The Long Earth

make sure he kept his secret for the duration of the trek, and that meant making sure he didn’t try to step without a potato in his Stepper.

He had heard about natural steppers on the net. Then, back in West 1, just for the hell of it, one night he’d tried to step with the potato out of the box, a box without power. He was amazed when it worked. Oddly enough, he still needed the box, to throw the switch. He needed to hear the click to be able to step, it seemed; how weird was that?

Yes, he’d heard rumours about people like him. And other rumours, about beatings of such people. Like you were a freak, or unnatural. So he’d keep himself to himself on the trek, and replace the potato, and fake the nausea, and all the rest. It wasn’t so hard when you got the habit.

Although you did start to wonder how many of those around you were similarly faking too.

He slept well that night, dreaming of hot forges and distant hills.

18

DAY THREE (since Richmond West 10).

Three days already! But Captain Batson says it is going to take us a hundred days to cross the Ice Belt. And then we’ll take months more to cross the Mine Belt, whatever that is. We have to get to where we’re going before winter comes. And winter comes the same on all the worlds.

We’re doing about a step a minute, for about six hours of every day. We take pills to stop from being sick all the time, but it’s still an effort. They try to lead us to places where the ground level doesn’t change much from world to world. It’s a jolt if you drop down, and you can’t step at all if your ankles would be five inches underground. But it’s quite a sight to see two hundred people with all their packs and stuff twinkling out of sight, and then twinkling back in the next world, over and over.

I miss being online.

I miss my phone!!!

I miss school. Or some of the people in it, anyway. Not some others.

I MISS ROD. Even though he could be a weirdo.

I miss being a cheerleader.

Dad says I should say some of what I like too. Otherwise this journal won’t be a fun read for his grandchildren. Grandchildren!? He should be so lucky.

Day Five.

I like camping!

We used to do some of that in West 5, and we did it in pioneer studies, but it’s a lot more fun out here.

After a couple of days we palled up with a family called the Doaks. They have four kids, two boys and two girls, and we arranged it so I’m in with the two girls, they are called Betty and Marge, and it’s like a sleepover every night!

I can build a fire! I have a lens to start the flames, and I know about tinder and kindling and what wood burns best. I can find stuff to eat, weeds, roots, mushrooms. I know about hazelnuts and fruit and stuff too but it’s not the season. I can make a fishing line out of old thread or even nettle stalks. I know where to look for the fish. Cool.

Today Mr Henry showed us how to make a trout trap in the river. You make a sort of walled pool, and they swim in, and get stuck. Mr Henry grins when he clubs the fish. I felt like crying. Mr Henry says The Youngsters Have To Learn.

Marge Doak used to be a cheerleader! We practise routines.

Day Eight.

Yesterday we hit an ice sheaf.

We’re following a trail. There are markers and everything, and little cairns, and posts that tell you what number world you’re on like highway signs, and sometimes caches of stuff. Even little boxes you can put post in to be carried East or West, depending who passes.

So we came to a sign that said ICE NEXT. We passed through a few Ice Age worlds in the first day or two, but just one at a time, and you could just rush quickly through them. Now we were coming to a band of them. We all had to stop, and the porters came and handed out the Arctic coats and trousers and ski masks and stuff. The next morning Captain Batson had us all tie up in groups of eight or ten with ropes, and made sure the babies were snug in their little papooses, with no fingers or toes sticking out.

We stepped, and it was dazzling, no clouds in a bright blue sky, and not much ice, but the ground was frozen hard as rock under my feet. And then the cold got to me, like little needles working into my cheeks.

And we stepped on, again and again. More winter worlds. Sometimes you’d come out into a white-out, or a blizzard. And other times you would come out and it would be a bit warmer, and then the ground was boggy so we left tracks if we walked, and there were these strange dwarf trees, all bent over. And midges! I saw a huge deer, with antlers like a chandelier (spelled out by Dad). Ben Doak says he saw a woolly mammoth, but nobody believes anything he says.

This is why we had to come so far south, to Richmond, to walk West. Because Datum Earth is in the middle of the Ice Belt, a bunch of worlds where they have Ice Ages, so you have to go south of the ice to where it’s possible to step. But even away from the ice caps the whole world is affected by the cold.

Some people turned back after the first night in the cold. Said they hadn’t been told about that, although they clearly had been, and should have listened.

Day Twenty-Five.

At night you have to cram into these little tents. It’s a bit close. These are strangers after all. Marge Doak is OK, but Betty has this way of picking her teeth. And she snores.

Mom got in a fight with Mr Henry, who says the women should do all the cooking and cleaning! Captain Batson says Mr Henry’s not in charge. He didn’t say it to his face though, Dad says.

Trouble and strife, lah di dah!

Day Forty-Three.

I keep forgetting to write things down. I get too tired. Plus there’s too much going on.

In the middle of the ice worlds you get milder types that are like home, ‘interglacial’ worlds (spelled by Dad). The interglacial worlds are just FULL of animals. I saw huge herds that turned out to be horses and funny-looking cows and antelopes and camels. Camels! Dad says these are like animals that were probably around in America before humans came along. Wolves. Coyotes. Elk. Curlews. Bears! Grizzlies in the forest clumps, Captain Batson says, so we keep out of there. Snakes everywhere, you have to watch out for them. Crows, ravens, turkey buzzards, owls. By day you hear the birds, and at night the frogs croaking and the mosquitoes whining, if you’re anywhere near water. Sometimes the men hunt. Rabbit and duck and even antelope.

There are armadillos! Big ones, not like in zoos. Dad says they might have wandered up from South America where they evolved. Apparently people have seen apes, in America. Sometimes the continents join up and these animals cross over, and sometimes they don’t. Nobody really knows. Nobody has a map of any of these worlds.

In some worlds we can’t find any trees at all. Then we have to collect ‘buffalo chips’ for the fire. Dung!! It burns well, but you can imagine the smell, my dear.

And there are funny worlds, where everything is like ash, or like a desert, or something. Just one world thick. There are usually signposts if it’s dangerous, and we have to put on hats or cover our mouths with filters. Captain Batson calls these worlds Jokers.

Sometimes you see where people have been before. Scruffy places, the ruins of shacks, burned-out tepees. Even crosses, stuck in the ground. In the Long Earth, hoping for the best isn’t good enough, as Mr Batson puts