Under the Weather Read online

  Dad says the herd stopped trusting him after that. He says there’s a kind of pact between reindeer and herder. They’re not like cows or pigs – reindeer are not domestic. They are wild really. They are like proud delicate children, you have to win their trust. After that summer some of our reindeer went back to being properly wild and ran away, and the rest got sick and they died.

  The herd lost heart, Dad says. But I think really he lost heart and found the bottle instead. But he got his heart back again eventually. He said “If the Earth so much doesn’t want me to be a reindeer herder that its lakes have swallowed up our grazing grounds, then the Earth must want me to be a fisherman instead.” And he started fishing in Blue Lake. He got a big net, then three nets, then he went into partnership again with Uncle Vasya and they got new fish stock and put them in the lake and had ten nets. No one else was selling that kind of fish so two summers later we didn’t just buy back the old telly we got a new big one.

  But that was when Blue Lake started shrinking again. And some of the new lakes that had appeared got smaller or vanished. Dad and Uncle Vasya tried to move the stock to Green Lake but it is further away and lots of the fish went bad by the time Dad gets them to town. We don’t have anywhere to store them. Dad is always saying we need a freezer but we can’t afford one. The summer the foreigners came Dad was starting to lose heart all over again, and find the bottle.

  So now you will get it why Uncle Vasya said again to Ben that evening, “NOW tell us about the grants.”

  And Ben did. The scientists were going to stay for the summer collecting peat samples to see what was in it and how much the permafrost was melting, and mapping the lakes and how much bigger or smaller they were getting, and testing the soil and the air and the moss and everything. Then they’d go back to Europe and analyse all the results. But because climate change doesn’t stop when foreigners stop researching they wanted us to carry on testing and checking and mapping, and give us money from the European Union for it.

  It seemed so easy. My sister wrote a grant proposal, like a plan to show exactly how we would work and spend the money on equipment for monitoring there were strict rules about that. My sister is the only clever one in our family, but Thierry one of the scientists helped. He is a student from France and he really likes Zhanna because she is pretty. Actually they weren’t just working on the proposal together but we didn’t know that then. I went on expeditions with Ben and the others to learn about the practicalities of monitoring climate change. It was cool. There was a machine that drills out core samples like cloudy half-frozen sausages from the ground. I learned how to survey with a theodolite and with satellites with GPS or Global Positioning System and Ben has got the greatest knife with loads of blades he let me use. He said he’d give it to me when he left. But what I liked best was Ben telling me funny things about Germany and me telling him about Siberia. And I liked the mosquitoes. I mean I didn’t really like them but the foreigners hated them and that was great, I learned loads of swear words in three languages.

  We got a grant! We had to register as a non-profit organisation first and be official but that takes ages and Prof. Helpmann is so impatient he put the first part of the money into a bank account Mum opened in town. Our organisation was my family and Uncle Vasya’s. Two other families in our village got grants too. We called our organisation ‘Hope from Climate Change’. It was my sister’s idea.

  It turned out my sister was hoping for a lot from climate change. She finally told us what she had been doing with Thierry. She had applied to study ecology on a special course in France.

  “You can’t speak French, silly,” I said.

  “Don’t be daft; we can’t pay for you to study in France,” Mum said.

  And Dad said, “We need you here.”

  My sister went all pale and desperate. All she wants is to go to college but the nearest in Tomsk is too far away and we don’t have any money.

  “It’s a special course for people from all over the world,” Zhanna said. “They have lots of students from Russia, and if you’re from a poor country directly affected by climate change they will pay for everything. Thierry says I’m sure to get a free place.” She said ‘Thierry says’ quite a bit more before she shouted “but you’ve got the grant now so you don’t need me here anymore!” and ran outside to sulk.

  “Don’t worry,” Mum said. “She won’t get a place. Why should they want a half-wild native Siberian in France?”

  But Dad was angry. It’s strange how the foreign scientists took over our village. Most of us liked them. We started doing new things and thinking new thoughts, but my dad didn’t like them. He started liking the bottle more. At first Prof. Helpmann had talked to him. He went to visit the reindeer herders but he said afterwards there were too many reindeer and it was not ecologically sustainable, and he went to visit Dad and Uncle Vasya at Green Lake but he said their new fish stock was disrupting the natural eco-balance of the lake. At first I thought Prof. Helpmann was interested in everything but now I think he is only interested in one thing and that is climate change and that is why he is mad. I realised this when the disaster at Green Lake happened.

  With Zhanna working on the grant and me learning how to monitor climate change, even Mum got a job cooking for the foreigners, there was no one to help smoke or dry or pickle the fish from Green Lake to preserve them. I told you we haven’t got a freezer to store fresh fish and so they go bad before Dad can get them to town to sell. He and Uncle Vasya kept them in a pit dug down into the permafrost near Green Lake. But we are experts in climate change now. We know that the permafrost is melting and it is a big problem for global warming. Our fish store melted and flooded and all the fish went rotten.

