by A M Layet
Chapter Two
Nobody was happy with the new arrangement. Magna had no interest in teaching the boys and the boys had no wish to be taught by Magna. Even the boys’ mothers were unhappy; they didn’t want a woman teaching their boys. Ma was particularly unhappy, but she didn’t know the right words to express her thoughts and feelings, so she was just in a really, really bad mood.
‘School,’ she told Lint and Olgan in the morning, a dark scowl fracturing her face.
Reluctantly Lint and Olgan dragged themselves out of the hut. They had their own reasons for not wanting to go to school. Lint was convinced Magna was going to hate him just as much as Ekk had. She would pick on him because he was at the bottom of the line. She would make an example of him. Lint had hated school with Ekk, now, with Magna, he was sure he was going to hate it even more. He did not think he could stand the humiliation of being ordered about and pushed around by a woman. Everyone was going to laugh at him.
Olgan had a very particular concern. She was worried that Magna would find out her secret. No one had noticed she was girl so far, but no one had looked very closely. Magna was just about the only person in the clan who might notice, and then do something about it. In fact, for a long time, Olgan had been very careful to stay as far away from Magna as she could. And now Magna was going to teach her. It was a very dangerous situation.
Lint and Olgan walked to school together. They didn’t talk but they did share a common worry; they felt united, somehow. They had never shared anything before, not willingly, apart from fights.
Most of the children were already at school. Nobody was running around, messing about or having fun. The boys were standing in a huddle in the middle of the clearing, all looking at their feet. Around the outside of the clearing stood several women and a few babies like Tan. Lint looked over his shoulder. Ma had followed them out of the hut and was coming after them. Her shoulders were hunched, her face grim, her expression murderous. She looked like she was going on a hunt. His heart skipped a beat. This looked promising, he thought.
The last person to arrive was Magna. She came marching down from the boys’ cave, where she had been inspecting what was inside. Everyone looked up and watched her approach. By the time she arrived, the boys were already in their line up. The mothers had lined up as well, on the edge of the clearing, and stood there glowering at Magna.
In her hand, Magna carried her wooden club. The boys already knew what it felt like to be hit by her club. They had a lot of respect for that club. But Magna didn’t advance upon the boys, club raised high. Instead, she headed straight for the women.
‘I don’t want to see you here now,’ she told them. ‘I know what you think. I know you don’t want me to teach your boys because I am a woman, and you think I will not teach them how to be a man. But I can and I will. You will see. When it is the time for the annual hunt, I will show you what I have taught them. Then you can judge me and say what you want. But not now, not yet. And until then, you are only in my way.’
There was silence. The women were taken aback. They had not expected Magna to confront them and talk to them. They weren’t ready to leave.
‘Go!’ Magna shouted, and took another step towards the women, shaking her club.
And then they left, straight away, even Ma. Some of them hurried.
By this point, the boys were all shaking. Lint could feel his knees knocking together. He felt terribly exposed at the end of the line. He would have done anything to swap places with Kelc next to him in the line. Magna had just stood up to and scare off the women. She had been outnumbered ten to one. What hope did the boys have? None, Lint thought.
Dec was wishing heartily he had not turned against Ekk last year but had hunted the wolverine instead. If he had caught it, he might have been allowed to leave school and carry his own weapons. Lint was wishing he had never started school. Olgan, for the first time in her life, was thinking that going to the girls’ school might not be so bad, after all. She quickly squashed that thought. Going to the girls’ school not so bad! What was wrong with her? She squared her shoulders and raised her chin. She would not let Magna intimidate her.
Magna did not stand in front of the line, bellow at the boys, and wave her club around the way Ekk had, the way the boys expected she would. Instead, she put down her club and walked to the very bottom of the line, to Lint. She looked him in the eye. He looked at the dirt. His heart was beating so fast it sounded like a mammoth stampede. Then Magna opened her mouth and did something so unexpected, so unusual, so, so, so new, that Lint was left speechless. She asked Lint his name.
He shook his head, unable to reply. He was in a state of shock. Ekk had never asked Lint his name , not once.
‘Name?’ Magna asked again, carefully keeping her question to just one word so as not to confuse Lint.
But Lint could still not reply. He did not quite know what had happened to his voice, but it was gone, like a flame blown out. Magna sighed. This was going to be worse than she had thought. The boys were savages. She tried one last time. She had no hope that the boy in front of her would actually say anything intelligible.
‘Name?’
And from somewhere far down the line came the reply,
‘Lint.’
Magna looked up sharply. She narrowed her eyes. The boy's lips hadn't moved. She said nothing, but she was thinking fast. Interesting, she thought.
She moved on. Lint was free from her, and suddenly felt able to shout his name to the treetops. He had no idea why he hadn’t been able to say it a moment before.
Kelc, to Lint’s dismay, managed to tell Magna his name. Unta’s name Magna knew already. He just had to nod. He always had it easy. But, to Lint’s delight, neither Ban nor Hohn managed to say their names. Both had to be rescued by Olgan who, again, called out their names from further down the line.
