The Back of Our Heads by Stephen Barr (best new books to read .txt) 📖

Q. You say you object to this line of questioning?

A. (She) No, I just don't like being spied on. And it made the kids ... mad. They wrecked the car and that meant starting all over again.

Q. The car?

A. Yes, their hot-rod. When we got outside, they acted the way teen-agers do and went too fast. They were sore at those spies—they took it out on the car, so it went off the road. It turned over three times and we were all killed.

Q. They were not spies. They were acting on their own.

A. I didn't know that. I just knew something was funny. Anyway, how can you say that? They're a waste. And it would have been part of you, just as I am. It was more of a waste if I hadn't been split. The other part was only about eleven years old and I had to wait another six years to—

Q. It is your own fault if you were split. You cannot blame us. This has happened before—you have aimed badly and arrived wrong. Don't forget about the help.

A. Well, in this case it's a lucky thing I did; otherwise the whole thing would have been wasted. And the kelp—that was dreadfully dull. I wanted to try a really primitive form, but not that primitive. Then I got washed up and it led to the cat. After they got the iodine out of the kelp, I was suddenly a cat.

Q. This has not been reported.

A. I'm reporting it now. It wasn't dull in the least, but they were very superstitious about cats in those days, and they decided I was possessed.

Q. They saw through you?

A. Oh, yes. People usually do.

Q. You couldn't have been very successful if they saw through you.

A. It doesn't make any difference if they see through you. The important thing is to see through them.

Q. But you were a cat.

A. Cats are in a very good position to see through people. I think they sensed that. Anyway, I was ... done away with.

Q. Burned again?

A. Yes.

Q. Seems to be a habit of yours. What happens? How does it feel?

A. I cannot explain it to you, but I know what to do. It's not my habit—it's one of theirs, but it's dying out in most places now. And there was a time when it would never have occurred to them. They were too frightened of it.

Q. Frightened of what?

A. Of fire. It was very new then....

The hunters came back to the cave at dusk, and one of them went to the fire that was kept going constantly in front of the opening. He took a dry branch and held it in the fire until the end caught. Then he held it up. "If we take this, we can hunt in the dark," he said. "And when it is nearly eaten by the fire, we can take another branch and start it again. That way we do not need the moon."

"That way we can hunt until we are tired," said the other.

"That way we can kill twice as much game," said the first.

"There is so much game in the cave now," a young woman said, "that it is beginning to smell."

The older hunter glanced at her apprehensively; she made him feel foolish, always finding fault with his plans. "Perhaps so," he said. "But at other times we starve."

"Besides," she said, "if you take the fire with you to see where you are going and to see the game, the game will see you."

The hunters looked at one another and shrugged. The woman went into the cave and returned with an earthenware pot. There were pieces of raw meat and some water in it and she put it on the fire, propping it in position with three stones. The second hunter looked at the pot curiously. He was a younger brother from the other side of the valley, where he lived with his mates. He pointed at the pot and looked inquiringly at the older brother.

"She made it out of mud," the older brother said.

"Why doesn't it fall apart with the water in it?"

"I put it into the fire first, for a long time," the young woman said. "A very big fire. The mud gets red—and then it gets hard so it won't melt when the water is in it."

The younger man looked surprised. "Magic?"

"Yes," said the other man.

"Nonsense," said the woman. She went back to the cave and the young man put the end of his spear into the fire and tried to scrape the side of the pot with the flint head, but the flint was cold and it cracked. He pulled it back and was looking angrily at it when she came out again and sat on the ground. She had an armful of roots which she began to scrape with a sharp stone. "The spearhead is made of the wrong sort of stone," she said, without looking up. "That is why it broke in the fire."

"It's made of the right kind!" the young man shouted. "All spearheads are made of that kind! They always have been and they always will be! How did you know it broke in the fire? You weren't looking."

"I heard it make the sound it makes when the fire breaks it."

The young man glowered and pushed his under lip out. "This kind of stone was put in the cave for us to make knives and spears. And it makes a very sharp edge when you know how to form it."

"No sharper than this knife," she said, holding up the stone in her hand. "This doesn't break so easily."

The young man took it and examined it carefully. "How do you strike it to make it this shape?" he said, and then, grudgingly, "It is very smooth—a very good shape."

"You don't strike it," she said, taking it back and going on scraping the roots. "You rub it on another stone—first on the kind that has the bright sparkles in it, and then under water on the flat gray kind. It's much better than your knives and the fire doesn't break it so easily."

She finished with the roots and put them in the pot with the meat.

"Where do you find such big roots?" the young man asked his brother.

"Over there," the brother said, pointing to a patch of earth nearby. "She finds them there."

"I don't find them," she said. "I put them there in the first place."

"You mean you store them in the earth?" the young man said.

"No. I put the tops in the ground—the blue and yellow flowers—and next warm season I dig and there are the new roots. You have to put water on the earth when it gets dry. Also you have to pull up all the small plants that grow there among them. It's very hard work."

"More magic," said the young man.

"It's not magic!" she said. "You are stupid. Haven't you noticed that when you leave an acorn on the ground, it breaks open and a finger goes down into the earth? And then, after the next rains, it makes little leaves—and if you leave it alone, it grows and in time becomes a young tree?"

"Everyone knows that," the young man said disdainfully.

"Well, this is the same."

"Yes, but what makes the roots so big? I never saw any like these."

"That's because I only take the flowers from the plants that have the biggest roots. And if any of the new roots are little, I throw away the flowers from them. Far away."

"What do you do with the little roots?"

"Eat them."

"I don't understand. If you eat the little roots, why don't you get little roots?"

"You are being foolish again!" the young woman said. "A tall man has tall sons."

"If he eats the meat of a tall animal," said the young