Helix and the Arrival Page 2

  ‘Of course – in great detail,’ he had replied. Then he’d gone on to describe a hairy, thick-browed guy named Fleg and an almost equally hairy girl named Fler.

  Enlightening. That description could match almost anyone in Rockfall.

  Then there’s the story of the river people from the lowlands, who are meant to be bad in every way. With Fleg and Fler, there’s no way of me knowing whether their story is true, but with the river people I should be able to find out for myself, right?

  Wrong. Making contact with the river people is forbidden. The river, you see, separates mountain folk from river folk. And no one is allowed to cross the river. As much as I’d like to, I can’t just wander into the lowlands and say, ‘Hello, river person. Do you mind telling me if it’s true that you grew from the mud, live a sad and worthless life, and eat food that sprouts from the ground?’ Instead, I have to rely on Speel’s version, the only version there is of the river people’s story.

  Like I said, though, the test is the easy part. It’s the hunt that’s impossible (well, for me, at least). It’s like a huge boulder blocking my path and stopping me from passing my Arrival. For the hunt, you’re supposed to disappear into the woods and return with something big, dangerous or rare:

  ‘Big’ means weighing more than you or, in the case of something like a poison-fanged rock monitor, being longer than you (even though I’m light and short, if I saw a creature heavier or longer than me, I think I’d practise my fastest running).

  ‘Dangerous’ means that the animal has teeth, horns, claws or venom capable of killing (anything in this category can go free as far as I’m concerned).

  ‘Rare’ pretty much means a sacred bison. If you kill a sacred bison, you automatically pass and probably get to become the next Korg.

  I’ve never spent a night in the woods alone. I’ve never even been in the woods alone. The woods are dark even during the day. There are strange growls and hoots and the wind howls through the treetops like a crazed vulture.

  What’s more, during your Arrival you have to make your own fire in the woods and there are no caves. What if it rains? What happens to the fire then? Yep – there’s no way I’m spending a night alone in the woods.

  And there lies my problem. This whole hunting business just isn’t for me. It wouldn’t be so bad if I’d been born Korg or Speel. Then I could sit back in front of a fire all day long, look wise and give out advice to other mountain folk.

  The reality is, though, I’m no one special. Just Helix, son of Jerg (who’s also a coward but manages to cover it up really well). If I fail the Arrival, my family will be disgraced, and it’s likely I’ll be banished to the Dark Side of the mountain.

  So, as of today, because of who I am, I have no hope of passing my Arrival. My story might as well end here, but I’ll keep telling it anyway.

  It’s morning. I hear Mum near the front of the cave, bringing last night’s hot coals back to life. She’s preparing meat-on-a-stick for breakfast – the usual. It’s whatever Dad and Sherwin caught the day before. Probably cave rodents or mountain voles. Mum cooks it until it’s as black as the charcoal in the fire and it tastes much the same.

  ‘Time to get up,’ says Mum.

  Dad sits up beside me and yawns. ‘Another day, another opportunity, boys. Come on, time for the men of this cave to get up.’

  Sherwin moans and rolls over away from Dad. It’s quite possible that Sherwin is the laziest caveman on the mountain. I once saw him watch a beetle crawl up his arm, onto his shoulder, along his cheek and into his nose. Who knows where it is now? Probably living off the snot boulders trapped in his nose hair. And all this because he was too lazy to swat it.

  The four of us sleep shoulder to shoulder – Dad and Sherwin are normally on the outside, while Mum and I are in the middle. Because of all the snoring, I’ve considered sleeping with my head up the other end, but Sherwin’s putrid foot odour is much worse than his snoring and bad breath.

  Each of us has a sleeping skin that, in winter, we pull up above our eyes. There’s also a bigger, separate skin on the cave floor that we sleep on top of. It’s made up of various small creatures that Dad has hunted over the years. For all I know, I could be sleeping above fifty generations’ worth of rock gerbil.

  Dad doesn’t care that his two sons are acting like mountain sloths. ‘It’s time for at least one of the men in this family to seize the day,’ he says, standing up and stretching his skinny arms above his head.

  I sit up, yawn and rub my eyes. Sherwin isn’t moving. He’s pretending to be asleep.