Finally Magna reached Olgan. She stared at her for a long time, even though Olgan said her name right away. There was a terrible silence. Lint began to think it might be quite nice if Olgan was sent to the girls’ school. It would free up a place in line between Jet and Hohn; a place where Lint would like to stand. But, eventually, Magna moved onto Ithil and Dec. She had said nothing to Olgan. Maybe Magna didn’t realise, Lint thought. Maybe she’s not so bright after all. It sent a flicker of hope through him.
The first thing Magna asked her new students to do was to go and collect their tools. There was a rush to the back of the cave. Everybody loved tool making. There was only one thing better than making your own tools and that was using them, going hunting. Dec came back from the cave first, proudly carrying his spear aloft. Ithil also had a spear that looked finished, even though it wasn’t really ready. Ayat, Jet and Olgan were still sharpening their flint blades, but they brought these out anyway. They wanted to show them off. In the clan, the better your spear, the more respected you were. No one cared a monkey’s bottom how sharp your stick was. Sharpened sticks were for Neanderthals. Spears were what counted.
Magna took one look at the assortment of half finished spears, blades, sticks and bones, then sighed and shook her head as if she’d just seen a deer run free.
‘Is that all you’ve got?’ she asked. ‘Do you have any tools that aren’t spears or blades?’
She looked down at ten blank faces.
‘We’re not allowed to make clubs.’ Dec told her. ‘Not at school.’
‘I know,’ Magna told him, ‘but there are other tools apart from clubs, spears and sticks.’
Everyone still looked blank.
‘Like what?’ Dec asked.
‘Like a net, to name just one. Have you got a net here?’
‘No.’
‘Right, we’ll start with that.’
Then, to everyone’s dismay, Magna made them all take their tools back to the cave, and led them empty handed to the nearest nettle patch.
No one listened to Magna’s instructions as she showed them how to de-sting the nettles. Lint saw Dec roll his eyes at It
hil behind Magna’s back as the instructions went on and on.
‘We’re going to need a lot,’ Magna told them when she had finished explaining, ‘So let’s get started.’
None of the boys noticed she had stopped talking. There was a light breeze in the air. The sun was shining. It was a perfect day to go hunting. Every boy was wondering when were they going to practice hunting. It was the whole point of school. Last year, they had spent all year wallowing in mud and building a hut. So far, this year, Magna had done nothing but lead them to a nettle patch. It was about as far from hunting as it was possible to get.
By the end of the day, no one was happy. Not any of the boys, who had collected more stings than nettles, and not Magna either, who was exasperated by their efforts, or lack of effort. She ended up picking and de-stinging the nettles herself. When the pile of collected stalks was nearly what they needed, Magna looked up and around. She found that all the boys had disappeared, apart from Olgan. Olgan soon realised this too. Before Magna could say anything, Olgan ran for cover as if her life depended upon it. Magna shook her head and smiled.
Back at the village, the boys were complaining loudly to anyone who might listen.
‘She’s the worst teacher ever,’ Ithil grumbled. ‘She’s making us do girls’ stuff.’
‘Ekk was much better,’ Hohn said, ‘We did proper stuff with him. Rock breaking, rock carrying, things that made us strong.’
‘And we learnt how to construct a building,’ Dec added.
Ban nodded.
‘Yeah,’ he agreed, ‘And we made a hut.’
Dec looked at Ban with scorn. ‘That’s what I said.’
‘Yeah,’ Ban agreed again. ‘Me too.’
‘And Ekk had a proper set of tools,’ Ithil continued, ‘and he wore a mammoth hide. What does she have, apart from that wooden club? It’s not even a proper club made of stone.’
The boys’ memory of Ekk was completely transformed. Only a few days ago he had been the worst teacher ever: cruel, selfish and lazy. Now he was the best teacher ever: strong, experienced and manly. Everything they wanted to be.
Very soon, Jet was saying,
‘If only Ekk would come back, we wouldn’t need Magna anymore.’
Dec took charge at once.
‘We’ll just have to go and hunt him down, and make him come back,’ he said.
Everyone wanted to go on the hunt.
‘We all chased him away. We should all bring him back,’ Hohn argued.
But Dec refused.
‘No, that was different. This could be tricky. We don’t know where he is. Just Ithil and I will go.’
No one was happy with this apart from Ithil, but Ayat didn’t like to argue, Olgan wasn’t there to support Jet, and none of the other boys were strong enough to challenge Dec.
Lint was particularly unhappy. He said nothing to the others, but privately he thought the idea of bringing Ekk back was the worst idea ever. The others might have forgotten Ekk’s bad points, but Lint would never forget. It was Lint who Ekk had picked on. Lint who Ekk had blamed whenever anything went wrong. Magna was bad, but, so far, she was not as bad as Ekk. If Ekk came back to school, Lint would leave. For him, it was as simple as that.