expensive, families should pay for the life support of a Sleeping Beautyâ. Or, just for a change, the opposite; the family should get compensation for their girlâs sacrifice, and no girl should volunteer until thatâs agreed. OK there are bad things, like the Chinese who sold their daughters to clinicsâ OK âbut because there are bad things does it mean nothing new should happen? That nothing can be done?
It was like a wave of energy washing over the whole world, the way babies could be born againâeven when it was bad, it was good. I knew the world would be different when they grew up, because the population would be so much smaller. Everything really could be better. I began setting my alarm for 5.30 so I could get more done. We were trying to persuade more kids to join usâI had this dream that we might get everyone, one day, everyone under 20âand simply root out all the bad old ways of consuming and spoiling and wasting. The world was changing so quickly no one could guess what would happen next!
After the Manchester rally YOFI was offered a big old pub, the Rising Sun , to turn into a centre where Lisa and Gabe and other motherless kids could live. I went along to help clear it out. Lisa and Gabe had their sleeping bags spread in one of the bedrooms, and were working on the room next to it, which would be theirs when it was finished. Other kids were stripping walls downstairs and ripping out the seats. They had music on and it was noisy down there, with people shouting across the room. I asked Lisa if I could help her upstairs and she gave me a pot of white paint and asked me to start on the woodwork. It was all stained dark tobacco brown. The floor was covered in shrivellings of paper theyâd scraped from the walls. I crawled round sweeping a clear path by the skirting boards.
âYou and Gabe here permanently now?â I asked.
She nodded.
âWhat does your dad say?â
âMy dadâs an alcoholic,â said Lisa.
âOh.â
âHeâs not fit to look after children, and the joke is he knows that himself. I was looking after him .â Neither of us said anything for a bit, there was just the sound of our brushes slopping and swishing, and the music and hollow voices from downstairs.
âI did feel bad at first,â she said suddenly. âLeaving him on his own. But Gabe and me have to survive. And now I just think, youâre sick. Lots of adults are. I mean, if they donât drink they take drugs or medicine, or theyâre addicted to some crappy routine. Theyâre like those horses in the olden days that used to walk round in a circle to turn a mill wheel. They keep on walking in a circle even when the mill wheelâs gone. Thatâs why so many of them are killing themselves. They donât know how to change.â
I thought about Mum and Dad and their package holidays. âTheyâre all mad, our parentsâ generation.â
âMad and useless. The world will be a better place without them.â
âBut itâs hard for you, if you have to look after Gabe as well.â
âGabe can look after himself. Anyway, looking after people is easy.â
âI guess Iâve never had to.â
âTaking responsibility for things is easy. Thatâs how they infantilise us. They make us think that if you decide to do something and take responsibility for your decision, youâll have a really tough time. But itâs not true. Whatâs hard is being in someone elseâs power.â
âArenât you ever frightened?â
âLook, we donât have to be trapped in our parentsâ lives. How will we know what we can do unless we try?â
Lisaâs right. You can choose to do something and plan your own destiny. Itâs never as hard as you fear. You can make yourself free, you can be responsible for yourself. The only difficulty is other people. And I donât just mean
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