Dark Eden

normal, but when I thought about it, it struck me that maybe this idea of his wasn’t as mad mad as it first seemed.
    ‘I suppose we could
try
and catch a baby woollybuck,’ I said. ‘Yeah. Why not? It’s worth a go.’
    ‘We could ride on their backs and then we’d have their headlanterns to light our way,’ Jeff said.
    ‘And they
know
the way, don’t they?’ I said. ‘Remember those ones we saw when we were here before, John? With Old Roger? High up on Dark? They were going somewhere, weren’t they? They weren’t just hanging around. And their lanterns were lighting up the snow.’
    I looked at John.
    ‘Come to think of it, John, how else exactly did you think we
were
going to see our way? You couldn’t keep torches burning long up there, could you? And if you break a branch of lanterns from a tree, they only last half an hour tops before the light fades.’
    John didn’t say anything to this.
    ‘What was your plan, then?’ I demanded. ‘Were you thinking we’d just
feel
our way across Dark?’
    ‘I haven’t bloody worked it all out yet, alright?’ he said.
    I smiled because, for a moment there, after all his grownup plans, he was just a kid again, all bristly and red because someone had criticized him.
    Gerry came up to us. He had his spike-headed spear in his hand.
    ‘What’s going on? What are you talking about?’
    ‘Jeff was saying we could catch a baby woollybuck, a little buckling, and make it into a horse to lead us through Dark,’ I said.
    Gerry nodded. He knelt by the stream and scooped up some water to drink with cupped hands, then squatted down beside us.
    ‘A horse. You’ve often thought about that, haven’t you, Jeff? An animal that would be a helper.’
    He looked proudly at me.
    ‘He’s got all kinds of ideas, my brother. He’s
smart
smart.’
    I laughed and felt a bit fonder of these two weird boys than I had done before.
    ‘Good,’ I said. ‘We’ll bloody need them. Tom’s dick, we’ll need all the ideas we can get.’
    I looked round at John, but he’d forgotten all about us and was sunk deep down inside himself.
    ‘Our Eden animals
do
have feelings,’ Jeff said. ‘A leopard has feelings, a woollybuck does, a bat does, a slinker does. They all do.’
    ‘He’s
always
said that,’ Gerry said, as if his little brother’s word was enough to make things true.
    John stirred beside us.
    ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘we’ve got lots to sort out. We need to get all the skins we can as well as meat to eat. We need to try and catch a baby woollybuck alive . . .’
    ‘We could make a fence that would stop it running away,’ Jeff said.
    ‘Okay, you start making your fence then, Jeff, or thinking about how you’re going to do it. You couldn’t do a long hunting trip, anyway, even if your feet weren’t all done in like they are now. Gerry can stay and help you. Me and Tina will go towards Cold Path and see if there are any woollybucks still down there. We won’t be away more than a waking this time. In another waking or two we’ll go the other way, towards Family, and see who we can find.’
    There was no choice about it, no asking us what we wanted. And though I really wasn’t scared of him, and I really could stand my ground against him when I felt I had to, and even get the better of him, it was just too much hard work to argue every time.
    ‘And some time soon,’ John said, ‘we’ll decide about new family rules.’
    New family! Look at us! Three newhairs and one little clawfoot kid, sitting by a small pool below a few caves. But in John’s mind we were a new family already.
    Come to think of it, that’s what gave him the power he had. He thought he could bring things into being just by believing in them, and he was so sure of it that it sometimes turned out to be true.
    ‘So that was our first family meeting, was it?’ I said. ‘Our first strornry?’
    Gerry giggled and pointed up at two silvertip bats sitting on a branch watching us, gently fanning their wings, with their skinny little arms folded across their chests and their little wrinkly batfaces looking like they were frowning with concentration.

22

John Redlantern

    There was some stuff that Bella had done that wasn’t good, but she’d been the best grownup in Family all the same. And she’d looked after me, she’d
made
me, and I loved her. But it was me that caused her death.
    I couldn’t get round it. If I hadn’t done what I did, she wouldn’t have lost her place in Family and