “But you must come back soon.”

“And bring Snowman,” says one of the women. “So we can help him. Then he can live in his tree again.”

“And give him a fish. A fish makes him happy.”

“He eats it,” says one of the children, making a face. “He chews it up. He swallows it. Crake said he has to.”

“Crake lives in the sky. He loves us,” says a short woman. They seem to think this Crake is God. Glenn as God, in a black T-shirt – that’s pretty funny, considering what he was really like. But I don’t laugh.

“We could give you a fish too,” says the woman. “Would you like a fish?”

“Yes. Bring Snowman,” says the tall man. “Then we will catch two fish. Three. One for you, one for Snowman, one for the woman who smells blue.”

“We’ll do our best,” says Toby.

This seems to puzzle them. “What is ‘best’?” says the man.

We step out from under the trees, into the open sunlight and the sound of the waves, and walk over the soft dry sand, down to the hard wet strip above the water’s edge. The water slides up, then falls back with a gentle hiss, like a big snake breathing. Bright junk litters the shore: shards of plastic, empty cans, broken glass.

“I thought they were going to jump me,” I say.

“They smelled you,” says Toby. “They smelled the estrogen. They thought you were in season. They only mate when they turn blue. It’s like baboons.”

“How do you know all that?” I say. Croze told me about the blue penises but not about the estrogen.

“From Ivory Bill,” says Toby. “The MaddAddams helped to design that feature. It was supposed to make life simpler. Facilitate mate selection. Eliminate romantic pain. Now we should keep very quiet.”

Romantic pain, I think. I wonder what Toby knows about that?

There’s a line of deserted high-rises standing in the offshore water: I remember them from our Gardener trips to the Heritage Park beach. It was dry land out there before the sea levels rose so much, and all the hurricanes: we’d learned that in school. Gulls are soaring and settling on the flat roofs.

We can get eggs there, I think. And fish. Jacklight, Zeb taught us, if you’re desperate. Make a torch, the fish will swim to the light. There’s a few crab holes in the sand, small ones. Nettles growing farther up the beach. You can eat seaweed too. All those Saint Euell things.

I’m wishing again: planning lunch, when in the back of my head is just plain fear. We can never do it. We’ll never get Amanda back. We’ll be killed.

Toby’s found some tracks in the wet sand – several people with shoes or boots, and the place where they took the shoes off, maybe to wash their feet, and then where they put the shoes back on and headed up towards the trees.

They could be in among those trees right now, looking out. They could be watching us. They could be aiming.

On top of those tracks is another set. Barefoot. “Someone limping,” whispers Toby, and I think, It must be Snowman. The crazy man who lives in a tree.

We slip our packsacks off and leave them where the sand ends and the grass and weeds begin, under the first trees. Toby says we don’t need them weighing us down: we need our arms free.