Lint Starts School

by A M Layet

  Chapter Five – The Chapter Titles also Get Worse

  The hut grew bigger and bigger. It became twice the size of the other huts. Then it was three times the size. Clan Chief Ghun came to have a look. He stared at it for a long time and then announced that it was big.

  ‘Will somebody tell them it’s not big, it’s enormous?’ Olgan grumbled.

  When they were not busy working or grumbling, the children were wondering why Ekk wanted such a big hut. He didn’t have a woman, or children. There was no point in him having such an enormous hut.

  ‘It’s because he wants to be Clan Chief,’ Unta muttered. ‘And he thinks if he has the biggest hut, he’ll be the next Clan Chief.’

  This idea was met with raised eyebrows and thoughtful silences. No one wanted to talk about the next Clan Chief in front of Unta. The truth was every boy in the school wanted to be the next Clan Chief, but no one was going to admit it.

  Finally all the branches were in place, and Ekk decided the hut really was big enough. It was time to make the walls. The walls of Ekk’s old hut were made from animal hide. But everything about his new hut was going to be bigger and better than his old hut. So his new walls were going to be made from mud.

  At first the children were miserable when Ekk led them to the soggy ground near the river and told them to start digging. They quickly became wet, cold and filthy. But then they realised how wonderful mud was. If you threw it at someone, you could make that person, wet, cold and filthy. As soon as Ekk’s back was turned, they started making clay balls and throwing them at each other. A great battle began. On one side, it was the top half of the line up: Dec, Ithil, Ayat, Olgan and Jet. On the other side it was the bottom half: Hohn, Ban, Unta, Kelc and Lint. The fighting was not deadly but it was very, very messy.

  Both sides were evenly matched. Size counted for nothing. In fact, it was a disadvantage as it made you a greater target. What mattered in this battle was your aim. Lint, to his delight, found that his was good. He hit his targets again and again. But Olgan also had a good aim. She threw a clay ball that caught him in the eye and temporarily blinded him.

  Just at that moment Ekk returned to see how the digging was going. But the children were so busy throwing clay balls at each other they didn’t notice. Lint wasn’t throwing clay balls but he didn’t notice Ekk either. He was trying to get the mud out of his eyes.

  Ekk gave his usual bellow and grabbed the nearest thing to hand. This was Lint’s hair.

  ‘Get in line!’ he shouted, tightening his grip on Lint’s hair, pulling the boy closer.

  Sheepishly, the children formed their line up. Dec hung his head. For some reason he felt responsible.

  Ekk raged at the children for some time. He waved his arms around too. With Lint still attached. When Ekk finally finished shouting, he sent them back to work, and let go of Lint. There was a handful of Lint’s hair in Ekk’s hand.

  Ekk told them all to keep working as they were, covered head to foot in mud. He made an exception for Unta. Unta was told to wash in the river first. Ekk didn’t want Clan Chief Ghun to see his son looking like a Neanderthal.

  The following day there was excitement in the village. The men, and Lint’s Ma, were going mammoth hunting. This had not happened for quite some time as the Mammoths were getting harder and harder to find. But one of the men had found a footprint that looked like it belonged to a Mammoth. The whole clan was excited. There were some very small children, like Tan, who hadn’t seen a mammoth before. All those old enough to have eaten one, never forgot it. Mammoths were the most delicious food around. The very thought of eating mammoth again made the clan hungry.

  The children were all hoping school would be cancelled. They knew there was no chance of them being included in the hunt, children were never allowed. But some of them planned to follow after the men and find somewhere safe to watch.

  Ekk emerged from his old hut with a swagger in his step and his head high. He carried a spear in both hands. He squared his shoulders as he walked among the other men. Today was going to be his day. He had even combed his mammoth hide last night. Mammoths were his speciality. He thought this because he wore a mammoth hide. Today, he planned to prove it to everyone else in the village.

  When he spotted Lint, Kelc and the other children among the hunters, he gave a growl and started herding them away. They came very reluctantly. Everyone had a scowl on their face as they dragged their feet over to the school clearing: even Unta, especially Unta.

  ‘Children make hut. Ekk hunt. Ekk come back. Ekk inspect hut,’ he told them, in one of his biggest ever sentences

  Unta’s mouth was already open.

  ‘But my father wants me to watch him hunt,’ he protested.

  Ekk nodded straight away.

  ‘Unta hunt,’ he agreed, ‘others make hut.’

  He put an arm around Unta and escorted him back to his father.

  There was a mutinous spirit amongst the children left behind. It was bad enough that they had to stay behind and work on the hut while the men hunted mammoth. It was even worse that Unta was allowed to go on the hunt. This was obviously, completely, unfair. The children couldn’t decide who to be more angry with: Ekk or Unta.

  They headed slowly, angrily, for the river bank. In the distance they could hear the noise of the hunt before it left the village: men shouting, women yelling, children screaming. The noise grew, swelled, reached a pitch, then fell abruptly silent. The hunt had begun.

  At the riverbank, the children reluctantly started work. But as soon as they got their hands in the mud, they forgot about the hut they were supposed to be making and started making clay balls.

  Unlike yesterday, they didn’t start throwing the clay balls straight away. They didn’t want to do battle with each other. They all felt bound together. They were the ones who had been left behind. They were united. They were a clan. They wanted to do battle with someone else, someone not in their little clan of nine. So instead of fighting each other, they made a collection of clay balls. They stocked up. They made an armoury. They got ready for battle.

  Eventually Dec decided they had enough weapons. It was time to face the enemy. He called them together.

  ‘Before we start,’ he said, ‘smear your faces in mud. Then we won’t be recognised.’

  This was obviously good advice, so they all followed it. Some of the boys followed it a bit too far, and smeared mud all over their bodies as well.

