Dark Eden

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?
    ‘I’m sorry,’ I said humbly. ‘I just thought it needed to be said. I hadn’t thought about it before. It just came out.’
    I liked Bella. I was close close to her. And I respected her too. She wasn’t just our group leader, she was one of the cleverest people in whole Family.
    Bella nodded. I thought I could see a tiny smile.
    ‘Alright, John. I’m tired and hungry. We all are. So we’ll eat now, and then afterwards you can come to my shelter for a proper talk about this. I want to know exactly what’s on your mind and I want your reassurance that you won’t show me up like that again. But we’ll talk later.’
    Presently Fox and Lucy Lu, who were organizing the cooking, handed round smoked fish and whitefruit and crushed starflowers and bits of muddy, chewy slinker, and we all began to eat together round our fire. And all around us, all over the camp, we could hear the sounds of other groups eating too. (People’s talking sounds different when they’re eating. It rises and falls in a different way. More gently, more steadily.) You never normally heard that sound coming from all over Family at the same time because one group would be sleeping, one getting up, one returning from a waking’s scavenging. The only time we experienced it was when an Any Virsry was on.
    Somewhere out over Peckhamway a leopard was singing to its prey.
    ‘What are you going to say to Bella in there?’ Gerry asked. ‘Are you going to tell her to stuff it, then, or what?’
    I looked at him, meaning to answer him but all the time listening to the lonely deadly sound of the leopard out there, and how it sounded alongside the friendly gentle sound of Family eating and talking all around. And I was thinking, thinking, thinking,