Free The Homeward Bounders by Diana Wynne Jones Page B

what I’d thought. “What’s the most uncommon sign?” she said. “That one back there?”
    I thought it must be, since I had never seen it before. “Not quite,” I said, so as to seem to know best. “The one I was told was most uncommon is YOU CAN TELL THEM YOU’RE A HOMEWARD BOUNDER.”
    â€œWhy?” she said.
    â€œBecause you can’t,” I said. “ They make sure people don’t believe you.”
    â€œSo then the sign never happens!” she said scornfully.
    â€œYes it does,” I said. “It was in the list I was given. It must happen somewhere.”
    â€œOf course it must,” Helen said pityingly. She was like that. She’d say first one thing, and then contradict it with the opposite, and make it seem that it was you who were wrong. “The wider times have every possibility in them, so there must be a traverse where you can admit to your exile. That is the logic of Uquar—”
    â€œWhat kind of talk is that?” I said.
    She wasn’t listening. “Uquar,” she said furiously, “is an utter cheat! I don’t think he exists!”
    â€œWho is he anyway?” I was saying, when we came to the bushy edge of the jungle. There was a man standing in a bush at the side of the path, bowing and smiling at us. He didn’t look uncivilized. He was clean-shaven and wearing a neat whitish shirt and trousers, and the smile on his face was a polite, social sort of smile. He looked so harmless that I turned to Helen and said loftily, “Let me handle this.” I bowed to the man. “Good afternoon, my friend.”
    He answered in a language I had never heard before. “Oomera-woomera-woomera,” he went.
    I think my face looked pretty funny. Snorting noises came from behind Helen’s hair. “It doesn’t matter,” I told her. “We make signs.”
    The man made the signs. He bowed and stretched out one hand. He was saying, “Will you come this way, sir?” like the waiters in a restaurant where I once worked. So I nodded and Helen jerked her head. She always nodded in a sideways jerk that looked as if it meant No. It took some getting used to. But the man seemed to understand. He was very pleased. He ushered us politely along a road, between fields. There were more neatly clothed men and some boys working in the fields with long hoes, but they downed tools when they saw us and came hurrying along with us, beaming and going “Oomera-woomera-woomera” too. It was like being royalty, except that it was friendlier. I happened to look round, and there were more neat men hopping out of the jungle and rushing after us with glad “oomera-woomeras.”
    Beyond the fields, we came to the village. That was neat and civilized too. All the houses were square and painted white, with pretty, decorated trellises up the fronts, and shiny brass pots standing by their neatly painted front doors. They were built round three sides of a square, and at the back of the square was a bigger white building with bigger trellises, which seemed to be the village hall. They led us to this hall across the square, through the friendliest welcome I’ve ever had in my life. The girls and women joined in here, beaming and smiling and clattering the rows and rows of turquoise beads they wore over their long whitish dresses. They were all rather gushing types, these women. One came up to Helen, with her arms stretched out, cooing “oomera-woomera,” and put her hands out to part the hair in front of Helen’s face.
    The piece of Helen’s face I saw looked as if it were going to bite. She jumped back and shouted, “Don’t do that!”
    I’ve been on numbers of worlds where people keep their faces hidden. I wasn’t sure why Helen did, unless it was this Haras-uquara thing she was, and I’d never seen anyone use quite Helen’s method before, but I always think you