‘We got more food in after that,’ Tom Brooklyn said, ‘with the kids to help, and no grownups tied up with being Teacher. Life was easier for a bit.’
‘So what should we give up now?’ asked Caroline.
‘That’s what we need to talk about.’
And then, Harry’s dick, John joined in the discussion!
‘It’s not a matter of giving something else up,’ he called out.
Well, everyone looked at him, every single person in whole Family. Even the little kids mucking around the legs of the grownups stopped and stared, because every single person in Family that was old enough to talk knew that, when the Genda was being agreed, the only ones who spoke out were the group leaders. Okay, maybe once twice in the past at an Any Virsry, a group leader had asked a grownup in their group to comment on something, but there was no way a kid or a newhair would ever have said anything, no way that they’d even have been asked. And no one, newhair or grownup, had ever ever just shouted something out.
So now everyone was looking at John. But they all looked in different ways. His mum Jade was looking across at him with a funny puzzled face, like she didn’t know what to feel. Gerry was looking at him like he was some kind of hero. David Redlantern, that hard batface, was glaring at him like he was a piece of buck shit. Bella Redlantern, standing out there with the other leaders by Circle, looked embarrassed but also a little bit proud.
And that, I suppose, is how I felt too. Embarrassed but a bit proud.
‘It’s not a matter of giving something up any more,’ John went on. ‘We haven’t got anything else to give up now anyway. We all scavenge and hunt every waking anyway, don’t we? What else are we going to do without? Sleep?’
Caroline looked at Bella Redlantern as if to tell her: ‘He’s one of yours. You sort him out.’
‘I think what John’s trying to say . . .’ Bella began.
‘We need to find a way of getting past Snowy Dark,’ John called out, ‘find new places for people to live.’
Tom’s dick and Harry’s, that settled it for me! John wasn’t one of those people who only do one brave thing.
‘Past Snowy Dark?’ exclaimed Caroline. ‘Past Snowy Dark? Oh come on, boy, everyone knows that’s impossible.’
She looked firmly away from him.
‘Anyway,’ she said briskly, ‘that’s enough time wasted. Let’s move on to . . .’
But John still hadn’t finished!
‘How do we know it’s impossible?’ he said. ‘How do we really know? We’ve never tried, have we? Not for a long time anyway. You should talk in your Council about having another go at it. Trying somehow to get across Dark. Or down Exit Falls. Or something.’
‘We certainly should not. For one thing you’re just a newhair boy and you can’t tell us what to talk about, and for another it’s a stupid idea. We’ve just talked now about how we had to give up School to have more time for hunting and scavenging, and how the hunting has got hard again. How could we possibly spare people for trips up onto Snowy Dark when we need all the grownups and newhairs and big kids to find food? It makes no sense at all.’
‘It makes no sense not to,’ John said. ‘There’s going to be more and more people and less and less for us to eat. We’ve got to find more to eat somewhere else.’
Everyone was embarrassed and uncomfortable by now. Quite a few people shouted out to John to shut up.
‘Leave it, boy, we need to get on with the Genda.’
‘Shut up, newhair! It’s not your place to talk.’
But he still kept on.
‘Well, if we don’t try and get past the mountains, then why don’t we at least spread ourselves out a bit across forest? Send one group over to Cold Path Valley maybe. One up by Dixon Snowslug.’
Now Caroline lost her temper.
‘Be quiet, boy!’ she snapped. ‘Be quiet now. Whole Family is here, whole Family, and it’s not the business of one silly newhair to stand up and tell us what we should discuss.’
With a mighty effort, and the assistance of two helpers, old Mitch rose up to his feet.
‘What’s the newhair saying?’ he demanded to know.
‘He says we should send groups over to different parts of the valley,’ said Bella, ‘so as to make it easier to find food.’
‘No!’ blind Mitch cried out into the pitch darkness around himself. ‘No, no, no, no!’
Stoop and Gela were also getting up now, staggering to their feet with their helpers fussing round them.
‘We must stay here,’ Stoop cried, and then gasped for air. ‘This is where they’ll come to find us! This is where they’ll come! And we must remain one, one Family, that’s what Angela taught us. One Family that does things together.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Caroline said, putting a hand on Stoop’s shoulder. ‘No way are we going to ever break up Family. We have one mother and one father. We always have been one Family and we always will be. If we break up then things will turn bad, one group against another, that’s what Angela said. But it is not going to happen and that’s final. So no discussion. No argument. We — all — stay — here.’
David Redlantern was pushing grimly towards John through the Redlantern people.
‘But Family can’t go on growing and growing,’ called out John, ‘and . . .’
David grabbed his shoulder.
‘Enough!’ he hissed.
Caroline pretended she hadn’t heard.
‘So what other things do we have to put on the Genda?’ she asked briskly.
9
John Redlantern
When Genda was set, that was the end of the first waking of Any Virsry, and everyone could go back to their groups to eat and sleep. The next waking Council would meet and talk about the Genda and then we’d all sleep again, and then there would be the final waking when we’d all be called back in and be told what Council had decided. After that Oldest would do the Earth Things, and we’d have the Show.
I was going to sneak off with Tina again, but David was still standing right behind me.
‘No you don’t, boy. You’re coming back to group with me. Bella needs to talk to you.’
‘What about?’ said Tina. ‘Is she going to tell him off for talking sense?’
David turned his angry red batface on her.
‘You keep out of Redlantern business, Tina Spiketree.’
I shrugged and pulled a face for Tina and followed David back to Redlantern, where the grownups were stirring up the embers of our fire and feeding it branches so we could cook. Everyone looked at me as I arrived in our clearing. People stopped halfway between the woodpile and the fire with firewood in their arms. People came out of their shelters.
‘I’m ashamed of you, John,’ began Old Roger. ‘People will say Redlantern can’t bring up their newhairs properly.’
Lucy Lu said that I hadn’t just shamed the living members of our group but the ones who’d died as well.
‘The Shadow People are crying,’ she said, ‘they’re begging me to make sure that Family is never broken up.’
Bella came out of her shelter.
‘You were rude rude there, John. Rude to Family and rude to me. What do you think other people will think if someone in my own group talks out like that without even letting me know that’s what they are going to do? If you had something you wanted saying, you could have raised it with me beforehand. We all knew Any Virsry was coming. As it is, you’ve made me look like a complete fool.’
Everyone watched her and watched me. How would I react? How would she follow on from what she’d said?