Dark Eden

and her clever little sister Clare.

    We’d left six of them back by the caves, but Dix had gone up the hill with a bow and some arrows, looking for monkeys, so there were only five there when they came from Family: David Redlantern and big stupid Met, who used to be friends with Gerry and me, and fat old Dixon Blueside and three other newhair boys. They’d kicked out our fire, taken whatever skins and meat they could find and tried to drag Janny back with them to Family and Redlantern group.
    ‘Harry went crazy,’ said Tina’s friend Gela in her deep voice. ‘You should have seen that brother of yours, Tina. He just went at those men with a big club. He went straight at them, bellowing and yelling, so the two who’d got hold of Janny had to let go and back off because they could see he’d mash them like a slinker.’
    ‘So then Janny ran back to us,’ Clare went on. She was a small girl, quite quiet normally, who’d make a little sharp comment and then back off again, like a groundcreeper into its hole, but she was shaking shaking now, too scared and upset about what had happened to worry about anything else. ‘So then we all grabbed sticks and spears and started screaming and yelling, all together, like we do when a leopard gets too near back in Family. Only it wasn’t really like that, because it wasn’t one leopard and a whole big lot of us, it was
six
of them, all blokes and two of them grownup men, and only five of us.
Our
Dix – Dix Brooklyn – he was up the hill somewhere, looking for bats or something, so aside from little Jeff, Harry was the only bloke we had. I’ll tell you, we were scared
scared
.’
    ‘Yeah,’ Gela said. ‘Harry worried them for a short time when he came at them with his club, so we followed that up as best we could by screaming and waving spears, but pretty soon they worked out it was still them that had the advantage. You could see them starting to figure that out. You could see the fear fading and the ugly grins starting to appear again on their faces. They were just beginning to come at us again when Dix came charging down the hill, yelling and waving his spear.’
    ‘I reckon they thought it was all of you lot coming back,’ Clare said, ‘because they took one look at him, grabbed the skins and stuff that they’d nicked, and
ran
. I don’t think they realized it was just one bloke on his own. But little Jeff was standing off to the side and one of those Blueside boys shoved him over on the ground and kicked him before he ran off . . .’
    ‘What?’ Gerry cried out once. ‘Is he . . .?’
    ‘It’s okay, Gerry,’ Clare told him quickly. ‘Jeff’s not badly hurt or anything, and . . .’
    She broke off, because for the first time she noticed the woollybuck with the wrap over its head.
    ‘Michael’s names! What is
that
?’
    ‘It’s a woollybuck,’ Gerry said. ‘It’s a live woollybuck. Hold its rope for a bit, will you, Clare? I’d better run up and see Jeff.’
    It was strange. All this time the buckling had been shrieking and screaming – for its mum, I suppose, though she was dead and dangling from a branch right beside it – but neither Clare or Gela had even noticed it until that moment, just like we hadn’t noticed
them
screaming and yelling up ahead. Something that I’d begun to notice was that people often don’t see things they aren’t expecting to be there, even if it’s right in front of their faces. It was a useful thing to know. It meant there were always more possibilities in a situation than people realized.
    But now Tina’s brother Harry came thumping down the path. He was all red and sweaty, his breathing was heavy and his eyes were big and rolling around in his head. My heart sank. I’d seen him like this back in Family once twice.
    ‘Gela’s tits,’ muttered Tina. ‘He’ll stay that way for hours and hours.’
    ‘Hey Tina and John!’ shouted Harry in his baby way. ‘Harry drove them away with his club, Harry did. They tried to take Janny, Tina, but I drove them away.’
    ‘That’s good Harry,’ soothed Tina. ‘Well done! That’s
good
good.’
    Gerry was already dabbing at Jeff with a wet buckskin when we got up to the caves. My little cousin had some bruised ribs and a black eye, but that didn’t stop him jumping up and hobbling over as soon as he saw the little buckling. From then on he was like its new mum. He never left it. He even pulled his own sleeping skin out of the cave where he slept with Gerry