Dark Eden

about Family and about how things were. Before I’d even begun to think of an answer to Gerry’s question, I’d already forgotten it. In fact I’d completely forgotten he was there.

    Bella’s shelter was bigger than everyone else’s, and taller too, so that people could sit in there with her and have meetings. She had a pile of sleeping skins in the far right corner opposite the entrance hole, and more skins piled all round the edges for folk to sit on when she had meetings and talks. The shelter was built up against the warm trunk of a big whitelantern tree, and one branch of the whitelantern had been pulled down and held in place with ropes and rocks, so the branch was inside the shelter, with two or three lanterns usually shining at any one time. If she didn’t want light she’d cover over the lanterns with skins.
    She was squatting over on the sleeping skins when I came in, thin bony Bella, with her narrow hips and tiny breasts and her clever weary shadowy face.
    ‘You are a silly boy, John Redlantern,’ she told me, ‘and I’m going to have to shout at you for a bit.’
    I nodded.
    ‘Never,
never
speak out of turn at a meeting again, alright?’ she yelled. ‘Do you
understand
that, John? Do you understand? You’ve shamed
me
, you’ve shamed Redlantern, you’ve shamed yourself. And you’ve achieved
nothing
. Nothing at all. Do you really think Council’s view will be changed by a silly little
newhair
just because he got lucky with one bloody leopard out Cold Path way? Does that make you the big man of whole Family, do you think? Does that make you more important than your group leader or your Family Head? I don’t bloody think so, John. And don’t think I don’t know it was you and Tina Spiketree that started up that nasty laugh when Mitch forgot himself. Don’t imagine I didn’t notice that too.’
    The funny thing was that she was yelling at me, but it was like she was acting in one of those story-plays that people put on. Like the story of
Angela’s Ring
, when Angela loses the ring her mum and dad gave her, and she cries and screams and tells Tommy he’s worse than shit, and how she hates him and she hates Eden and she hates the kids and she wishes she was dead. Or like
Hitler and Jesus
, where Hitler yells at Jesus he’s going to kill all his group, the Juice, kill them like they were slinkers (‘Over my dead body!’ goes Jesus, and Hitler says, ‘It
will
be over your dead body, mate, because I’m going to nail you up to a hot spiketree till your skin’s all burned off.’) Often when people act these things you can see they’re not really in them. They might be shouting but their eyes aren’t angry like their mouths are. And it was like that now.
We
were in a story-play – Bella and me – and we didn’t have to pretend with our faces, only with our voices, because the play wasn’t for us really at all but for the rest of group who were outside listening and couldn’t see us.
    ‘Don’t speak out of turn again, John, alright?’
    ‘I’m sorry I shamed you.’
    ‘And if you want something said at Any Virsry, talk to me, not to whole Family without me even knowing about it, alright?’
    ‘Yes, Bella.’
    She looked at me, staring hard hard into my eyes, then she smiled her little tight smile and relaxed a little bit (as much as she ever relaxed) and nodded, as if to say: okay, the play was over now.
    ‘So why did you do it, John?’ she asked me in her normal voice, low enough so that no one outside would hear the words (not unless they came right up outside the shelter and put their ear to the bark, and no one would dare do that with whole group there to see them). ‘If you wanted it said why didn’t you talk to me about it?’
    ‘I only thought of it then and that’s the truth. It just came into my mind when Tom said that thing about how we’d given up School already and now we’d have to give up something else. Gela’s tits, I thought, what’s the point of that? Why can’t we see that there just isn’t enough in this valley for us?’
    Bella studied my face carefully. Then she nodded.
    ‘Actually, I agree with you, John,’ she finally said. ‘Something needs to give and we need to start preparing people for that. But you know there’s more to it than just yelling things out at Any Virsry. You’ve got to work round people, win them over, meet them halfway, do things gradually. That’s what Council is all about.’
    ‘So how many people in