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Finally she looked up and stared Adam in the blank gray eyes.
“What bit ’re you going to have, Adam?” she said.
The storm was replaced by a sudden, ringing silence.
“What?” said Adam.
“Well, you divided up the world, right, and we’ve all of us got to have a bit—what bit’re you going to have?”
The silence sang like a harp, high and thin.
“Yeah,” said Brian. “You never told us what bit you’re having.”
“Pepper’s right,” said Wensleydale. “Don’t seem to me there’s much left, if we’ve got to have all these countries.”
Adam’s mouth opened and shut.
“What?” he said.
“What bit’s yours, Adam?” said Pepper.
Adam stared at her. Dog had stopped howling and had fixed his master with an intent, thoughtful mongrel stare.
“M-me?” he said.
The silence went on and on, one note that could drown out the noises of the world.
“But I’ll have Tadfield,” said Adam.
They stared at him.
“An’, an’ Lower Tadfield, and Norton, and Norton Woods—”
They still stared.
Adam’s gaze dragged itself across their faces.
“They’re all I’ve ever wanted,” he said.
They shook their heads.
“I can have ’em if I want,” said Adam, his voice tinged with sullen defiance and his defiance edged with sudden doubt. “I can make them better, too. Better trees to climb, better ponds, better … ”
His voice trailed off.
“You can’t,” said Wensleydale flatly. “They’re not like America and those places. They’re really real. Anyway, they belong to all of us. They’re ours.”
“And you couldn’t make ’em better,” said Brian.
“Anyway, even if you did we’d all know,” said Pepper.
“Oh, if that’s all that’s worryin’ you, don’t you worry,” said Adam airily, “ ’cos I could make you all just do whatever I wanted—”
He stopped, his ears listening in horror to the words his mouth was speaking. The Them were backing away.
Dog put his paws over his head.
Adam’s face looked like an impersonation of the collapse of empire.
