‘I hope you’re proud of yourself, Tina,’ she now said, ‘because you’ve really messed things up for us. You know that? You’ve made our lives a bloody misery!’
Janny nodded.
‘I don’t know why I’m even talking to you,’ she said. ‘It’s bloody terrible back in Family now thanks to John and you three. They still don’t let newhairs out on their own, only with grownups. They’re watching us all the time, in case we run off too. And you’d better be careful careful. David — our David Redlantern, I mean — he’s going round all the groups saying we should be much harder on you four than we’ve been up to now, we should come after John and you three and teach you a lesson so that no one else will ever dare copy you.’
Candice had sort of drifted away from us while Janny was talking, and moved towards Angie and Jade.
‘What kind of a lesson?’ I scoffed. ‘What can David do? Spike us up to a tree like Jesus, like he said at Strornry? I don’t really think so, do you?’
I didn’t really mean that as a serious question, but Janny took it as one.
‘I don’t know,’ she said, after a bit of thought. ‘He doesn’t say exactly. He’s careful what he says. Caroline said John would be outside of the Laws, didn’t she, but she hasn’t said that about you three yet. And even John, well, a lot of people still say he’s barely more than a kid, and he did well to do for that leopard, and if he asked to come back, we ought to let him. So I’m not sure, but . . .’
She looked round at the others. Gerry was crying now. Sue was begging him to fetch Jeff and come back to her. Angie was backing her up. Jade was sort of half-heartedly chipping in. Candice was standing near Jade and looking bored.
Janny came a bit closer to me.
‘But it’s horrible in Family, Tina, it’s horrible. I never thought of it before as a place where I was stuck. I never thought of it as a place I was only in because I wasn’t allowed to go. But now that’s exactly what it feels like, and the funny thing is, I don’t really blame John and you for it — Candice does, but deep down I don’t — because I reckon it’s always been like that. We just didn’t notice it. We just didn’t know anything else. Do you know what I mean?’
She glanced back again. Candice was watching us, but she was far enough away so as not to be able to hear.
‘David Redlantern is all over Family now,’ Janny said. ‘And so’s bloody Lucy Lu with the Shadow People whispering in her ear, and Father Tommy and Mother Gela themselves telling her what’s right and what’s wrong. Funny how they always tell her we should do whatever David says!’
‘Come and join us,’ I said. ‘Don’t tell anyone this unless you really trust them, but we’re just by Neck of Cold Path Valley, just up the slope on the left side as you go in. Come and find us. Bring more people if you can. Not clawfeet, though, if you can help it. It’s going to be hard enough with bloody Jeff . . .’
Behind us Sue started to shout at Gerry.
‘You’re a silly selfish boy! If you want to go and kill yourself up on Snowy Dark that’s your look out, but not my Jeff. How could he manage up there with his feet? How could he? You can’t let him go! You can’t! I want to see my little boy. I want to see him!’
Gerry’s hands were pressed against his face. He was shaking and sobbing. It was too much for him. He loved his mum, he loved John, he loved Jeff. Those were the three big things in his life, and now they were all clashing with each other and he couldn’t be true to one of them without betraying the others.
‘Come on, Gerry,’ I told him firmly, starting to move back into forest. ‘We’ve got to go.’
That’s how he is. He needs someone to take charge of him.
He turned towards me. He turned back towards his mum. She grabbed his arm. Gerry looked at me imploringly, but I wouldn’t release him from my command. So at last he pulled free of his mum, and we started running off through forest.
‘Gerry!’ Sue screamed. ‘Gerry! You piss off if you want to, but make sure you bring my little boy back to me!’
‘Don’t, mum,’ murmured Gerry, not loud enough for her to hear, but just for himself. ‘Please don’t.’
‘Gerry!’ Sue yelled again. ‘Please come back! You’re my boy! I love you! Please come back to us!’
‘I love you too, mum,’ muttered Gerry, slowing down and half-turning towards her, like he was thinking of going back.
‘Gela’s sake, just keep going, Gerry!’ I told him. ‘Don’t even think about going back.’
I might sound harsh, but after all I had a mum too that I was fond of, and sisters and aunties and brothers, and I’d left them all behind as well.
But we had a laugh when we got back to John and Jeff because they’d made a whole set of wraps to cover up John’s legs and arms and body and feet, and even a wrap to go over his head with little holes for eyes and mouth. And they’d greased it all up to keep it dry in the snow, and they’d stuck layers of smooth stonebuck skin onto the bottom of the footwraps with a special bendy glue they’d made by mixing up melted buckfeet and hot grease.
‘It’s boiling hot when you’ve got it all on,’ John said, peeping out of the little eye holes of the headwrap. ‘And Jeff chucked water all over it lots of times and it doesn’t get wet at all.’
He pulled it off again. I’d hardly ever seen his face look so happy and excited.
‘Try it, Tina. You won’t believe how warm it is.’
Jeff squatted behind him, at the entrance to the cave. He was watching us but he was mainly looking at Gerry. It was as if Gerry’s troubled face was a bit of writing that Jeff only had to read to know exactly what had happened down there with his mum, without Gerry or me saying anything at all.
‘Mind you, it took hours for Jeff and me to get it all tied on,’ John said. ‘But I reckon we could do it quicker and better next time we make one. We could make it all so it comes off easily, like this headwrap.’
I put the thing on, looked out of the eye holes, peered at each one of the three of them.
‘It bloody stinks, John. It stinks like a woollybuck’s arse.’
John laughed. Gerry laughed. Jeff looked at me like he was trying to read me too, though all he could see of my face was my two eyes. Then he began to laugh too, really merrily, like a little child.
It was only a couple of wakings later that Janny Redlantern came to join us from Family, along with a friend of hers called Lucy Batwing, and Mehmet Batwing, who was a cousin of Lucy’s. (He was a funny bloke, that thin-faced Mehmet with his little pointy beard. He was friendly but always holding something back, and he had eyes that seemed to be waiting for you to make a fool of yourself.) And as for Lucy, Gela’s tits, she talked and talked and talked, and I thought she’d never shut up: I suppose it was because she was scared. But Janny was good to have there.
‘Thought you could do with a normal person for company, Tina,’ she told me, with a sideways look at John, all covered in glue and bits of string.
She’d cheer the place up, I thought.
And then, only a waking later, four Brooklyn kids came over: Mike, Dixon (we usually called him Dix) and Gela and Clare. They were all friends of mine back in Family, specially big tall grownup Gela, who I could really trust, and have a good laugh with too. And Dix, her younger brother, was a sweet pretty gentle boy that I’d had a little kiss and cuddle with once or twice.