Chris Beckett - Dark Eden

‘Youngmums,’ she said, ‘will have to scavenge and hunt like everyone else when their babies are three periods old. Clawfeet and oldies can look after the littles.’

There were grumbles from youngmums and clawfeet, but on Caroline went.

I waited. I didn’t really expect anything but I wondered if there’d be anything to suggest that they’d even considered John’s idea about Family moving out wider and not going on forever huddling round the old Circle of Stones. But no, nothing. And when they’d been through all the stuff that had been decided, Caroline said this:

‘We have only discussed the properly agreed Genda. We have not discussed things that were not properly raised. And we’ve all agreed that Family must stay together, here, side by side, around these stones that mark the spot where Tommy and Angela and the Three Companions came down from Starry Swirl, and from where the Companions set off on their way back to Earth. Family must not be broken. We must remain one, and we must remain in the place where our sisters and brothers from Earth will come to find us, as we all know one waking they will. And we must work together and live peacefully so as to try and be worthy to be taken back to our true home, even though we’ve forgotten so much, and fallen so far from what we once were.’

She looked out towards where Redlanterns were standing. She searched the faces until she found John’s. She looked straight at him.

‘I hope that’s understood,’ she said. ‘It’s Council’s decision and it’s mine, and it must be accepted by whole Family. And that means everyone here.’

I saw John look across at Bella Redlantern, but she was staring straight down at the ground, like there was something really interesting going on down there.

I could see John was angry angry. I could see him struggling inside himself.

Caroline looked round at us all, letting her words sink in.

‘And that’s the end of the . . .’ she began.

But then John broke in. It was like sap bursting from a cut tree.

‘Think about it, Caroline,’ he called out. ‘Work it out. It doesn’t take an Einstein.’

All round Clearing, people groaned. Not this again . Not this rude little newhair once more. Ugly David Redlantern was pushing towards John through Redlantern group.

‘If we were two once and now we’re five hundred and thirty-two,’ John went on, ‘how big will Family be in another . . .?’

Whack! David slapped him hard across the back of his head with his big hard hand.

‘Leave him be!’ I yelled out.

‘Get off him, David!’ I heard John’s faithful Gerry shouting, and I saw him pushing and shoving at David. But David swatted Gerry away like he was an ant, grabbed John by the hair and stood there solid as a tree.

Meanwhile, all round Circle people reacted, each one in their own way. Some laughed, some gasped, a few cheered, and many many called out in angry disapproval, not at what David had done, but at John for causing trouble.

I could see David lean forward and hiss out a warning, and then he gripped John’s hair more tightly, lifting him up a little so he was hanging by his own hair roots.

‘And that’s the end of the Genda,’ Caroline went on, with that particular rock-like stubbornness that she did so well, as if nothing had happened at all and she was just carrying on with what she had to say, ‘and now it’s time for me to go through the Laws that Harry, our second father, and his three sisters, carved on these Circle Clearing trees.’

Secret Ree passed her some pieces of bark with the Laws copied onto them, and then walked to the edge of the clearing through London group, so that while Caroline walked round inside Circle, she could walk round the trees and point to each carving, as Caroline read out from the bark what it said.

‘ You mustn’t kill anything except animals to eat and animals that are dangerous ,’ read Caroline. ‘ You mustn’t do anything to harm the family .’

She paused and looked round at us all.

‘That means you must not do anything to break Family up,’ she said.

‘ You mustn’t slip with a child or with anyone that doesn’t want to do it ,’ she went on, ‘ and grown men mustn’t slip with young girls .

‘ You mustn’t steal things .

‘ You must come to Any Virsries and to Strornry Meetings .

‘ You must respect the Old.

‘And that,’ said Caroline, frowning round at us, ‘means not just Oldest, but group leaders, and Family Head, and all grownups.’

She glanced in John’s direction for a moment, and then went on reading.

‘ You must look after clawfeet.

‘ You mustn’t foul streams or pools.

‘ You must wait for Earth to come, and keep the customs of Earth, so Earth will take you home .’

John had a point, I thought, he really did. Of course we wanted to go back to Earth, but could we really wait in this one place forever, just in case they came?

And was that really the custom of Earth, anyway, to wait in one place? They were the ones who built a boat that could travel through the stars.

‘I’m watching you, John, so keep your mouth shut,’ growled David, shoving me forward suddenly so I nearly fell.

I wanted to rub the back of my head where he’d been pulling my hair, but of course I didn’t. I acted like it hadn’t hurt at all. And I ignored Gerry too, standing beside me, looking anxiously into my face. Gela’s tits, there was no way I was going to admit to him, or to David, or to anyone else that David had hurt or upset me. I stood up straight and watched what was going on in Circle, like nothing had happened. That was Caroline’s game and I could play it too.

Helpers were lifting Mitch and Stoop and Gela to their wobbly feet. We’d got to the bit of Any Virsry called Earth Things, where we had to listen to three old blind people tell us about things that they’d never seen and didn’t understand.

Scrawny old Mitch told how Earth spun round and round like a top so half of it is all lighted up by the star and half of it is dark, and saggy grey Gela told how the people there found metal in the ground that could be used to make knives that wouldn’t smash like blackglass does.

‘And they found a thing called the Single Force,’ she said, ‘that could carry them between the stars.’

‘They found another kind of force that was even better than that,’ broke in little Stoop excitedly, with his blind eyes rolling around in his soft fat head, ‘a force that could be made to run along strings for miles and miles, and could be used for light and heat and for machines called telly visions that could make pictures that could move and speak. It was called Li . . .’ He stumbled on the word, just like old one-legged Jeffo had done, over by Dixon Stream. ‘It was called Li . . . Leck . . . Lecky-trickity . . .’

‘Li . . . Leck . . . Lecky-trickity . . .’ Gerry mimicked under his breath, looking at me to see if I was pleased.

‘It’s important to remember the Single Force,’ Gela came back, not happy with Stoop’s interruption. Her blind eyes bulged at us. ‘That’s what got us here, and that’s what will take us home. And not only that,’ she carried on hastily before the others could break in, ‘but they had animals called horses too that could carry them about. Imagine that! Animals!’

‘And cars,’ Mitch said, and began to cough and cough while his helpers whacked him on the back.

The helpers got out the Earth Models, and then, with a lot of coughing and wheezing, Oldest told us about houses , which were shelters as big as hills, and roads , which were paths made with hard shiny metal, and trains and planes and drains .