  Most cavemen are married by the time they turn fifteen or sixteen. Sherwin, at seventeen, is leaving it late. All of his childhood friends have wives. He’s the odd one out, still living at home with his parents and annoying younger brother (that’s me).

  The caveman timeline goes something like this:

  0–8: cavekid. The cavekid years are all about freedom. You get to run, climb, collect rocks and play games like bite and squeak with your best friend (first one to squeak loses).

  8–12: caveboy. Although you’re not a caveman yet, life becomes a bit more serious. You’re expected to be able to throw a spear, wield a club and prepare for your Arrival.

  13: become a caveman. This is when a big, dark cloud called the Arrival enters your life, and you go from being a carefree caveboy to an I’m-so-tough-you-could-crack-a-rock-over-my-eyeball caveman.

  13–18: prime caveman. In theory, these are the best years of a caveman’s life, assuming you don’t get eaten by something bigger than you or banished to the Dark Side.

  18–35: middle-aged caveman. This is the time when a caveman reaches full maturity. Hopefully he has a few sons by now who can take over the hunting duties and listen to stories about the time he almost captured a sacred bison.

  35–50: old-aged caveman. Time to slow down and look back at your long life. A caveman’s life expectancy is about … NOW!

  50+: ancient caveman. Anyone who reaches fifty is seen as having special powers and is presented with a special commemorative tablet from Korg.

  I stand up slowly and take a few sluggish steps towards the front of the cave where Mum is waiting for our breakfast to turn black. She’s sitting cross-legged on a skin, detangling her hair with a small comb made from animal bone.

  I sit down beside her and she smiles at me with her kind but strong eyes. Dad is sitting across the fire from me, warming his hands from the morning cold.

  ‘A Gathering has been called for this morning,’ he says, rubbing his hands together a bit faster.

  Usually, nothing very exciting happens at Gatherings. It’ll probably be the usual announcements of births, deaths and marriages.

  ‘What will you do after the Gathering, Helix?’ asks Mum.

  ‘I’m meeting Ug.’

  ‘That’s nice.’

  ‘He’s going to show me how to wield a heavy club,’ I say, because I know this will please her.

  Her eyes light up. ‘A heavy club! Did you hear that, Jerg? Our Helix is growing up!’

  Dad is cleaning his teeth with a wooden pick. ‘Heavy club? Good weapon, son.’ His voice comes out muffled.

  I don’t think Dad has ever hunted with a heavy club. Like me, I doubt if he could even lift one above his head.

  ‘You with a heavy club – I’d like to see that,’ comes Sherwin’s voice, from the back of the cave.

  ‘Look who’s awake,’ says Dad. ‘Thinking of joining us?’

  ‘No, I need my rest.’

  Sherwin became a caveman the day he turned thirteen. For the hunting part of his Arrival, he caught a poison-fanged rock monitor. It was the longest one anyone had caught that season and it fed our family for many days afterwards. Since then, his favourite pastime has been sleeping, and he hasn’t done a lot of hunting.

  ‘What about your Arrival test?’ says Mum. ‘Have you been studying?’

  ‘I know what it is we’re meant to know,’ I say. ‘I’ve been listening to Speel read t
he tablets for years – it’s not that hard to remember. I even read a few tablets myself, when he wasn’t watching.’

  ‘How about our son?’ says Dad to Mum. ‘The boy can read word signs. Never been taught, but he can still read them.’ Dad shakes his head in amazement.

  ‘How do you do it, Helix?’ asks Mum.

  It’s a good question. How do I do it? ‘They just make sense to me,’ I say.

  Most tablets say pretty much the same thing, anyway. First of all, there’s the begetting – everyone seems to beget everyone else. Then there is talk of the heavens, which is almost always followed by the word ‘glorious’. It seems that everything cave people have ever done has been glorious, especially when compared to the river people who, if you believe Speel, have been swimming in mud since the day they were created.

  Sherwin has decided it’s time to get up. He shuffles over to the fire, deliberately swiping my head with his elbow as he sits down beside me.

  ‘Ouch!’ I say. ‘That hurt.’

