Lint Starts School, Page 2

  Chapter Three – School Gets Worse

  Lint’s relief, however, was short-lived. The next morning, after breakfast, when Olgan got ready to go to school, Ma looked in Lint’s direction. Lint dived for cover under his furs where Tan was still sleeping. He closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep too.

  Unfortunately even Ma was not that stupid.

  She ripped the furs off him, prised open his eyelids, and told him,

  ‘Go School.’

  ‘No, Ma, we decided I wasn’t going any more,’ Lint tried to tell her, even as she picked him up and carried him across the hut to where the opening was. ‘I’m too little, and the teacher doesn’t like me. He wants me to stay at home with you…’

  But Ma didn’t listen to a thing Lint was trying to tell her. She dumped him in the dirt outside the hut, and did her door impression.

  ‘Maaa…’ Lint wailed, knowing he was losing. ‘Please?’

  But ‘please’ was not one of the words Ma knew. She gave him a blank look, and pointed at the clearing where the other kids in the school were already gathered.

  Lint took a deep breath, and turned his back on Ma.

  In the clearing, Jet and Dec were busy organising a battle. Jet had Olgan and Ayat on his side. Dec had Ithil and Unta. But because no-one dared touch Unta he was left out of the game. This meant that Dec and Ithil were outnumbered, and losing.

  When Ayat saw Lint arrive, he decided to take a rest from the battle and headed over to talk to Lint.

  ‘Olgan said you weren’t coming.’

  ‘I wasn’t.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘Ma happened.’

  Ayat nodded. Lint’s Ma was a formidable force. Everyone in the clan knew that. She went out hunting with the men, she kept a set of tools, and she had built her hut by herself, when the old one had started to leak.

  Clan rules considered it rude for a man to talk to, or look at, a woman not in their family. There were two exceptions to this rule: one was Magna, the other was Ma. The other women in the clan had stopped talking to Ma, because she was considered more of a man than a woman. Ma had started to look like a man too. She was as strong as an ape and Lint guessed she was stronger than

  Ekk. Lint watched his teacher approach the clearing. Ekk, Lint thought, had the bigger mouth; Ma, the broader shoulders. If it came to a fight between the two of them, Lint thought Ma would be the winner.

  Ekk did his usual bellow, and the school lined up. Lint didn’t want to give Ekk an excuse to shout at him, so he quickly got in line. No-one had told him where to stand in the line, but Lint was a smart lad, and he should have known. He did know, really. He knew that the biggest and strongest went first in the line, and down at the bottom were the smallest and weakest. He had watched the school line up for years. He just hadn’t ever thought that he, Lint, would be down at the bottom. It had never occurred to him that, as a new boy, he should be last. But to the rest of school, that was exactly where Lint should go.

  There was no problem at the top of the line. Well, that was not exactly true. There were a few disagreements, settled by the usual pushes and shoves. Dec took pride of place at the top of the line, his head high, his chin thrust forward. After him came Ithil, who had been at school almost as long as Dec, and did whatever Dec wanted him to do. Dec wanted him next in the line, so Ithil stood there. Next in line was Ayat because he was big and strong. Everyone could see that, and everyone respected it. After Ayat, it was either Jet or Olgan. Today it was Jet who had got there first and, once in place, dug his heels in. There was nothing Olgan could do to make him move.

  Those five made up the top half of the line. After them came a boy called Hohn, with long dark hair and a dark look on his face, a boy called Ban, who didn’t have any brains apart from those in his right arm, and a boy called Kelc, who was always scratching in the dirt with a stick in his hand.

  Until yesterday, there had been no-one else. But now there was Lint and Unta.

  Before Lint had stared school, it had always been Kelc at the bottom of the line. So Lint assumed Kelc would stay there, at the bottom. But Kelc had no intention of letting two new boys push ahead of him in the line. So when both Unta and Lint tried to position themselves ahead of Kelc in the line, a nasty fight broke out between the three of them.

  For a while Ekk did nothing but watch. Fights at school were encouraged. It was an important part of the curriculum. It was the only part of school that Lint was excited about. He had always prided himself on being a good fighter. Well, he was a good fighter at home. He and Olgan were quite evenly matched, if she didn’t find a way to cheat. And he beat Tan every time; without fail. So Lint launched himself into a ferocious scrap with Unta, who he had never liked, and Kelc, who he was sure he could beat.

  He was soon winning. He was sure of that. He had landed two blows to Unta’s tummy, and one to Kelc’s chin, when a hand descended from nowhere and Ekk hauled him out of line.

  ‘What doing?’ he snarled as he grabbed hold of a handful of Lint’s cloths, and lifted him up into the air.

  Lint heard something rip on his back. Ma, he knew, would not be pleased.

  ‘Getting into line,’ Lint sat Behind him, the fight between Kelc and Unta had come to an abrupt end. They quickly took their places in the line: Kelc next to Ban, then Unta.

  ‘There!’ Ekk shouted, dropping Lint into the dirt and pointing beyond Unta. ‘Go end.’

  Ekk put an arm around Unta and moved him up the line, so he was ahead of Kelc. Then Ekk patted Unta on the back and gave short laugh that sounded like a dog being sick.

  That morning, they did more carrying and breaking up rocks. Clan Chief Ghun came down to watch them for a bit, and Ekk explained to him what he hadn’t told the children. They were making a new hut because Ekk’s old hut was a bit small and smelly. The new one was going to be really big and really modern. Ekk had had a great idea. He was going to make a small hole in the roof. That way he could build a fire inside the hut to keep warm and the hut wouldn’t fill with smoke.

  Clan Chief Ghun shook his head. He thought Ekk’s great idea was crazy. Why would anyone want to build a brand, new hut, and then put a hole in the roof, deliberately?

  That evening, Ma spotted the rip in Lint’s cloths as soon as he came in and crouched down by the fire. She made him take them off straight away. He had to wait, cold, naked and shivering, while she sewed the bits back together again.

  ‘What happen?’ she asked.

  Lint was silent. He wanted to tell her about Ekk being a bully. He wanted to tell her that Ekk was picking on him because he didn’t have a Clan Chief for a Pa, or any Pa who could stand up for him. He wanted Ma to come to school with him in the morning, pick Ekk up by the scruff of his neck, rip his cloths and throw him in the dirt. But he hesitated. Ma would do it, he was sure she would. But he wondered how he would feel, standing there, watching her fight his battle for him. After all, Ma was, underneath it all, a woman. And he, Lint, was on his way to becoming a man.

  ‘Fighting?’ Ma asked.

  Lint nodded, and Ma picked up her bone needle with a small smile on her face. There was nothing she liked more than the idea of her boy, fighting.

  Ekk, Lint decided, looking at Ma’s contented expression, was a problem he was going to have to solve all by himself.