Diggers Read Free Page B

paper shot up over the road, spread out like a sail, and rose on the wind.
    The Quarry Council was in session, in the space under the floor of the old quarry office.
    Other nomes had crowded in, and the rest of the tribe milled around outside.
    â€œLook,” said Angalo, “there’s a big old barn up on the hill, the other side of the potato field. It wouldn’t hurt to take some stores up there. Make it ready, you know. Just in case. Then if anything does happen, we’ve got somewhere to go.”
    â€œThe quarry buildings don’t have spaces under the floors, except in the canteen and the office,” said Dorcas gloomily. “It’s not like the Store. There aren’t many places to hide. We need the sheds. If humans come here, we’ll have to leave.”
    â€œSo the barn will be a good idea, won’t it?” repeated Angalo.
    â€œThere’s a man on a tractor who goes up there sometimes,” said Masklin.
    â€œWe could keep out of his way. Anyway,” said Angalo, looking around at the rows of faces, “maybe the humans will go away again. Perhaps they’ll just take their stone and go. And we can come back. We could send someone to spy on them every day.”
    â€œIt seems to me you’ve been thinking about this barn for some time,” said Dorcas.
    â€œMe and Masklin talked about it one day when we were hunting up there,” said Angalo. “Didn’t we, Masklin?”
    â€œHmm?” said Masklin, who was staring into space.
    â€œYou remember, we went up there and I said that’d be a useful place if ever we needed it, and you said yes.”
    â€œHmm,” said Masklin.
    â€œYes, but there’s this Winter thing coming,” said one of the nomes. “You know. Cold. Glitter on everythin’.”
    â€œRobins,” another nome put in.
    â€œYeah,” said the first nome uncertainly. “Them, too. Not a good time to go movin’ around, with robins zoomin’ about.”
    â€œNothing wrong with robins,” said Granny Morkie, who had nodded off for a moment. “My dad used to say there’s good eatin’ on a robin, if you catched one.” She beamed at them proudly.
    This comment had the same effect on everyone’s train of thought as a brick wall built across the line. Eventually Gurder said: “I still say we shouldn’t get too excited right at this moment. We should wait and trust in Arnold Bros (est. 1905)’s guidance.”
    There was more silence. Then Angalo said, very quietly: “Fat lot of good that’ll do us.”
    There was silence again. But this time it was a thick, heavy silence, and it got thicker and heavier and more menacing, like a storm cloud building up over a mountain, until the first flash of lightning would come as a relief.
    It came.
    â€œWhat did you say?” said Gurder, slowly.
    â€œOnly what everyone’s been thinking,” said Angalo. Many of the nomes started to stare at their feet.
    â€œAnd what do you mean by that?” said Gurder.
    â€œWhere is Arnold Bros (est. 1905), then?” said Angalo. “ How did he help us get out of the Store? Exactly, I mean? He didn’t, did he?” Angalo’s voice shook a bit, as if even he was terrified to hear himself talking like this. “ We did it. By learning things. We did it all ourselves. We learned to read books, your books, and we found things out and we did things for ourselves. . . .”
    Gurder jumped to his feet, white with fury. Beside him Nisodemus put his hand over his mouth and looked too shocked to speak.
    â€œArnold Bros (est. 1905) goes wherever nomes go!” Gurder shouted.
    Angalo swayed backward, but his father had been one of the toughest nomes in the Store, and he didn’t give in easily.
    â€œYou just made that up!” he snorted. “I’m not saying that there wasn’t, well, something in the Store, but that was the Store and this is