The Lord of the Plains (18 page)

Without warning Razra was up again, the rest
of his lunch having already disappeared and started off towards one
of his groups. Then he remembered Riley and stopped, ‘Hey, come
on!’ he called over his shoulder.

Riley didn’t ‘come on’ until she had
finished her lunch. By then Razra was already deep into one of the
groups and his voice could easily be heard across the
playground.

Riley approached the group and watched as
was her way. Razra spotted her and grabbed her arm. ‘Look, guess
what it is!’ Razra pointed at the waist high pile of slush.

Riley looked at it for a moment. ‘Snow.’ she
said after a moment.

Razra burst out laughing. He thought she was
joking. ‘It’s Jeitar!’ he said. ‘It’s a snow Jeitar!’

Just then Ms Thrope summoned them all back
inside with her piercing voice. The children abandoned the snow
Jeitar and ran into the classroom. Razra was still grabbing her
arm. ‘Tomorrow we’ll make a snow Molozor to go with Jeitar! Then an
army of gemengs for them to fight!’

The next day the children ate quickly and
set out in groups to make their snowmen. There really wasn’t that
much snow in the yard and Riley saw that the human children tended
to exclude the gemengs from the play, and in some cases steal their
snow.

Riley looked around the grounds. All the
snow was taken. She thought for a moment about where the snow came
from and its path from there to here. Then she moved away from the
school building and looked up at it. The roof was flat. It wasn’t
that high…she quickly plotted a route to the roof. She checked to
make sure no one was watching her and started her ascent. She was
careful as this was a climb she had not done before and the snow
and ice made it slippery.

Once she was at the top she crouched down
and made sure no one was watching. She’d been unnoticed. She crept
into the middle of the roof where she had less chance of being seen
from the ground. Then she smiled.

The roof was covered in pure white snow.

She thought of building her own snow man and
then thought of pushing the snow off the roof so the other children
could play with it. But if she did that the humans would just steal
it from the gemengs. No, wouldn’t it be best if she could invite
the gemengs up here?

She got down onto her belly and slid towards
the edge and surveyed the playground. She didn’t want the teachers
or humans to know what she was doing, and she didn’t want the
gemengs to get hurt getting up here. There were many challenges to
her goal. First of all, she thought, she should approach the
gemengs and determine which ones had the ability to get up here
without getting hurt and which ones were interested in getting up
to the roof to play.

Riley crept back to the centre of the roof.
She surveyed the snow again. If she brought other children up here
she probably wouldn’t get to play with the snow herself; she would
be too busy managing the operation.

There was some time left before Ms Thrope
would summon them back inside. Riley took that time to begin her
career as a snow builder.

When Ms Thrope came to call everyone back
inside Riley didn’t hear her. She was looking at her snow Aerlid
and snow Riley thoughtfully. She was beginning to think the only
way the other children would get to play with this lovely snow was
if she had Ms Thrope’s cooperation. The climb could quite easily be
dangerous for the other children, and it was highly unlikely no one
would notice children climbing up and down the building.

Down below Ms Thrope was demanding to know
where Riley Meilis was.

Her voice had risen by then and Riley heard
her. She looked up in alarm. For a moment she was still. She was
pretty sure she could get down without being seen, but she wanted
Ms Thrope to allow the gemeng children up here. So if she would
have to reveal she’d been climbing up here anyway, why not now?

Riley walked to the edge of the roof and
waved down at the other children. Ms Thrope caught sight of her and
made a sound much like some of the water birds Riley was familiar
with. She was somewhat bewildered by this. She knew what Aerlid
meant when he made bird calls, but what did Ms Thrope mean? Anxious
now, because she didn’t know what was going on, Riley quickly and
lithely climbed down the side of the building.

She stood in front of Ms Thrope, who was
just looking at her with big bug eyes. This made Riley slightly
less anxious, that was a look Aerlid got on his face sometimes when
he was going to be unreasonable about something perfectly
reasonable.

There was silence for a few moments as Ms
Thrope scrutinized Riley and she looked up at Ms Thrope and all the
children gathered around behind Ms Thrope looked at her
curiously.

‘What were you
doing
?’ Ms Thrope
finally asked, her voice a tad strained.

