The Green Book (6 page)

Everyone was happy. There was lots of work to do. Everyone went up to the field to gather and stack the wheat, the next day, and for days afterwards. Father said he wouldn't need to build a mill, because the grain was so easy to grind, but every family needed a pair of stones for grinding flour, and they had to be found and shaped. We needed a big bunker to store the grain, some to eat, and some for next year's growing. By and by, Father went and fetched some moth wings from Boulder Valley, all faded and limp, and Malcolm brewed up something to steep them in that made them into a kind of stringy soup; and then we dried out the fibers by pouring the soup through a tray of sand and leaving it to dry in the sun, and then the fibers could be spun into thread, using a funny thing like a top on a stick that Father made. He was going to make a loom next. We would all have red and gray mottled clothes out of moth cloth, when our Earth things wore out. We were looking rather ragged already.

When the harvest was in, and we were getting used to our own good bread, we began to see that winter was coming. It got very cold, not just at night, and the leaves on the trees turned black and fell off. All the redness in the forest darkened and the gray grass lost its shine.

The grownups decided we would need to share all the food, depending on how many there were to feed in each family.

“We have enough,” the Guide said. “Enough for us all to live, to live quite well.”

“Enough food, yes,” said Father, “But the plan didn't give us all we need.”

“You must stop hankering after books, brother,” the Guide told him. “All that has gone beyond recovery.”

“We had better record the shares we are giving out,” said Peter. “We can get paper from the spaceship. There must be some computer printout lying around there that we could write on.”

But nobody wanted to go and look for it. It seemed as though we didn't want to remember we had come like refugees from so far away; we wanted to feel that Shine was our home, where we would be, and had always been.

Father thought of something. “What about that empty book of Pattie's?” he said. “We could use that.”

“No, Father,” said Pattie. “Please don't. Please, it's mine!

“An empty book, Pattie?” said Father. “No use to anyone. And needed for something important. We all have to share, you know that. Joe, go and get it.”

Pattie hid her face, and slipped away from the center of the group. Joe brought the book from under her pillow in the hut, and Father opened it.

And it was full. It was full of writing, very large and round and shaky.

“Heavens!” said Father. “What's this?” He read for a few moments. “It's a story,” he said. “About here, about us. It has the moth people in it, and the hexagonal wheat!”

“Read it to us,” said Jason's mother, and others joined in. “Read it to us!” Lots of people, the people of Shine, gathered around Father with the open book in his hand, all eager, and ready to make the words huge with listening to them.

Father turned back and back in the green book to the very first page, and began to read:

“
Father said, ‘We can take very little with us
'…”

Questions for the Author

Jill Paton Walsh

What did you want to be when you grew up?

At first, a train driver—there was a little steam train that puffed into a station below my grandmother's garden, along the back of the beach. But then I changed my mind and wanted to be a writer. Just as well—there are still no women train drivers in England.

When did you realize you wanted to be a writer?

I was about seven.

What's your favorite childhood memory?

Standing on a pile of books in my bedroom in my grandmother's house in St. Ives, in Cornwall, England, to get my chin above windowsill level so that I could look out at the lighthouse across the bay. As I got older I needed more books to read, and so I had fewer books to stand on!

As a young person, who did you look up to most?

Then and now, the volunteer crews of the lifeboat who risked their lives to save others.

What was your favorite thing about school?

I hated school.

What was your least favorite thing about school?

Sports. I was very bad at them, and nobody likes being forced to do something they are bad at.

What were your hobbies as a kid? What are your hobbies now?

As a child I liked reading and daydreaming. Now I like cooking for friends and photography and traveling and gardening and reading and daydreaming.

What was your first job, and what was your “worst” job?

I taught in a high school for a while. I liked it. I have never had a nasty job.

How did you celebrate publishing your first book?

I put all my six free copies facing outward on the mantelpiece, and sat and looked at them. I remembered an English nursery rhyme: “If this be I, which it surely cannot be, there's a little dog at home, and he'll remember me!”

Where do you write your books?

In a small study I share with my husband. He tells me how to spell things, and I tell him how to make the computer do what he wants. Otherwise, we don't talk until lunchtime.

What sparked your imagination for
The Green Book
?

Now that's an odd one. I saw a picture in
National Geographic
showing an Australian Aboriginal family on the move. The man carried a spear; the woman carried a cooking pot. Their little child was holding its mother by the hand, but carried nothing. They had barely any clothes. I thought, “How utterly poor they are! They have nothing!” Then I thought, “No, I am wrong. They have all they need. Their heads are full of stories; they have the Dreamtime.” I expect you can connect that with
The Green Book
if you think for a moment.

Has the future always been of interest to you?

Not really when I was young. But now I have children and grandchildren and thousands of young readers, and I need the world to work out for them.

Of the books you've written, which is your favorite?

The one you are reading now—whichever it is.

Which of your characters is most like you?

Well, in
The Green Book
, obviously Pattie!

What was your favorite book when you were a kid? Do you have a favorite book now?

Then and now,
Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen. There were no children's books in my house—it was because of the war, and paper for books was rationed. I read adult novels instead.

If you were stranded on a desert island, who would you want for company?

My grandchildren—Anna, Catherine, and Antony.

If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go and what would you do?

I have traveled quite a lot. I'd like to spend more time in Venice and more time with friends in New England. Just sitting around, talking.

If you could travel in time, where would you go and what would you do?

I would go and see Beethoven, before he went deaf, and bring him to hear his own Ninth Symphony. He never heard it, and it gives so many people such joy.

What's the best advice you have ever received about writing?

Just do it. Writers are people who write!

Do you ever get writer's block? What do you do to get back on track?

Often. I just go for a walk. It usually unblocks itself when you relax.

What do you want readers to remember about your books?

You can't control what people remember, or what you remember yourself. But what I would really like is for my readers to go on thinking for a while about the story after they have finished the book. That's enough to ask.

What would you do if you ever stopped writing?

Die of boredom, probably.

What would your readers be most surprised to learn about you?

How grateful I am to them for giving me a little bit of their lives by reading my books.