  ‘Sorry, little bro. Was an accident.’

  ‘Sure it was,’ I say.

  ‘Boys,’ says Mum, in her warning tone. Beside her is the whacking stick, though it could almost be described as a club. Mum’s used it to threaten us with discipline for as long as I can remember. One good shake of the whacking stick is normally enough to get us to stop doing whatever it is we’re doing. Even on its own and not in Mum’s hand, it looks threatening.

  ‘What’s for breakfast?’ says Dad.

  ‘You should know,’ says Mum. ‘You caught it yesterday.’

  I look at the blackened outlines on sticks.

  ‘Gecko kebab!’ says Dad. ‘Very tasty indeed.’

  Mum looks up at him, unimpressed. She passes the gecko kebabs around, giving me the biggest one, which isn’t that big. ‘Here, Helix. Eat up. You need to put on some weight.’

  As Mum, Sherwin and I begin to crunch away on our gecko kebabs, Dad takes the opportunity to raise his favourite topic: torism.

  ‘That reminds me,’ he says, ‘I’ve been doing some more thinking about our torism idea.’

  ‘Our torism idea?’ says Mum, charred pieces of gecko flying from her mouth and spraying Dad.

  Dad is momentarily blinded by a gecko toe in his eye, but he keeps going: ‘Ours … yours … mine … it doesn’t matter, Barb. The point is, I think it has great potential. People could have guests in their cave in exchange for skins. Or, if they’re not interested in earning skins, if they only want to visit another part of the mountain, they could just swap caves with someone else. I call it “caveswap”.’

  ‘Jerg,’ says Mum, ‘no one in their right mind would want to swap caves with someone from the Dark Side.’

  Dad concedes this point. ‘Okay, but what about folk from Rockfall swapping with folk from Newstone? Haven’t you heard how dry and spacious those Newstone caves are? I hear there’s enough room to swing a bandiquoll above your head without hitting the cave walls.’

  ‘That might be so, dear, but I can’t imagine living somewhere so new and different, somewhere without a past. I mean, look at our cave – it’s full of beautiful paintings from the ancestors.’

  It’s true – our cave certainly does have a lot of artwork in it. But I wouldn’t call it beautiful. The highlights are:

  Great-great-uncle Berg spearing an ibex and then standing on top of it in a celebratory pose

  Great-great-great-uncle Ferg chasing what looks to be a sacred bison, which is a long way in the distance (Note: not even our family would try to fool the world into thinking we had successfully hunted a sacred bison)

  ancient Second Cousin Ergnut, demonstrating his special talent of crushing rocks under his armpits (I’m not quite sure how this came in handy, but it does look rather impressive).

  ‘Anyway,’ says Dad, sounding deflated, ‘it’s just an idea.’

  ‘I think it’s great,’ I say. ‘Why shouldn’t we get to know how other folk on the mountain live?’

  ‘Yeah right. As if,’ says Sherwin.

  Mum pats me on the head.

  I go back to my blackened gecko threaded on a stick. I wonder for a moment what river people eat for their breakfast. Ug says their food grows from the ground, so is not fit for mountain folk.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ says Sherwin, turning to me.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I say.

  ‘What are you going to do when you fail your Arrival?’

  ‘Sherwin, that’s enough,’ says Mum.

  ‘He’ll do just fine,’ says Dad.

  I build up some courage to speak back. ‘Maybe if I practise, I’ll get better,’ I say.

  ‘In your dreams!’ says Sherwin, gnawing on a lump of gecko charcoal. ‘The day you become a caveman is the day I become a river person.’

  I’ve had enough of Sherwin, so decide to pull out my secret weapon. ‘Maybe the day I become a caveman is the day you get a wife!’ Ha!

  Sherwin stops breathing for a moment and his eyes try to free themselves from their sockets. He drops what’s left of his breakfast and lunges at me, clasping my neck with his hands.

  I can’t break his grip. He’s too strong. Dad jumps on top of him, trying to pull him off me. Mum is screeching like an angry vulture and slowly everything goes dark as my air runs out …

  I’m brought back to life with a splash of cold water. Mum has squirted a bladder of water over Sherwin’s head and he’s released his grip.

