The Grasshopper's Child

by Gwyneth Jones

  Joe, this girl’s voice shrieking at him, assailed by horrific pain, could not shake her loose: not unless he stopped destroying Clancy for a moment—

  Heidi dropped to the ground. Clancy collapsed too.

  ‘What did you do that for?’ demanded Joe, sobered and nursing his ear. ‘You had NO RIGHT! Whoever you are. You don’t understand the meaning of a FAIR FIGHT—’

  ‘I SAW NO FAIR FIGHT’ yelled Heidi, still fired up. ‘I SAW SOMETHING THAT HAD TO BE STOPPED, and all I did was STOP YOU.’

  Jo had been at the Blue Anchor, washing up and having a political discussion with Tanya, who boarded there, when she got the Mayday call. By the time she managed to reach the scene, all was quiet. Everyone, including her stupid Godzilla of a twin, was sitting in a circle on the turf beside the gangling, shambling birds-nest Tower.

  Joe struggled with what Heidi had done. ‘You’re crazy. What if I’d had a knife?’

  Heidi was struggling with her mad act herself. She shrugged. ‘I knew you didn’t. Or Clancy would’ve been getting stabbed up.’

  ‘Will someone tell me what this “tower” is about,’ mumbled Clancy, counting his teeth with his tongue; surprised to find they were still in his head. ‘I don’t get it. Usually, when guys run away from Ag. Camp, don’t they try not to be noticed?’

  ‘You stay away from your home town, too,’ said Jo, bitterly. ‘And you don’t ask your sister to smuggle out food to you, when the Learning Centre Manager’s parked in your mum’s very pub. But I can’t talk to them. Joe’s thicker than two short planks, and worse he doesn’t know it, and Bryan worships the ground the big idiot treads on.’

  ‘It’s not stupid,’ said Bryan. ‘It’s a wrecking trap for pirates. Like in the olden days.’

  ‘Pirates? ’ Clancy snorted. ‘Well, yohoho. Are we in Disneyland?’

  ‘There are pirates, don’t you worry. Unlike some people,’ said Joe, glaring at Clancy, ‘We didn’t bunk off the Call-up because we’re afraid of hard work. We’ve returned to defend our own against the dirty rotten filthy buccaneers. Someone’s got to do something.’

  The Mehilhoc Exempt Teens fell silent then. They looked at the turf, they looked at the sky, they looked everywhere except at each other, and nobody spoke. The Hooded Boy had pulled down his hood, hiding his battered face. ‘I think you may genuinely have saved my life,’ he said quietly to Heidi. ‘That was insane, what you did.’

  ‘I know. I was lucky to get away with it. Are you okay?’

  ‘More or less.’

  ‘Well, I’m Sam,’ announced the middle-sized tower-builder at last. ‘I was bunking with Bryan at Junior Ag. Camp, when Joe came to bust him out. It’s short for Samedi.’

  ‘That’s a great name,’ said Heidi. ‘What was it like, at the Ag.Camp?’

  ‘Terrible,’ growled Joe. ‘They’re all terrible. It’s slave labour. The whole of Lincolnshire is one big multi-storey mycel-house, full of kids doing work machines should do, night and day—’

  ‘I actually think it’s cool,’ remarked Challon, looking up and squinting. ‘The Tower, I mean. Pity we can’t burn it on Bonfire Night.’

  John had a grievance with Andy. ‘Why was Heidi in the Mayday loop when you called for help? That’s not fair. She’s only lived here a few weeks. I had to wait much longer.’ He didn’t mention the absence of George and Sorrel: that was understood.

  ‘She bunks at the proper Big House,’ explained Andy. ‘And she’s urban, she knows about fights. You saw her. So that’s why. But you’re okay too, despite your dad’s funguses.’

  Belonging

  Think about your place

  In this big round ball of lives

  Flying through Outer Space

  Like a Multi-coloured Prize

  Think about the dive and dart

  Of your trembling bright thread

  Bound with All, right from the Start

  From when you’re born until you’re dead.

