Free Keeper by Mal Peet Page B

light was shocking. It took the color out of everything. The surrounding emptiness took on a greater darkness; it was as if nothing but the camp existed in an endless space.
    Because of the racket from the other workbenches and the growling of the generator, I did not hear the tractors returning from the forest. So I was surprised to look up and see my father and Hellman watching me work. The light from the bright lamps bounced off Hellman’s shiny head and lit up the wiry hair on my father’s. My father’s face was full of anxious questions, and hope, and a terrifying desire to be pleased.
    Hellman said, ‘So how was the boy, Estevan? You want to keep him? Or is he a saw-monkey?’
    Estevan yanked on the big adjustable wrench and locked the last nut into place. I pretended not to care about what he was going to say, but I did, desperately.
    ‘He will do. He is less useless than the last one. Leave him with me.’”
    “On the long journey back in the truck, I fell asleep with my head against my father’s shoulder. He must have been very tired from his own work, but he sat upright the whole way so that I would not fall onto the floor of the truck.”

 
    “S O THE WEEK passed. Estevan taught me, almost wordlessly, to do things I did not want to do. Hellman watched, from time to time. I think he was pleased with me, but it was hard to tell. Toward the end of each day, the harsh lights came on, and I would look up to see my father’s face, watching anxiously. Then the long trip home to the meal my mother and grandmother had prepared. I ate ravenously while my family nudged each other and smiled. Then I went to sleep to dream tortured dreams of the Keeper, pacing the clearing, waiting.
    On Saturday we all went to work as usual, but at midday a siren blew as the logging crews returned from the forest on their trucks and tractors and trailers. I went to stand in a line with Estevan and the other tool-shop men outside Hellman’s metal shed. The pay man stood at a window above us and handed down a brown envelope to each of us in turn. Most of the men opened their envelopes as soon as they had them and counted the money inside. I did not, but then my father found me and encouraged me to open my pay packet and rejoice at the money.
    I thought that once all this was done, we would go home. And some of the men did go, in a hurry to get back to town and give the money to their wives or to the girls who were already polishing the beer glasses at the café. But most of the men did not leave. Instead, they set back out in the direction of the cutting. I had not gone this way before, but my father put his arm around my shoulders and led me. We all zigzagged down a winding dirt path and into a sort of square pit that had been cleared of tree stumps and other rubbish. The dirt floor of the pit had been leveled, and at each end a goal had been made out of scaffolding poles and netting. A soccer field had been marked out more or less accurately with lines of crumbled chalk. A number of men and boys were already kicking a couple of balls about in this rough arena. Half of them wore scruffy green T-shirts; half of them wore scruffy orange ones. There wasn’t much else in the way of gear. Many of the players wore cutoff denims as shorts; some wore socks, others didn’t; some wore sneakers while others still had their work boots on. Just one or two men had proper soccer cleats. I sat down with my father on the sloping side of the arena, and he turned to greet and exchange friendly insults with other spectators.
    There was going to be a game. I felt my blood wake up.
    For quite a long time nothing much happened. The two teams, the Loggers, in the green shirts, and the Camp, in orange, seemed to have more or less eleven players each, and they continued to kick the two balls about in an aimless way. I recognized two of the Loggers, boys who had left school and started work at the same time as me. One was the tall boy who had kept goal at