CHAPTER 23 – LEAVING JIBA

Two days later, their possessions were all in tattered bags or tied to their bodies. They broke up the huts and scattered the pieces. They filled in the waste trenches and hid the pathways with fallen leaves and dirt. Every girl was covered with equipment and supplies tied anywhere that string or rope would hold. Every algaskin was full. The tiny breadfruit had been boiled until they dissolved, and they had shared the sticky, tasteless paste. Sorrel could still feel it in her mouth despite hourly rinsing. Water would soon be rationed in sips. Rashelope had an old net in her stores and they stretched it across the dying river and ate the raw fish it caught. Then they ate the tiny river snails, shells and all, and the shrimp they found under the few rocks that were still sitting in water. They caught dragonflies and crickets in smaller nets, roasted them in little underground fires and ate them too. They trapped and ate the few remaining birds – breaking all the rules about the circumstances in which animals could be eaten. Rashelope caught a hummingbird and shared it with no one. They spat out feathers, bones and grit. Some vomited and Sorrel saw the way Caroni looked at them. A dehydrated human was as good as dead.

They had made piles of the things they had accumulated and sorted them over and over again, trying to decide what to abandon and what to take. How heavy was this? How useful was that? They helped each other to find ways to secure their possessions to their bodies. They inspected their shoes and tested them, turning their ankles and pulling at makeshift laces. Sorrel’s boots were showing signs of wear. The skins of rodents that had been used to make footwear were patched and repaired.

They didn’t know what to do with the large piles of bedding. Some wanted them burned, others suggested throwing them in the river. Caroni said, no – the fires would be seen, and the river would be blocked.

“Why do we care?” Rashelope demanded. “We’re leaving. Who cares what happens to the river?”

Caroni looked at her. “We are not scorched earth people,” she said. “If the river is blocked, it will flood and spread out and be seen from the sky.”

They packed stores of food – alganola, dried insects, fruit. Very few skynuts.

In the end, they took what they could not carry, hide or destroy to the cave, leaving it far from the entrance, where the roof almost touched the floor.

They planned to leave at dusk. Caroni had told them about the invasion of the Northerners, the big ships, the cliff where there could be caves, and the coming dust storm. No one challenged her decision.