  14: The Cop In The Woods

  The Exempt Teens headed off in different directions to avoid drawing attention to the Tower. Brook, Challon and Heidi took to the woods: Challon and Heidi wheeling their own bikes, and taking turns with Brook’s. The April wood was magical. Glittering showers of birdsong fell on them; new leaves glowed in the afternoon sunlight. Milky-yellow primroses clustered by the track; starry windflowers, and a few unfurling bluebells, nodded under the trees. The Bad Dream Cat was going to be okay. She’d just rescued Clancy and had a huge bonding experience with the Teens. Heidi ought to have been feeling really good. Instead she felt more and more uneasy, and Brook and Challon’s carefully natural conversation sounded more and more false—

  What had the tower-builders been talking about? What ‘buccaneers’? Why did everybody get struck dumb, when Joe Florence said Someone’s got to do something—?

  ‘It’s probably like schools used to be,’ said Brook. ‘Some camps are bad, some are average, some are okay, and some are really great.’

  ‘And you can make your own luck,’ added Challon. ‘Honestly, they’re kidding themselves. Nobody’s chasing them. Who’d want Big Joe on their work team? The truth is, Heidi, Jo’s mum’s had a text from the Ag. Camp Office, saying her boys were absent, and if she was concerned, she ought to report them missing. She hasn’t. And nothing’s happened.’

  ‘So they’re safe where they are?’ said Heidi. ‘Apart from the, er, the pirates?’

  ‘Yeah, but better not say anything,’ said Brook. ‘I mean, not to anyone.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  The trail led uphill, and it was a long, slow climb. Brook had insisted she was fine when they left the Tower: they soon knew they shouldn’t have listened to her. She stopped talking. Her pale face became as grim as if she was struggling up Everest.

  ‘Let’s have a rest,’ suggested Challon. ‘Pouf! I’m absolutely bushed—’

  ‘No you’re not,’ snapped Brook. ‘Don’t stop for me, I’d rather get on. We’ll be on the flat soon, then it’s hardly half a mile to the Fiveways Post, and after that it’s all downhill.’

  ‘But why don’t we get your mum to come and pick us up, anyway? She always has a bit of charge spare, the van can handle these tracks, and I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘Because we’re out of WiMax cover here, idiot. It’s a gap. Did you forget that?’

  ‘What if one of us takes a bike, and calls Mrs Healey where there’s signal?’ offered Heidi.

  ‘I’d be good for that, and you guys could wait here. Which way do I go?’

  ‘That would be great, Heidi,’ said Challon at once. ‘You carry on up this, to a T junction. Turn right, carry on to the Fiveways Post. Then take the half-right, not the sharp right. You’ll have signal as soon as you start heading downhill—’ She stopped, looking at Heidi suspiciously. ‘You’ll be all right? You do know, roughly, where we are, don’t you?’

  ‘Er, No. No idea. All these trees look the same. But if you tell me again, slowly—’

  Chall and Brook stared, as if they couldn’t believe anyone could be so stupid. ‘Let’s get on with it,’ said Brook, wearily. ‘It won’t help if Heidi ends up lost. I’m just tired, I’m not going to drop dead.’

  Heidi walked in front with two bikes, feeling terrible. She wanted to race off and save the day, but she really didn’t know where she was, and all these trees did look the same—

  Except there was something different, up ahead.

  ‘There’s a Traveller van,’ she announced, quietly. ‘By the track. There’s a man. He’s looking at us—’

  ‘Can’t be,’ said Challon. ‘We don’t get Travellers, apart from Andy’s mum.’

  But Heidi was right. Soon the van was clearly visible. The tall man Heidi had seen, watching their approach through a screen of leaves, sat by his campfire, feet up on a stump.

  A thin stream of blue smoke rose from the flames.

  Travellers were unfairly persecuted by the Empire, though nobody seemed to know why. But that didn’t m
ean they were innocent; not all of them. It was a lonely place. A little child’s long ago, bewildered fear crept under Heidi’s skin. Brook was ready to drop. Was it safe to ask for help? Challon’s eyes said no. But Brook made the decision herself, stumbling off the trail and sitting down as if she was falling down, on a log by the fire.

  ‘Afternoon mister,’ said Heidi.

  ‘Afternoon yourselves,’ said the van man. ‘Fancy a cuppa? Your mate looks all in.’

  ‘That would be great,’ said Heidi, since there was no help for it. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Take milk? I only have Condensed.’