‘I was playing with the snow,’ then with a
great deal of eagerness Riley launched into an explanation of what
she had been doing. ‘There’s lots of snow up there to play with,
it’s cleaner than the snow down here. I thought the gemengs would
like to play with it because the human children don’t let them play
with the snow down here. Can they play with the snow up there, Ms
Thrope?’

Riley was beaming at Ms Thrope. It had a
startling effect on her appearance, as happens with all people when
they are suddenly radiating happiness. The expressions on the faces
of the human children ranged from startled to indignant that she
would say such things about them. It wasn’t meant as a judgement
upon them, merely as a statement of what she saw as fact.

Ms Thrope raised her eyes to the top of the
building. She could see some snow just over the lip of the
building, and a shimmer where there was some ice.

She lowered her eyes to Riley, who was still
beaming.

Somewhat weakly she said, ‘I-I’ll think
about it.’ And with that she herded everyone inside, her usual
force somewhat lacking.

When Riley got home that day she was
positively bouncing around. She shared with Aerlid all the details
of her day and told him how she had made a snow Aerlid and a snow
Riley and Ms Thrope said she would think about letting the gemeng
children play with the snow.

Aerlid watched her calmly, a smile on his
face.

‘I need some of your clothes.’ Riley said
levelly when she was done.

Aerlid eyebrows raised slightly at this,
‘you need some of my clothes?’ he asked, his voice remaining calm
with some effort.

‘For the snow Aerlid.’ Riley said with a
smile.

‘Ah…’ Aerlid replied with some relief. That
could have been a much stranger request, coming from Riley. ‘So
where did you find this snow?’ he asked, changing the subject and
hoping Riley wouldn’t ask again- he didn’t have so many clothes
that he could donate them to snowmen.

‘On the roof.’ And Riley launched into
another animated monologue about the snow.

Aerlid had rarely seen her so excited and
was happy for her. He waited for her to take a breath and quickly
got in, ‘Riley.’

That stopped her in her tracks. She looked
up at him with her big green eyes and a giant smile on her little
face.

‘You shouldn’t climb the buildings here,
you’re very lucky you didn’t get into any trouble.’ he said gently,
not wanting to ruin her happiness.

Her mood dampened, she nodded her
understanding.

Riley didn’t get an answer the next day or
the day after but on the day before Restday Ms Thrope declared,
that after consultation with the other teachers, gemengs could play
on the roof.

Riley was delighted and the oddness of such
a decision by teachers (or anyone in charge of looking after
children) didn’t really strike her. When lunchtime came Riley
rushed outside. She was very excited. When she got outside she
noticed a tall ladder set up next to the building.

That ladder clearly wasn’t meant for her,
though she was pleased thought had been given to those who couldn’t
climb like she could. The other gemeng children were not quite as
thrilled as Riley was. When Riley saw them though she gathered them
up and pointed towards the ladder, explaining if they liked they
could play with the snow on the roof now.

When the children didn’t follow, Riley
climbed up the ladder to show them it was alright and then back
down again. She wasn’t aware of some of the human children giving
her and the gemeng children dark looks. Despite this, when the
gemeng children saw she could climb up and down easily, and saw
that the teachers did not get upset with them they hesitantly, then
with more feeling, climbed up the ladder to the rooftop.

Not all the gemeng children went, but this
was ok too. Riley didn’t think it was a good idea for the roof to
get too crowded. It might not be safe for the others. Riley
followed the last gemeng child up. She gazed over her rooftop with
pleasure as the children began relaxing and playing with the
snow.

Riley didn’t play. She patrolled the roof to
make sure no one fell. Every now and then she climbed down to see
if anyone wanted to come up.

All was well on the roof that day and for
the rest of the days after that, while the snow remained. Riley was
happy during this time, though Aerlid wasn’t so happy that the
teachers had allowed children (any children, gemeng or human) up on
the roof.

Eventually Riley suggested to Ms Thrope some
human children could play on the roof too- Razra had been asking
her for a while (’Why won’t you let me come play, hmm?’, ’Molozor
always plays with Jeitar, how come I can’t come too?’). Ms Thrope
shot that suggestion down immediately, with something akin to
horror on her face.

Chapter 13

It was a very big deal. Such a big deal
Riley was aware of something building up in the schoolyard for many
days. It wasn’t until the end of the week that the tension reached
its peak, and the thing they’d all been waiting for finally
happened.