Wham — the butt end of the spear caught me in the chest and sent me flying. Splat — a great big gout of the leopard’s greeny-black blood came spurting out all over me. That big black beast crashed to the ground and began to thresh about, bubbling and gurgling and clawing at the horrible hard thing stuck in its throat that was stopping it from breathing. Quickly I rolled away from its flailing feet. Aaaargh-aaargh-aaargh, went the leopard, trying to knock away the spear, aaaargh-aaargh-aaargh. It was drowning. It was drowning in its own blood. Pretty soon it stopped making that noise and just gurgled and twitched a bit. And then it was still.
‘Tom’s dick, John, you’ve bloody killed it!’
Gerry had jumped down from the tree and was running towards me.
I scrambled to my feet. My head had gone all weird and I didn’t know what to do or think or say.
‘Lucy Lu reckons leopards are dead women,’ was what I came out with, talking in a funny bright voice. ‘You know, Shadow People. She says that’s why their voices sound like that and their songs are so sad sad. Of course it’s crap, like everything she says. I mean . . .’
‘What are you on about, John, you bloody idiot? You did for it, look! All by yourself! Tom’s neck, you did for it all by yourself.’
I was shaking all over. I couldn’t have been shaking any more, I reckon, if I’d just spent an hour wandering around naked on Snowy Dark.
‘I’ll tell you a funny thing,’ I said, ‘when we saw those woollybucks up there on the snow, I thought for a moment they were a Landing Veekle from Earth. Hah! That was pretty dumb of me, wasn’t it?’
Gerry laughed.
‘Tom’s dick, John! You just killed a leopard!’
‘But I suppose one waking someone will come, won’t they? They say the starship was damaged when Angela and Michael chased after it in their Police Veekle and tried to stop it. They say it leaked. But even if the starship broke on the way back, and even if the Three Companions died, the people on Earth would find it sooner or later, wouldn’t they? I mean it had a Computer, didn’t it, and a Rayed Yo? Okay it’s two hundred wombtimes ago now that they left Eden. But think how long it must take to build a new starship. I mean it takes old Jeffo half a wombtime just to build one lousy log boat to fish with out on Greatpool.’
Gerry took my shoulders and shook me.
‘Gela’s tits, John, will you stop talking about bloody sky-boats! You’ve killed a leopard! All by yourself! With a kid’s spear!’
It was weird weird. The leopard was still twitching in front of me, I was covered with its black blood, and I was shaking shaking all over. But tears came into my eyes as I thought about the Three Companions, who left Tommy and Angela on Eden to try and get back to Earth: Dixon, who had the idea to steal the starship, and Mehmet, who Angela liked best because he was kind, and gentle Michael, who named the animals and plants. I wished I knew just what happened to them when they set off back across sky to Earth in their leaky sky-boat.
And I wished we knew how long it would be before someone came for us from Earth.
2
Tina Spiketree
John was interesting. I mean he looked nice, and I fancied him in that way, but what fascinated me most was the way he behaved. All that hunting trip he was trying to be different, trying not to be the same as all the other newhair guys. He went right up that icy ridge. He annoyed Old Roger and David by questioning the True Story. He stayed still and quiet while Gerry was trying to get laughs with his cold feet. Yes, and I’d given him that oyster, and he’d been pleased, but he didn’t make a thing out of it like others boys would. He didn’t make a big thing about how he and I were going to have a slip. And now, while the rest of us were hunting bucks, he’d done for a leopard all by himself, which no one ever did, not unless they were cornered and had no choice. And his cousin Gerry was telling everyone that John did have a choice. He had plenty of time to run up a tree, but he’d decided to stay on the ground and try his luck.
So why had he done it? I could just about imagine some silly boy doing a thing like that for a dare, or doing it because his friends said he was a wimp, but John wouldn’t go for a dare, and no one thought he was a wimp. He’d done it for some other reason. I hadn’t figured out what it was, but I could see that John was like a good chess player: he didn’t just do what seemed right at one moment, he thought ahead. He thought about where he was trying to get to, four five moves on.
Well, I was a bit like that too. I knew when to bide my time. So I didn’t ask John why he did for the leopard, however much I wanted to know, and I didn’t make a big fuss of him like most of the others did, and for most of the walk I fell behind him, leaving him to talk to the ones who wanted to go over the story of the leopard, over and over and over again. But I smiled to myself as we walked back to Lava Blob and then to Family, because I was looking forward to figuring him out.
Family was in eight groups, all bunched up together among the big old rocks that stuck up out of the ground between Greatpool and Longpool and up towards Deep Pool. Each group had its own space with bark shelters and a fireplace where embers were always set glowing. (It could take half a waking to get a new fire going with twigs or blackglass sparks, so no one liked to let a fire go out.) The outer edge of Family was formed by the pools or by rocks, or, when there wasn’t any natural sort of barrier, by fences made by piling up branches and rocks to keep out leopards and other big animals. First group inside the fence on Peckhamside was Batwing, so that’s the bit of the fence we came to first.
Old Roger Redlantern and big dumb Met dragged away the branches that made the Batwing gateway.
‘Leopard kill!’ Old Roger hollered out. ‘Jade’s boy killed a bloody leopard!’
‘John did for it,’ yelled Gerry excitedly, ‘my cousin John!’
Lately the grownups in most of the groups had decided we needed more food-trees in Family to help with our problem of not enough to eat. They’d decided we’d have to get rid of trees whose fruits were no good as food, like redlanterns. And when we’d set out six wakings before, Batwing had been busy chopping down a big redlantern tree, and they’d been at it all the time we’d been away, hacking away at that tree with stone axes for four wakings. They’d finally managed to pull it down with ropes maybe two three hours before we got there, and when we came in through the fence, there was the big tree lying on the ground with bits of broken axes strewn around it. (Someone would need to go over to Blue Hills soon for more blackglass.) The ground was still warm and sticky with sap.
Some little kid had got himself in the wrong place when the hot hot sap sprayed out. He’d been badly burnt. Burnt burnt. If he lived he’d have the scars forever. And now he was yelling and yelling in a shelter, and his mum sobbing by his side. Everything was spoiled for him and her, everything wrecked, by one stupid moment. But the rest of Batwing were pleased pleased with their work. They were walking round that great big fallen thing, and whacking at it with sticks and talking about what a bugger it’d been to get down, and how much bark they’d get off it, and how much wood. And the kids were looking forward to eating the stumpcandy. And everyone was trying not to notice the screaming kid in the shelter.
‘Boy killed a leopard!’ Old Roger boomed out again. ‘Young newhair. Jade’s boy John.’