The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers Page B

expensive, families should pay for the life support of a Sleeping Beauty’. Or, just for a change, the opposite; the family should get compensation for their girl’s sacrifice, and no girl should volunteer until that’s agreed. OK there are bad things, like the Chinese who sold their daughters to clinics– OK –but 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 again–even 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 us–I had this dream that we might get everyone, one day, everyone under 20–and 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 they’d scraped from the walls. I crawled round sweeping a clear path by the skirting boards.
    â€˜You and Gabe here permanently now?’ I asked.
    She nodded.
    â€˜What does your dad say?’
    â€˜My dad’s an alcoholic,’ said Lisa.
    â€˜Oh.’
    â€˜He’s not fit to look after children, and the joke is he knows that himself. I was looking after him .’ 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.
    â€˜I did feel bad at first,’ she said suddenly. ‘Leaving him on his own. But Gabe and me have to survive. And now I just think, you’re sick. Lots of adults are. I mean, if they don’t drink they take drugs or medicine, or they’re addicted to some crappy routine. They’re 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 wheel’s gone. That’s why so many of them are killing themselves. They don’t know how to change.’
    I thought about Mum and Dad and their package holidays. ‘They’re all mad, our parents’ generation.’
    â€˜Mad and useless. The world will be a better place without them.’
    â€˜But it’s hard for you, if you have to look after Gabe as well.’
    â€˜Gabe can look after himself. Anyway, looking after people is easy.’
    â€˜I guess I’ve never had to.’
    â€˜Taking responsibility for things is easy. That’s how they infantilise us. They make us think that if you decide to do something and take responsibility for your decision, you’ll have a really tough time. But it’s not true. What’s hard is being in someone else’s power.’
    â€˜Aren’t you ever frightened?’
    â€˜Look, we don’t have to be trapped in our parents’ lives. How will we know what we can do unless we try?’
    Lisa’s right. You can choose to do something and plan your own destiny. It’s 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 don’t just mean