  ‘It burns, it burns!’ says Sherwin, with his hands over his eyes. Mountain folk don’t like water in their eyes. It makes them think of the river.

  Some of the water has ended up in Dad’s face, too. ‘Can’t. See,’ he says, rolling on the ground and rubbing his eyes.

  ‘Serves you all right,’ says Mum. ‘Come on. The Gathering is starting soon.’

  Folk from Newstone, about fifty to sixty of them, have travelled along the Common Way and are arriving in Rockfall for this morning’s Gathering. They are neatly dressed and reasonably clean (compared to the dirt-encrusted Rockfall folk), and are gathered in a tight huddle as if they’re trying to avoid contamination from Rockfall.

  As is custom, Dark Side folk aren’t invited to the Gathering; this is because they are outcasts, with some being part-beast, according to Speel. But although they are not allowed to come to Rockfall, they are still seen as part of the mountain and expected to follow the rules laid down by Korg the Magnificent and Speel.

  The Gathering occurs at the speaking rock, which is really more of a boulder than a rock. It is higher than me and has a flat platform on top where the speaker stands. Three steps are carved into its side so that old folk like Korg the Magnificent can climb to the top without having to scrabble up its rounded surface (which would be pretty humiliating for Korg given his importance).

  According to Speel, the rock was a gift from the heavens to the people of the mountain. It fell during the time of Korg the Originator and was given to us because we were the only people with anything important to say. The river people, of course, had no need for a speaking rock, because they had nothing of interest to say to each other … So the story goes.

  Korg is helped up the steps to the top of the rock. The mumbles of the crowd die down until there is silence.

  ‘Good morning, folk of the mountain,’ he says with his raspy voice. ‘Thank you all for coming to this Gathering. Especially, thanks to those folk from Newstone who have made the journey along the Common Way to be here. Before I let Speel speak, let me remind you that although we may live apart, we are all of the one clan and, therefore, have a responsibility to each other.’ He finishes and steps down off the speaking rock.

  Speel steps up onto the rock. Although Korg the Magnificent is the ruler of the mountain, it seems to me that Speel does most of the talking these days. His lone eyeball scans the crowd and his tongue rolls about in his mouth as if something in there doesn’t taste good. He is carrying a small tablet. On it, I assume, is carved something of importance.

/>   ‘Ahem,’ he starts, clearing a blockage in his throat. ‘Folk of the mountain. As you are all aware, we live in difficult times. The river folk from the lowlands are growing in numbers. They cross the river and hunt in the woods, which are lands belonging to the mountain folk.’

  This is the first I’ve heard of river folk crossing the river into our lands.

  ‘Now, more than ever, we need to act as one to protect the glorious legacy of the mountain, the legacy that was born in Rockfall. With that in mind, after careful consideration, I … Korg and I have decided that we must create a skin stockpile, to be maintained in case our hunting grounds become decimated even further. In addition to this, the meat from the skins will serve to replenish the store caves for the coming winter. To that effect, a new levy will be placed.’

  A fed-up groan comes from the crowd, but it’s quickly silenced as Speel’s eyeball bulges in fury.

  ‘As of today, there will be a new skintax. Cavemen and cavewomen from Newstone will be asked to deliver ten skins per mooncycle, with no more than five coming from palm-square beasts. Rockfall folk will be required to deliver five skins from beasts of their choosing.’

  ‘Palm-square beasts’ are animals that can fit in a caveman’s palm – the kind of animals my family eats.

  The Newstone folk clearly aren’t happy, but because of their polite nature, the most they’re doing is putting their hands on their hips and shaking their heads disapprovingly. They are wondering why they’re being asked to carry the burden … But Speel hasn’t finished yet.

  ‘And as for those folk living on the Dark Side …’ Speel clears his throat again. ‘Because of the known riches of their hunting grounds, they will be required to provide twenty skins per mooncycle, with no palm-square beasts permitted.’

  The Newstone folk are yabbering away to each other and sound relieved – the Dark Side’s twenty skins makes their ten look much more reasonable. I wonder how Dark Side folk will react when they receive a mail tablet informing them of the new skintax.