  Mum and Zhanna had gone to town with some of the scientists to look at the equipment we have to buy for the monitoring project. We need a computer and a modem and printer. I was really excited about the computer. I thought it would look funny in our house. But when Zhanna got back she was excited about something else. She said “I got a place at the college in France. They will pay for the course and for living expenses and Thierry says all the researchers will club together to help with my air fare.”

  And Dad said “Curse your college in France. We’re finished. We’ll all have to work our fingers off preserving the fish however we can. You can’t leave.”

  Zhanna shouted “I’ve got to go, I’ll never get another chance! You can’t stop me and anyway you’ve got the grant now, you’ve got money–”

  Dad slapped her. “You shut up, my girl! What grant? *!!!!!**@!! computers and *****!!@! modems won’t feed and clothe my two children and Vasya’s four. Curses on all foreign scientists and colleges. They can go to hell.”

  Zhanna burst into tears and then Mum said “Shut up both of you and listen to me. We haven’t bought the computer or anything yet, and in town that wasn’t all I looked at.”

  When Prof. Helpmann came to visit us the last time he was a disappointed man. He always was too big for our house but now he could only just squeeze inside with Ben because almost all the space was filled by the freezer. It hums and buzzes. Prof. Helpmann looked at it like it had done him an injury.

  He said (or Ben said because he translated when his father got stuck) “This is a gross misuse of our money and our trust.”

  Dad offered Prof. Helpmann a drink.

  “No thank you,” Prof. H said. “You know the grant was for a climate change project. Your proposal listed how you were going to spend every penny of it. Nowhere did it list a freezer and if it had done you wouldn’t have got the money.”

  “!!!*****@! climate change,” said Dad.

  “You didn’t say that in your proposal either,” Prof. H said. He got rather red. “I thought you understood that climate change affects ALL OF US. If you care about the future, about your children, you must realise that NOTHING matters more than climate change. We wanted to involve you in our work because even though the cause may seem far away the results are right her
e, with you, in Siberia.”

  “And how are my children supposed to live while we are messing around testing this and mapping that and fiddling with computers and GSP?” Dad asked.

  “It’s GPS not GSP,” I whispered and he belted me.

  “We’re scientists, not humanitarian aid workers,” Prof. H said. “It’s not our job to hand out charity. Maybe I wish we could, but we can’t. We wanted to build up a relationship of mutual respect and trust. Together we could have done great things towards saving the planet, if you’d only been able to look beyond your own backyard.”

  Dad sat up then and said something good. He does that sometimes. I was proud of him even if he had just belted me.

  “In this backyard I do what my ancestors did – herd reindeer and catch fish,” he said. “My people, the Nenets, made a pact with the Earth that we kept for hundreds of years while you in Europe were ruining it with your factories and technology. And now you come here and think you can tell us how to live and give us money to look at the mess you made. You don’t know anything about trust.”

  Then Dad spoiled it by saying a lot of very rude things and knocking over the bottle. It broke. Prof. Helpmann was not impressed.

  “I can’t take the freezer away from you, or demand the money back. We’ll just have to chalk this one up to experience. But we won’t give you any more money, and unfortunately we won’t be continuing any projects in this area in future. I’m sorry,” he said.

  Dad told him to leave or he would throw him out but before Prof. Helpmann went he lifted the lid of the freezer and peeked inside at all the packed fish. He never can resist investigating everything. It made me think of him putting his fingers down his throat to puke. “I said you were destroying the lake’s eco-system with these fish,” was the last thing he said. “And I’ll tell you something else for nothing: if you keep catching them at this rate you’ll overfish and there won’t be any stock at all next year.”

  And Ben said to me sadly “You could at least have bought a newer model. These old freezers release so many CFCs they ruin the ozone layer. In most of the world they’ve been banned.”

  Soon after that the scientists packed up to leave. Me and Ben said goodbye. At first Ben said “See you next summer,” but I said nothing and Ben got a bit red. “Well, Siberia is really huge you know, and we’ll probably go to a different part of it next year. If you’d got the computer and modem for the project we could have e-mailed each other at least.” Then he said “Maybe I’ll see you in Germany or France, you might come and visit your sister.”

  “I won’t,” I said. Zhanna is getting ready to go to college in France. She is working on an essay they’ve given her to write before she starts. She is so happy, it’s not fair.

  I wanted to tell Ben I was glad I’d met him and we never would have met if it wasn’t for climate change. But I didn’t and Ben didn’t say anything like that either but he did give me his knife like he promised. I used it to sharpen a pencil so I could write this. The essay Zhanna has got to write is about climate change in her community. She asked me if I had any ideas and I said no I didn’t want to help her with her !!****!!@! essay. But then I started thinking and I couldn’t stop, I don’t know why. I don’t suppose it’s what those professors are interested in but here it is: my essay about climate change and how it changed my family.