  ‘Condensed is good,’ whispered Brook.

  The man stood up: he was very tall. He disappeared into the van, and rattled around. A laden tin tray got shoved out onto the top step, but the man didn’t reappear. Heidi shrugged, and went to fetch it. There was a hunk of glorious fresh bread, and a pat of butter in a burdock leaf. Thick Condensed Milk in a can, and a jar of jam. The brew, black and sweet, had been poured for them into two handle-less mugs and a chipped highball glass.

  ‘Strengthening Mixture,’ said Challon, adding a generous slug of Condensed to one of the mugs, for Brook. ‘Just what you need.’

  The tall man reappeared and sat on a different stump; keeping his distance. He wasn’t young, he wasn’t old. His skin was the ruddy brown of a white guy who’s lived a lot outdoors; crinkled around the sharp blue eyes that studied them from under the peak of a greasy old flat cap.

  ‘Get her to eat something. Spoon or two of jam. It’s Greengage, best eating plum in the world. Maybe you other two’ll tackle some with bread and butter.’

  ‘I’m okay,’ said Brook, looking better. ‘Thanks, Mister. I really am.’

  ‘You’ll do in a bit,’ said Mr Tactful. ‘You just got an energy crash.’

  Heidi sipped her brew. The van’s back wheels had been removed, replaced by chocks of wood, and it was filthy. But under the dirt, and despite the mobility problems, she could tell it was not your average crock. And there was something funny about that little chimney—

  ‘You on your own here, Mister?’ asked Challon.

  ‘As you see,’ replied the van-man, easily. ‘Passing through.’

  ‘Don’t go in the fenced woods, okay? The landowners here don’t like trespassers.’

  ‘Thanks for that. I’ll watch out.’

  The tea was good, the bread and butter and jam sheer luxury. The van man wished them a good evening and the girls walked on: Chall pushing two bikes this time, Heidi pushing one. They reached the Fiveways Post, and turned half right. Soon Heidi realised this was the track that led past the back gate of the Garden House. They were almost home, and they’d been completely silent, as if the van man had put a spell on them, since they stopped for tea.

  As soon as the Garden House was in sight. Brook took out her phone. ‘I’ll get mum now, might as well. D’you want a lift to yours, Chall?’

  ‘I won’t wait,’ said Heidi. ‘See you soon: I’m late for making their dinner.’

  She hopped on her bike. When she’d dumped it in the shed and checked all was well in the kitchen she came out again to lock the back gate. Chall and Brook were still there, waiting for Brook’s mum. They were talking urgently, heads close together.

  She couldn’t hear a word, but she knew what they were saying.

  Cop.

  That helpful Traveller, with his sneakily disguised van, was some kind of copper. It was written all over him. Heidi had been thinking the exact same thing herself, but she was inner-city girl. How come Chall and Brook had the radar? Heidi shut the gate, locked it and returned indoors, more uneasy than ever. Why were her country friends afraid of a cop?

  She wondered if they’d noticed the other, really weird thing about him.

  15: The Benefits Of Caring For Our Elders

  Challon put together Pat’s lunch in the neat kitchenette at the New Alms-houses: listening to the wild rain that rattled on the windows. In her mind’s eye she saw beautiful fabric lengths, hand-woven from hand-dyed ikat thread, standing in the Weavers’ Loft at home, labelled simply: Portia. Nothing on the books. The Carron-Knowells never had to pay, and it would do no good if they did. Mum was so deep in debt to them, because of Challon, she’d never be free. And now Joe Florence, who just didn’t get it, was home again, and there was a cop in the woods. There was going to be trouble.

  ‘Her name’s Heidi,’ she said, bringing in the tray, and setting lunch out nicely on Pat’s lap-table. ‘She’s tall, much taller than me. She has these masses of frothy black hair, legs to her armpits, big misty brown eyes. And she likes him, everyone can see it.’

  ‘Like a moth to the flame. She’ll get her wings scorched!’

  ‘No,’ said Challon. ‘She won’t. Heidi’s strong. She could make him a better person.’

