Free Dark Eden by Chris Beckett Page A

got time to think.’
    ‘Is that what happened with you?’
    He thought about this.
    ‘It’s true I didn’t have much time to think when the leopard was circling round us. But I knew I had a choice, and I knew no one would blame me if I ran. So, no, I didn’t just stand there because I couldn’t think of anything else.’
    ‘Why then? It was only a bloody leopard. It’s not even as if we can eat the things.’
    ‘I did it because . . . Well, I’d never really understood about those moments before and I reckon a lot of people never really do get to understand them, but what I realized then was that I wasn’t just deciding what I wanted to do, I was deciding what kind of person I wanted to
be
. So I made my choice on that basis. And from now on, whenever I have a decision to make, I’m always going to make it in that same way.’
    ‘What, you mean always doing the dangerous thing?’
    He snorted.
    ‘No, of course not. That’d be nuts. I’d be dead in no time. What I mean is I’m always going to think about where I’m trying to go and what I’m trying to be, not just about what I want right then at that moment.’
    I smiled and kissed him. I liked what he said. It was how I saw things too. I’d not done for any leopards, and I had no leopard-killing plans, but when I did a thing, I was always careful to check that I wasn’t just doing it because it was easier, or just doing it to avoid upsetting other people.
    ‘Good plan,’ I told him. ‘And I’m the same.’
    ‘Yeah? In what way?’
    ‘Well, I’m a Spiketree, and I cut my hair in spikes, and I’m spiky spiky spiky. I tell people what I think and I don’t let other people put me off doing what I think I should do. And if something scares me, I think, Yeah, but should I do it anyway?’
    He smiled and nodded, and I kissed him quickly again, then pulled away.
    ‘Okay, Mr Leopard Killer,’ I said, ‘let’s see how long you can hold your breath then. I bet I can get more oysters than you.’
    I plunged down into the bright blurry water, looking for the pinnacles of rock where the oysters clung onto ledges six seven feet below the surface, opening and closing their shining pink mouths. I grabbed handfuls from three different pinnacles and burst up to the surface again. I was flinging the oysters onto the rocky bank, when John bobbed up right next to me.
    ‘Ha ha! I’ve got more than . . .’ he gasped, but I’d already dived down again before he’d finished speaking, down through a big glittering shoal of tiny fish.
    We built up a whole pile of oysters on the bank, then lay on the soft ground under droopy yellowlantern trees and tore them open. The oysters wheezed and fizzed as they died and we pulled out bits of the shining flesh, sometimes feeding them to each other, sometimes playfighting over them, sometimes stealing the juices from one another’s mouths and tongues.
    ‘Do you want some slippy, Mr Leopard Killer? Do you want a slide?’ I whispered, kissing him and putting my hand down to feel his dick. ‘You’ll have to do it the back way, though, because I don’t want a baby on my hands. I’m really not cut out for being a youngmum, stuck in Family with the blind oldies and the clawfeet and a bunch of little kids.’
    I didn’t think there’d be any doubt about how he’d answer me, but I was wrong.
    ‘Let’s leave that for now,’ he said. ‘Let’s leave that for later on.’
    Well, I was
surprised
surprised. Yeah and offended too. What was the matter with him? What did he think we’d come here for? There weren’t many boys in Family that would turn down an offer of a slip from me, and not many men either, judging by the way they looked at me, though Family rules said grownup men shouldn’t do that with newhair girls.
    ‘You been going with too many old women, John,’ I told him. ‘Like that Martha London you went with on your no-work waking. Old Martha who lost her little baby not long ago. Looks like she and the others