Out of Time by John Marsden Page A

down the cliff faces, powdered earth blew from the rocky surface.
    â€˜Â â€œIn the centre of this plain of constant movement was a still eye. Three white gravestones stood there: dull, cracked, worn, but firm and straight. The travellers struggled towards them. The sky moved and groaned. Naomi’s face was grey with knowledge. She bent and read the first one, then the second, then the third. She stepped back. ‘What do they say?’ her companions asked. ‘I can’t tell,’ Naomi answered, ‘what they say. The words keep changing. The first one was either. . . I don’t know. . . either “Greed” or “Grief”. The second one. . . either “Ignorance” or “Innocence”, and the third one. . . I can’t tell. . . perhaps “Hate”. Or perhaps “Hope”.
    â€˜Â â€œThe three stood helplessly in the listening air. Minutes passed. Then Naomi noticed a small bush atthe crumbling edge of the plateau. Its small white flowers trembled as the roots of the bush were exposed by the scattering soil and dropping rocks. Naomi ran to it and repacked stones and dirt around it, making the bush secure. At last, having succeeded in her self-appointed task, she stood up. Amazingly, it took her a moment to notice that everything had changed.” ’
    Ellie seemed to have paused.
    â€˜Everything had changed?’ James repeated.
    â€˜That’s all there is,’ Ellie said.
    â€˜That’s all there is?’
    â€˜Yes.’ Ellie showed him the blank page in the book. James raised his eyes and corrugated his forehead.
    â€˜What kind of book is that?’ he asked again.
    â€˜Well,’ Ellie said. ‘It’s full of these little stories and they all seem to link together but I’m not sure how, or what they mean. For instance, the one before this was about a city where everybody lives in parks and they go into houses to play. But then people start to demolish the houses. So Naomi and her friends take the timber and plant it in the ground and water it until it grows back into trees.’
    â€˜Gee,’ said James. ‘Full of opposites.’
    A car came up the driveway and James stood and peered out the window.
    â€˜Dad,’ he said. Ellie closed the book and took it to her room. James went into the rumpus room and turned on the TV.
    *
    FEELING HANDS UNDER her armpits, hard hands that dug in and poked her, the girl squirmed and opened her eyes. The daylight hurt her eyes so she closed them again. Then the pain of her leg engulfed all other pain: it swept her away on a private river, until she was aware of nothing else.
    When next she was conscious of the world she found herself in a bed, a hospital bed, with a nurse standing over her. The nurse was mouthing words. The girl could hear the sound of a voice but could not make out any of the words. With the weight of a hundred years on her eyelids she wearily slipped back into sleep.
    JAMES SAT ON a wall, watching a group of off duty military men. They formed a circle around an area covered with old bricks and building material. Armed with crowbars they were levering rubble away, flushing out the rats who had been harbouring there for many months. From time to time, as a rock was prised away, there was a storm of wild movement: a rat with nose pointed forward and fur flattened dashed through the cordon. About a third of them got away but most were smashed to a halt under the heavy blows of the bars. Some died in a silent thud, some died in a squealing threshing of broken legs and bloody squirming.
    James did not know what to think. He hated and feared the rats. Whenever he saw one scurrying around the ground, with its curious mixture of arrogance andfurtiveness, he felt sick, and would shake for a long time. But the wild killing of the creatures frightened him too. They were too big for such slaughter.
    Another rat was rolling in the dust