Dark Eden

23 Tina Spiketree

Six seven wakings after we did for those bucks, me and Gerry went over Lava Blob way, hoping to meet people from Family. John was busy trying to figure out how to make wraps that could keep a person warm up on Snowy Dark, sitting surrounded by woollybuck skins, and a leopard tooth knife, and string made with dried wavyweed, and more string made of buck sinews and dried buck guts. He’d been absorbed in this for several wakings, absorbed like only John could be, cold and distant and sunk down inside himself, not caring or noticing anything else at all, and it was good to get away from him.

Jeff stayed and helped him. He was good with his fingers, and good at thinking of new ideas, and his feet weren’t up for another long walk.

Gerry and me had done for a few bats on the way to Blob, and picked a bit of fruit. We’d brought some embers with us on a piece of bark and now we lit up a little fire to cook the bats and soften the fruit. Hoppers came out of forest and looked at us, funny yellow hoppers, wringing their four hands together like they wanted to say something but were too shy. They waved the long feelers around their mouths in our direction, and went Peep peep, peep peep. Gerry chucked them a few fruit rinds and they hopped forward, snatched them up and darted back again to a safe distance to munch them up, watching us all the time with their big flat eyes.

‘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.

‘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.

And then, only a few hours later on, when everyone was asleep and it was my turn to keep watch, my own little batface sister Jane came over with my big slowhead brother Harry. I heard them calling down below in Valley Neck, ‘Tina! Tina! It’s us!’

I was pleased pleased to have Jane there, but Harry was a worry. He wasn’t good at thinking, and he got easily confused and upset like a kid, but because he had the strength of a big man, it could be a real job to calm him down.

‘It’s bad back in Family, Tina,’ Jane said, ‘it’s bad bad. Everyone’s arguing and blaming each other, and there’s all sorts of scary scary talk. Fat old Liz is even grimmer than usual and she’s always fretting that someone is going to try and push her out as group leader like Bella Redlantern got pushed out. Mum is frantic. Bloody David Redlantern and his lot are going round like they’re the real heads of Family instead of Caroline and Council. And the way people talk! Well, all I can say is you lot want to watch out. Some of them back there talk about coming over and forcing you lot to come back, some of them talk about driving you away forever, but I haven’t heard many say they should just leave you alone.’

‘What do you mean “you”?’ I said. ‘You’re here too now. You’re one of the ones they’re talking about.’

Jane shrugged and pursed up her nice ugly batface.

‘I know. I must be bloody nuts.’

John and me got people organized. We set up hunting parties. We had people look for clay to make pots for us, and look for blackglass, and gather wavyweed for ropes and string.

We knew that where we were was a secret that was spreading round Family, and pretty soon someone who didn’t like us would get to know about it, if they hadn’t done already. We had no idea what they’d try but John had the idea of hiding things that were valuable to us, like woollybuck skins, in lots of different places, so no one from Family could just walk over here and nick the lot. And he insisted we have lookouts all the time above and below our camp. We even dug fire holes in three different places and kept them full of glowing embers, so that even if they came over and stamped out our fire, we’d still be able to make another. No one wants to spend half a waking just trying to get a fire to start.