Dark Eden

once.
    I liked things best when everyone was getting on with each other. I liked it when everyone thought that John was great. I liked it when I met people from other groups and they said John was brave brave or Bella was the best group leader in whole Family. And I hated it that John and Bella had upset people and made them angry. I think I hated it worse than I would have done if they were angry and upset with me. But I didn’t
blame
John or Bella for that. I knew that people who were stronger than me didn’t mind so much what other people thought. I knew they sometimes had other reasons for doing things that seemed important to them, even more important than being liked, even more important than being kind. In fact that was
why
I admired them: because they had something I didn’t have – a will of their own, I suppose. So I didn’t blame them, but I wished wished that everyone would go on liking John as much as I did, and go on saying what a great great group leader Bella was, and not whisper and hiss any more.
    Secrets were another thing I hated; secrets and people not saying what they meant. Gela’s heart, it was hard enough to make sense of anything without all that!
    ‘Why’s no one talking?’ I whispered to Fox when John was in Bella’s shelter and everyone around had gone quiet quiet.
    He winked and ruffled my hair like I was a little kid, then got up and moved away from me.
    I went to my mum.
    ‘Is John’s slipping in there with Bella?’ I asked her. ‘Why is everyone so quiet?’
    Sue squeezed my hand, but wouldn’t say anything.
    Even Jeff wouldn’t talk about it.
    And when at last he came out of Bella’s shelter, John didn’t want to talk to me either. He waved me away, walked off out of group, and didn’t come back until four five hours later when we were all sleeping or trying to sleep.
    ‘You okay, John?’ I whispered as he crawled into the shelter he shared with me and Jeff.
    But he didn’t answer me, just crawled between his sleeping skins and lay still.
    I didn’t sleep hardly at all before the next waking. It was always hard anyway when an Any Virsry put your sleeping and waking times back to front, but it was harder still when the world was all turned upside down. There was so much weird weird stuff going on. Everyone had thought John was great, but now whole Family was angry with him. Everyone in Family said Bella was the best group leader, but now even her own group were thinking thoughts about her so bad bad that they wouldn’t speak them aloud.
    Yet both John and Bella seemed to have
chosen
this. They’d done things on purpose that they knew would cause upset. They were like smart smart people playing chess who suddenly throw away a queen and you can’t see the reason, but you know they must have done it on purpose, for some reason they’ve spotted three four moves away.
    ‘Are you going to try and speak out again, John?’ I whispered. ‘When Family comes back together in Circle Clearing, are you going to do it again?’
    John didn’t answer, but Jeff whispered across to me from his side of shelter.
    ‘Let him sleep, Gerry. Let him sleep.’

    Paaaaarp! Paaaarp! Paaaarp!
    I was wide awake when they blew the horns for second waking of Any Virsry.
    Paaaaarp! Paaaarp! Paaaarp!
    I hated that noise all of a sudden. It was like everything that is bad about Family, like watching eyes, like tongues telling secrets and spreading stories in that way that people have, using words they don’t really mean so you have to try and guess.
    Paaaaarp! Paaaarp! Paaaarp!
    John sat up and rubbed his little beard with both hands, and yawned. He looked tired tired.
    Paaaaarp! Paaaarp! Paaaarp!
    Jeff was sitting up too now, rubbing his twisty feet and watching John with his eyes slightly narrowed. My little brother was another one like John, who played his own particular game and didn’t care what other people thought, and I guess that meant he could understand John in a way that I couldn’t. They were like chess players, and people like me were more like pieces on the board.
    Paaaaarp! Paaaarp! Paaaarp!
    We didn’t have to go to Circle Clearing, because Council always spent second waking of Any Virsry going through the Genda by itself, but the horns were to tell whole Family it had to get up and get on with doing stuff, and not fall back into our own group waking and sleeping times until Any Virsry was over.
    We crawled outside our shelter, John first, then me, then Jeff. Old