Dark Eden

importance, but he’d only got it by giving up having any real power at all.
    ‘Mehmet!’ I shouted, as he turned quickly away again. ‘You don’t want to do this, so
don’t
do it! We’ll back you up.’
    All the other mums were yelling now, and other people were still arriving from groups, and they were yelling too, calling out to David, calling to people they knew among the twenty Guards on buckback: ‘Johnny! Mike! Dixon! Mitch! Pete! Don’t go with them! Don’t go!’
    And some of the Guards looked back from the backs of their bucks, and some didn’t. But, either way, what could they do? They were in the same position as Mehmet. They’d gone too far. If one of them turned back, it would be
him
that the others would be spiking up next.
    We turned our attention to the Guards who were holding us back:
    ‘Let us go! Let us bloody
go
! They’re going after our boys and girls. They’re going after people that used to be your friends and your groupmates. They’re going to kill them! Is that really what you want?’
    They just shrugged. A few laughed mockingly but you could see a lot of them were troubled by what was happening. It made no difference, though. They still wouldn’t let us get past them. How could they? It was the same for them as it was for their mates riding out towards Snowy Dark on their bucks. If they didn’t do what they were told, they were at risk themselves. So they frowned and avoided our eyes and prodded us and hit us with clubs and spearbutts if we pushed forward or tried to get round them. And then, pretty soon, it was too late for us to catch up with the bucks anyway, so they shrugged and let us go.
    ‘Do what you want,’ said Michael London. ‘Just get out of Guards area and stop that bloody yelling. You’re making my head hurt.’
    And they turned their backs on us and walked off in different directions, pretending that they were busy and didn’t have time for our nonsense, but really just trying to get away from all of this, so as not to have to face us, or think about what they were doing.
    Some of the mums ran straight off into forest after David and his lot, but there was no point in that. People can’t run as fast as bucks, and David had made sure sure that no one in Family had horsebucks to use except only for Guards. So I ran instead after the two boys, Paul and Gerald Fishcreek, who’d come down with Mehmet from Tall Tree Valley and were now part of the group of Guards who’d been told to keep us under control.
    ‘What did you see up there? Who did you see? What did they tell you?’
    They looked at each other guiltily, and then looked round to see if anyone else was near.
    ‘John and your boys came up while we were there,’ Gerald said, with a silly fake shrug, pretending it was all nothing to him. ‘Gerry and whatsisname . . . Jeff.’
    ‘Gerry? Jeff? Both my boys?’
    I was shaking now. It was weird weird, to be talking to someone who’d seen my two sons only a few wakings ago, but there wasn’t much comfort in it, not with David and his lot riding towards them.
    ‘How were they?’ I asked him.
    Again Gerald looked at his groupmate. Then he shrugged again.
    ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Pretty good. They’ve grown. Jeff’s a big bloke now, with a beard and all. Quite a looker, actually.’
    ‘Do you hate them?’
    Gerald glanced at Paul.
    ‘Well, no,’ he muttered. ‘Of course not.’
    ‘But yet you came back here with Mehmet Batwing to tell David about them, knowing how badly David wants to spike them up to die?’
    ‘We didn’t . . .’
    ‘Come on, Gerald. You knew David would be after them the moment he got the news. Don’t try and tell me you didn’t.’
    Gerald looked desperately at Paul. I looked at Paul too. I gave him the look I give to naughty children, and he looked guilty and scared for a moment and then straight away he frowned, making his face hard hard hard, a proper Guard’s face. It was like he was putting on a mask.
    ‘Back off, Sue Redlantern,’ Paul said. ‘Back off or I’ll use this club on you, alright?’
    ‘What?’ I hissed at him. ‘Club me for asking you why you want to do for my own sons?’
    He cowered like I’d just hit him, but held his club tight in his hand.
    I let them go, the silly weak kids. And then I cried and cried. I cursed First Tommy and First Dixon and First Mehmet for bringing human life to Eden. I cursed Tommy and Angela for deciding to stay here and slip together and so bring all of us