‘Are you glad you followed John?’ I asked him.
He looked at me and I noticed that his eyes were every bit as big and round as his brother’s. For some reason it just wasn’t something you noticed as much with Gerry as you did with Jeff, I suppose because Gerry’s eyes didn’t have Jeff’s weird clever mind looking out of them, only the mind of an ordinary young newhair, who didn’t really know what he thought about anything.
‘Of course I am,’ he said. ‘John’s the best. He always knows what to do.’
‘But aren’t you missing your group, and your friends? And your . . . ?’
‘Yeah, but John’s plan is important, isn’t it?’ he interrupted me quickly, before I could name his mum. ‘We had to give up on Family for that.’
His lip was trembling. He was having a job not to cry.
‘Why do you think John’s plan is important?’
‘Well . . . it’s . . .’
He looked uncomfortable. He wasn’t used to having to think about the reasons for things himself. He relied on other people to do that for him.
‘Well, there won’t be enough food in Family, will there, pretty soon,’ he finally remembered, ‘if Family keeps on growing. That’s what John reckons anyway.’
I laughed.
‘I reckon if John told you to walk up onto Snowy Dark stark naked you’d do it, whatever reason he gave.’
‘Yeah I would!’ Gerry said hotly, ‘I’d do anything for him.’
‘Except maybe harm your brother Jeff.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t harm Jeff, no, but . . .’
He broke off. We’d both heard voices in the distance. So had the hoppers. They didn’t turn their heads because we were nearer to them than these new arrivals and they wanted to keep an eye on us, but the feelers round their mouths were reaching sideways, quivering. I don’t know whether they smell with those things or what, but you could see they were trying to figure out what it was that was making these other sounds.
It was men’s voices, heading in our direction.
‘Quick!’ I told Gerry.
There was a big patch of starflowers nearby and we crawled into middle of it.
‘I can smell a fire,’ said a man’s deep voice.
I recognized the voice as a big fat bloke called Dixon Blueside. I’d never spoken more than a few words to him myself, but he was one of those people that are around a lot, and talk loudly, and always have an opinion on everything. Blueside people I knew said he was greedy with food and always took more than his share.
‘Yeah, look. Over there. A fire. Who would have come out here and lit that?’ he said.
‘Maybe it’s John Redlantern,’ one of his companions said.
‘Michael’s names!’ muttered another nervously.
‘Michael’s names what?’ scoffed Dixon. ‘You scared of one newhair boy and his three little friends?’
‘No, but . . .’
‘John Redlantern!’ bellowed Dixon. ‘If it’s you round here, piss off out of our valley before we come after you with ropes and clubs like a bloody slinker! You say you want to cross Snowy Dark? Well, don’t let us stop you, mate! Don’t hold back on our account. Or swim down Exit Falls, why don’t you? And you too, Tina Spiketree! You too! Don’t think your spiky hair and your pretty little tits will help you!’
Only a few wakings ago we’d been part of one Family with these men. If we’d met them in Forest back then they’d have stopped to chat, told us where we might find some stumpcandy, asked how things were in our groups. We might not have liked each other but that would have made no difference. We were all Family then.
‘Put the fire out,’ Dixon said to his companions. ‘Any luck they’ve got no spare embers and they’ll have to eat their meat raw from now on.’
We heard the rustling as they swept the fire over the ground with branches. There was a yelp when one of them trod on a hot bit.
‘I heard Redlantern group gave John skins and ropes and blackglass when he was chucked out,’ said one of the others. ‘Maybe he’s left them somewhere around here and we can nick them.’
I realized I recognized this voice too. Harry Blueside was the boy’s name: a slender young guy with nervous, restless eyes, who always seemed to be moving on to the next thing when he was talking, like he couldn’t stand to be in one place. He was only three four wombs older than me and John. He’d once asked me if I’d slip with him. He’d said he couldn’t stop thinking about me.
‘Yeah, go on, have a look,’ said Dixon Blueside. ‘See what you can find.’
He raised his voice again.
‘Gerry and Jeff Redlantern! You out there, you little idiots? Your mum’s half frantic worrying about you! We passed her not long back looking for you. Get back to Family now and you might still be forgiven!’
I glanced at Gerry. His face was pale in the light of the starflowers, but he kept still and didn’t look back at me.
‘Nope. Can’t see anything round here,’ said Harry Blueside.
‘Let’s go on then,’ Dixon grunted. ‘There won’t be much hunting where a fire’s been.’
We lay in the flowers until we couldn’t hear their voices at all, and we heard the thud, thud, thud of the hoppers coming back. Then we lifted our heads cautiously, and stood up.
Peep peep! went the hoppers.
Hmmph, hmmph, hmmph, went the trees all around us, pumping up hot sap from Underworld, like they always do, whether we’re laughing or crying or slipping or dying or what. And whether we love or hate each other.
‘So there you are!’ growled Dixon Blueside.
They were just a little way off, squatted down and waiting for us to emerge, Dixon, Harry and a couple of other young Blueside men. Tom’s dick! They’d tricked us. Dixon must have been signing to them with his hands when he talked about moving on.
We ran and ran, jumping over streams, diving under low branches. Hoppers scattered out of our way. PEEP! PEEP! Two tree foxes, tearing at a rotten old buck corpse, darted up a tree with a screech.
I reckon that Harry could have run as fast as me and Gerry, and probably the other young blokes could too. But maybe they weren’t sure what they’d do if they did catch up with us, and maybe they didn’t want to find out, because they stayed close to big fat Dixon and he soon got out of breath. We left them behind us pretty quickly, but we kept on running a bit longer to be sure. We were just running past Rat Rocks when — blam! — we were face to face with a bunch of women.
‘Gerry!’
They were all from Redlantern. It was Gerry’s mum Sue, and John’s mum Jade, and their sister Angie, and two Redlantern newhair girls, Janny and Candice.
Well, Sue Redlantern just burst into tears. She didn’t know whether to scold Gerry or hug him and she ended up doing both.
‘Are you alright, my darling?’ she asked when she’d finally managed to control her sobs and speak. ‘Where’s Jeff? Is he alright? What about his poor feet? I’ve been so worried about you. How could you do this to me? How could you hurt me like this, you selfish boy? Are you sure you’re alright, baby? How could you go without even saying goodbye . . . ?’
On and on. Angie stood back smiling, and Jade stood further back looking uncomfortable, and me and the two newhairs sort of backed away. I liked Janny Redlantern. She was a cheerful, funny, short little batfaced kid, who knew she couldn’t get by on looks, so got by on being fun and nice instead. Candice was sort of alright but she expected everyone to run around her and attend to her all the time and got grumpy if they didn’t. And when it came to keeping things going between people, keeping things happy, she didn’t do her share at all. She left it to the likes of Janny to do that work.