  Dec didn’t tell them where they were going, but he led them away from the riverbank and back towards the cliffs. But not to the cliffs by the village where the boy’s school cave was, instead they avoided the village and drew near to the cliffs where the girls’ school cave was.

  As they drew near to the girls’ cave, the group picked up speed. They all became excited. Olgan’s eyes were shining. Kelc’s nose was twitching. Jet’s mouth was open and he was panting slightly, which was very usual for him.

  Outside the girl’s cave there was a small clearing. It was surrounded by thick bushes. Dec made a sign to the others, and they all crept forward, silent as lions, and found hiding places in the bushes.

  The girls were inside their cave, sitting in a circle around Magna their teacher. Magna was talking and showing them something in her hand. It was difficult to see what it was, but Lint thought it was a plant. He had almost no idea what the girls did at their school. Beside him, Kelc moved forwards a little to get a better view. Kelc had a sister in the cave, Chen.

  Suddenly all the girls in the cave picked up sticks and started scratching in the dirt at their feet. This was exactly what Kelc sometimes did. Lint had never understood why, but now he realised Kelc must have been copying his sister.

  Magna kept talking and the girls kept scratching. To Lint, it all looked very boring. He could understand why Olgan didn’t want to be a girl and come here.

  Then things got a lot more interesting. The girls put down their sticks, stood up and moved outside to the clearing. The hearts of the boys, an
d one girl, watching in the bushes began to beat faster.

  ‘Now!’ Dec roared, and leapt out of the undergrowth, firing clay balls as he did so.

  The boys quickly followed Dec’s example. They came crashing through the bushes and started firing at the girls. This was a mistake. They should have concentrated on Magna. If they had overpowered Magna, they might have won the fight. Unfortunately for them, they didn’t. They ignored Magna. They were too excited to be attacking the girls.

  But you ignore Magna at your peril. She quickly assessed the situation, went back into the cave, grabbed some burning sticks from the fire and handed them out to the girls. Then she armed herself with a wooden club and got joined the fight. She clubbed every boy she could reach and, as she did so, yelled instructions to her girls.

  ‘Get him!’ she screamed, as Dec came close to three of her girls. ‘Three on one, he’s yours!’

  The fight, which had begun as an ambush, descended into something a lot worse. The boys ran out of clay balls. Some of them tried to snatch the flaming sticks from the girls’ hands. Many boys, and girls, were empty handed. This meant there was a lot of biting, hair pulling, kicking and tussling in the dirt. It was total chaos. No-one was winning, except Magna. Dec decided the best thing for the boys to do was run away.

  So they ran. Magna decided the best thing for the girls to do was chase the boys. She yelled at her girls to join in the pursuit, but they were too slow and got left behind. On her own, Magna caught up with the boys at the river bank, and began clubbing then some more. There were fresh supplies of clay balls here. The boys picked them up and hurled them at Magna, but she batted them aside like flies.

  Dec decided they had to run away again from this unstoppable woman. This time he was canny. He led the boys back to the village where there were other women: their mothers. Magna gave up her pursuit at the edge of the village and spat on the ground in disgust. Typical, worthless men, she thought.

  Not long after this, the mammoth hunters returned. They came back with empty hands and bad tempers. There had not been the smallest sign of a mammoth herd.

  One look at his pupils told Ekk they had not been making his hut. Many had singed hair, burnt fingers, and red swellings where they had been clubbed. Ekk yelled at them to line up, and watched as they limped into place, their heads hanging and their eyes downcast.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked, narrowing his already tiny eyes so they almost disappeared.

  Unfortunately for the boys, Magna was close by. She had been waiting for this moment. She strode up to Ekk and told him exactly what had happened. She stressed several things. One, the boys had ambushed her girls. Two, the boys were so pathetic and useless they didn’t deserve to be Homo Sapiens. Three, she had taught the boys a lesson and had thoroughly beaten their pathetic backsides. Four, men in general were so pathetic and useless they didn’t deserve to be Homo Sapiens. And finally, five, Ekk himself was so pathetic and useless he didn’t deserve to be a Homo Sapien.

  Ekk didn’t understand half of what Magna said. She had used ideas and concepts that were completely foreign to him, such as the numbers 1 to 5. But he did understand that the boys had lost a fight with the girls, and that Magna was insulting him.

  Ekk didn’t try to argue with Magna. It was completely beyond him. Instead, he picked up his spears and made ready to throw them at her. Magna understood exactly what this meant, and chose to leave very quickly. Ekk was left with 9 humiliated and guilty boys, and two spears. He couldn’t do the maths, so he dropped his spears, and went after them with his bare hands. The boys fled.

  Ekk went after them. He chose to go after Lint first. He followed him all the way to Lint’s hut, where he came face to face with a tired and grumpy Ma, fresh back from the failed mammoth hunt.

  Somehow, Ma and Ekk managed to have a conversation. Somehow Ekk managed to explain what had happened and Ma understood. Her mood became even worse.

  ‘Fight girls. Lose!!’ she yelled at Lint, appalled.

  It was a miserable end to a miserable day.

  Much later, when Lint settled down to sleep, with Tan on one side and Olgan on the other, he wondered when and how it had all gone so wrong. But there was something he had noticed during the day, and he thought about it now. Magna, vicious old battle axe that she was, had been really nice to the girls in her school. Until the boys arrived and attacked, she had never shouted, hurt anyone, or even looked at her weapons. As a teacher, she was completely different to Ekk; in fact she was much better than Ekk. Lint thought about this. All this time he had been thinking that school was the problem, but now he realised it wasn’t school; it was just Ekk, the teacher, who was the problem. And if they could have a new teacher, school might become all right. So all they needed to do was change the teacher. Now there was a thought.