  Patsy Lane and Challon Pulak had never met before Sharing the Care threw them together, but they’d fallen for each other, completely. Challon’s sessions at the New Alms-houses were precious to her: more than ever, since they’d shared the Oxygen Cylinder panic. She could tell Pat things she couldn’t even tell Brook. Pat had been on the stage, she knew the business through and through; and she understood the misery of loving someone worthless. Of turning your back on him, and fighting the pain, every day of your life; and letting your best friend go on thinking you were the winner, the lucky, successful one.

  Healthy, talented, pretty and going places. Nothing to complain about—

  ‘Envy makes people blind,’ said Pat, eating bird-bites. ‘Put it into your art, love.’

  Challon sighed at the barely-touched lunch, but said nothing. She’d brought her Spanish guitar. She took it out, checked the tuning: struck a fierce phrase, and another, and then broke into music, fitting the lyric to the notes under her breath.

  ‘What’s that love?’

  ‘It’s new, it’s going to be the “own composition” for my set.’

  ‘In the Final? Ooh, lovely. All edges and flashes: I like it. What’s it about?’

  ‘Defiance,’ said Challon. ‘The words are by a friend of mine. It’s called Changing The World Flamenco.’

  Andy Mao’s mother’s trailer stood in the same pouring rain, by a track in Knowells Farm woods. Rhiannon Knowells, gaunt and blazing and still furiously beautiful, hated being a dependent. But Portia was her cousin, and she’d fallen out with so many Traveller clans, this was where she’d ended up: taking water from a Knowells standpipe, power from a Knowells cable; food hand-outs from Lady Muck when the kids failed to forage.

  The younger children were sprawled on the main bed, watching an old anime movie on a hand-me-down laptop. Beside them, Corporal Harris sat bolt upright on a salvaged office chair, staring at the wall and humming like a faulty appliance. Every so often Robin, the ten year old, shoved the chair with a bare foot and made it spin, to give him a different view.

  Andy was trying to help Rhiannon get the lunch, but she was in a temper. He couldn’t recall why. Mum’s rages were so all-encompassing it was hard to remember anything when you were in the middle of one. He wished Maple was still around: but Maple, the oldest of them and the best loved, had been taken from her by the Call-up.

  ‘Pay attention to me!’ shrieked Rhiannon. He dodged a flung fork: it speared the wall and hung vibrating. Mum grabbed him and hauled back her fist for a powerhouse blow.

  ‘Termagant! ’

  Corporal Harris had appeared. He gripped Mum’s arm. Rhiannon stared, astonished. Close on a century of ingrained chivalry and ingrained self-respect stared back from the shrunken old soldier’s bleary eyes. He would never strike a woman, but neither would he let her strike a child. Silently, Mum released Andy.

  Humming peacefully, Harris wandered back to his chair.

  Soon they were all packed around the table for a lunch of tender grilled rabbit, stovetop chestnut-flour bread, and a delicious buttery mess of field mushrooms and baby garlic shoots. Andy’s mum was a terrific cook. Corporal Harris cleaned his t
in plate with enthusiasm.

  ‘Isn’t he great? ’ whispered Andy.

  ‘He’s fantastic,’ whispered Robin. ‘Better than a pony.’

  The bad blood between the Florences and the Coutances went back a long way. There’d been a murder (in the Fifties); firearms incidents, a couple of cases of Grievous Bodily Harm, and plenty of toxic fallings-out over the spoils that never went to law. All water under the bridge now. Merril Florence was a law-abiding citizen, and the last surviving Coutance as harmless as her geriatric villain of a boyfriend. But the rancour lived on.

  Jo still couldn’t believe the government had stuck a Florence with a Coutance as an assigned Elder. What were they thinking? It seemed incredibly bad planning. On the other hand, she was now very glad Tanya had refused to listen, because an excuse to get inside this horrible house had turned out very useful. Old Bev opened the door, elephant’s backside boobs of a former massively buxom blonde sloshing untrammelled inside her dress: groaned in disgust and shambled off into the smelly living room, where steeplechasers swam blued and blurry across the screen of an ancient tv.

  ‘’ello young Jo,’ croaked Chas the geriatric boyfriend. ‘How’s yer old man?’

  Jo’s dad had vanished without trace many years before: he wasn’t missed. She stripped off her soaking poncho. ‘I’ll ask him when I see him. Any problems arising?’