‘I’m going to roll it up again,’ I said after a bit. ‘Till we get going.’
He watched me twist my pole until, foot by foot, the banner swallowed itself up. Then he stepped forward and took it from me.
‘I’ll grant you one thing,’ he said, slinging the poles over his shoulder and making off. ‘If that lot ever goes up, there won’t be much world left.’
Raising my eyes to heaven, I followed him.
Round the front of the bus, everyone was milling about impatiently.
‘We really ought to get moving,’ Josie was saying. ‘Snowballing can take hours.’
‘Snowballing?’ Mum looked confused. ‘I thought we were reclaiming hills.’
‘We were,’ said Josie. ‘Till Beth changed the plan last night. Now it seems we’re snowballing instead.’
A look of deep mystification settled on Gerald Faulkner’s face. He stared up at the clear October skies, and you could tell exactly what he was thinking: How can you snowball on a day like this? He turned to Mum for an explanation, but she was already busy complaining to Josie:
‘This snowballing is news to me. You can’t expect people to turn up and snowball out of the blue!’
‘Indeed, no.’ Gerald Faulkner supported Mum to the hilt. ‘No throwing snowballs on a day like this. Fat chance.’
Everyone stared at him, including Mum. Now she, too, shook her head in disbelief and glanced up. You could tell exactly what she was thinking as well. What is he talking about? How can you throw snowballs when there is no snow?
It was Josie who enlightened Gerald Faulkner.
‘Not that sort of snowball,’ she told him. ‘The other sort.’
‘What other sort?’
‘Haven’t you even heard?’ She sighed. ‘Groups like ours are snowballing all over the country. Two people cut a fence, and the police arrest them. Next time it’s four who do it. Then eight, sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four –’ She broke off. (I know from when she was group treasurer that mental arithmetic isn’t her strong point.) ‘And so on,’ she finished up lamely. ‘More and more people, snowballing.’
‘But what’s the point?’ asked Goggle-eyes.
Everyone stared at him worse, if you see what I mean. If I hadn’t been so busy pretending that he was nothing whatsoever to do with me, I’d have sunk my head into my hands out of pure shame.
‘What do you mean, what’s the point?’ asked poor Josie.
Goggle-eyes spread his hands.
‘Why do you bother?’
Now it was Josie’s turn to be utterly baffled.
‘Why do we bother to do anything?’ she asked. ‘Why do we reclaim hills and hand over petitions? Why do we march and hold silent candlelight vigils? Why do we write to politicians and wear our badges and send letters to the newspapers?’
She stopped and looked at Mum impatiently as if to say: ‘Honestly, Rosie! You brought this awful person. You explain.’
Mum tapped him on the shoulder.
‘Gerald –’
He didn’t notice. He was still persecuting Josie.
‘But what’s the point of getting yourselves arrested?’
‘Listen,’ said Josie. ‘There are millions who think the way we do. Millions. People of all sorts. And this way the police and the courts and the newspapers get to see that we’re not all the sorts of loonies and layabouts that can be safely ignored. They get to see growing numbers of sensible citizens who object to these places. And from our statements in court, they get to hear why.’
‘Then what?’
‘You pay the fine. Or maybe you refuse on principle.’
‘And go to jail.’
‘Better than going to the lions,’ said Mum. ‘People have done that for their beliefs before now.’
Gerald Faulkner fell silent. He looked around at all of us, staring back at him, and you could tell he thought that, apart from Jude who was still immersed in Asterix, we were all totally barmy. It was a bit of a relief when Beth came back.
As soon as I noticed who was following her over, I nudged Jude in the ribs. Unwillingly, she lifted her eyes.
‘What?’
‘Look.’
Jude looked. Her eyes lit up, and she closed the book for the first time since we arrived at the bus stop. Marching towards us was Inspector McGee, and she adores him. She’s had a passion for him ever since we decorated the fence with flowers one Easter, and when she handed him a daffodil, he ate it. (I saw him. He ate the whole thing. He kept his face straight – well, straight as you can when you’re munching a daffy – and he ate it right down to the bottom of the stalk. Now, of course, he is one of Jude’s heroes.)
‘Hello again,’ he said. He looked around for people he recognized, and when he noticed Jude, he winked. She went bright pink, and wriggled with pleasure. ‘You’ve picked a better day for it this time,’ he said.
He was dead right. Last time we had a demonstration on his patch, it sleeted in our faces all day long. We were all wretched, his officers were snarly and uncooperative, and the bus was even later than usual coming to pick us up. That was the day I distinctly overheard Mum telling Beth she’d sell her soul for a bomb to fall out of the sky and put us all out of our misery. (After a hot bath, of course, she flatly denied it.)
‘Right, then,’ said Inspector McGee, rubbing his hands. ‘Who wants to be arrested today?’
He gave Jude a mock-hopeful look, and she shook her head, going all bashful on him, and sidling out of sight behind Gerald Faulkner’s legs. There was a little bit of last-minute fussing, and then the snowballers stepped forward. Inspector McGee ran his eyes over them. You could tell he thought Beth’s granny was far too old for this sort of thing, and the two sixth-formers from St Serf’s were far too young. But he said nothing.
‘Sixteen,’ Beth said proudly. ‘Twice as many as last time!’
He wasn’t frightfully impressed. He’d brought more officers than that himself.
‘To me, it’s just twice the paperwork.’ He turned to the waiting snowballers and went all businesslike.
‘Now this is a brand-new fence,’ he warned. ‘No going mad with the wire-cutters. Only one strand each.’
He turned to everybody else.
‘I’m told the rest of you are just dying quietly.’
This time Mum managed to step on Goggle-eyes’ foot to shut him up before he even got his mouth open. She’d had enough of his embarrassing questions.
‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘The rest of us are just dying quietly.’
Jude prodded Goggle-eyes.
‘You’ll ruin your suit,’ she warned him amiably. ‘Simon told Mum that just lying down and dying once turned his best jacket into a gritty rag.’
‘Lying down?’ Along with this sudden enlightenment came pure horror. Goggle-eyes glanced at the waterlogged potholes all over the lay-by. ‘I’m not lying down!’
‘Not here,’ Jude comforted him. ‘Outside the main gates.’
Goggle-eyes groaned. He groaned so deeply and sincerely that if I hadn’t been standing there bubbling with anticipation, longing for him to ruin his best suit, I’d have felt sorry for him.
Mum sensed his gathering rebelliousness.
‘Come on,’ she said to everyone. ‘Let’s get moving. If we die quickly and they don’t hang about at the fence, we could be home by tea-time.’
‘I’ll second that,’ said Inspector McGee. ‘My lot have got as cold as stones in the vans, waiting for you lot.’
Everyone started shuffling into place, raising cardboard signs and unfurling banners. Mum usually offers to hold one end of mine, but she was taken up apologizing to Inspector McGee about the fact that, after all our promises last time, we’d been so late again. Jude, of course, trailed after the two of them like a besotted lamb. So when Gerald Faulkner sighed and reached out for the other pole, I let him take it. I thought, to be fair, that it was nice of him to offer, considering he’s against practically everything the banner stands for. (Not that he needed to worry that anyone would see him. Apart from a few passing cars, and sheep watching curiously from the other side of the road, there was no one about. They don’t shove these nuclear bases where you’re going to see them, you know. They’ve got more sense than that. They might make you nervous.)