  Moonlight

  by Karen Ball

  This story is set in Sri Lanka – a country where climate change is making the summers hotter and this is leading to an increase in the spread of deadly malaria. I pictured the sloping, green hills and a girl who might work on one of the country’s tea plantations. I made her the breadwinner of the family, because all over the world children are forced to grow up quickly. I haven’t visited Sri Lanka, but I enjoyed researching details for the story – what would the children eat, what plants and flowers would surround them, which games would they play? A little bit of research and a strong imagination can go a long way…

  My name is Chandrika. I was born during the night in the single room my parents shared. I was named after the silver light that blessed my birth – it means moonlight. My parents no longer live on the plantation; they died when I was young. I remember my mother’s eyes and the gold bracelets that jangled on her wrists. That is all. I take care of my family now; I am all my younger brothers have.

  That morning I woke at dawn, just as I had for as many dawns as I could remember. The mists hung low over the emerald hills and I wrapped my cotton shawl tightly around my shoulders. The earth felt fresh beneath my toes and my heart squeezed tight with happiness as I gazed down on the slopes. I live in a very beautiful place; I don’t need a teacher to tell me that. I had to leave school to work in the tea plantation when I was fourteen. I don’t mind. While I have two hands to dance over the tea plants and fill my basket with green leaves, what use do I have for a pen and paper? The alphabet won’t fill my brothers’ stomachs.

  I went to the shared water tap with my kettle. It is one of the few items my brothers and I own and every morning I give thanks for its battered sides. Without its cheerful whistle, how would I get my brothers out of their beds? I filled the kettle and then I plunged my hands under the cool water, bringing them up to wash my face. The water felt good against my skin. I could already sense the heat of the day creeping up behind me. I gazed back down at the hills and saw that the dawn mist was burning off. The ghostly swirls seemed to disappear earlier and earlier each day – it had been a hot summer.

  I walked back to our line room. It is only small, but so are all the rooms on the estate. No one complains; we know we are lucky to be working and to have a shelter over our heads. I could feel my heavy plait swinging behind my back as I walked past all the other families.

  “Good morning!” Amanthi called out, grinning. She is our neighbour. She wears a beautiful gold stud in her nose and her coffee-coloured skin always glows golden in the morning sunshine. I cannot help but smile every time I see her.

  “Good morning, Amanthi,” I called back. “Did you have good dreams last night?” She burst out laughing and shook her head at me. Everyone knows Amanthi always dreams of fudge made from palm treacle.

  I heaved the kettle on to its stand above the fire. As I waited for it to boil, I sat on my haunches and made breakfast for the boys, patting out rice-flour pancakes that I grilled over the fire. The aroma of the pancakes drifted under Babiya and Nimal’s nostrils and I watched to see whose eyelashes would flutter open first. I would never tell the boys this, but they both have beautiful eyelashes. Long and thick – the type my girlfriends would love to have. I know, because they tell me.

  Nimal was the first to stretch his arms above his head.

  “Is that breakfast I can smell?” he asked. I watched him climb out of bed and wander over, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He reached out and picked a pancake off the toasting fork, batting it from hand to hand as he waited for it to cool down. He didn’t wait long enough. “Chandrika,” he protested, as he burnt his tongue, “do you have to make the pancakes so hot?”

  I thrust the toasting fork into his hand and pretended to bat him round the head as I jumped to my feet.

  “Don’t be so cheeky,” I said, walking to the door. “And make sure Babiya is up and ready for school. I’ll see you this evening.” Nimal grunted in answer; I knew that was all the conversation he was capable of this early in the morning.

  Amanthi was waiting for me outside our room. Together, we walked down to the plantation. The green, sloping hills fell below us. At their base was a smooth lake, its waters reflecting the cloud-covered sky.

  We picked up our baskets and tied them to each other’s backs. They were big – big enough to hold a whole day’s pickings. When the sun descended at the end of the day, my back would be aching from the weight of it.

  Along with the other girls and women, we walked out on to the terraced slopes. The women’s brightly-coloured sashes and their hands, plucking and snipping, made the fields lo
ok as though they were being teased by giant butterflies. I reached out to the nearest tea plant, and snapped off two leaves, throwing them over my shoulder into the basket on my back. The first of many.

  I know it is wrong to be proud, but I cannot deny the truth: I am a good tea picker. I am always careful to only nip off the two bright green leaves and the berry at the top of each tea plant. You could never make a bitter cup of tea from the leaves that I pluck. I sometimes think about all the people around the world, drinking my tea. It makes me feel very small and humble.

  “Are you still saving for university?” Amanthi asked, as we worked side-by-side. I could see that the bottom of her basket was already hidden beneath emerald leaves. I made a silent promise to myself to work faster.

  “A few rupees a month,” I admitted. “I would love for my brothers to graduate one day. Do you think that can be possible, Amanthi?”

  In my heart, I knew this was an impossible dream. But it was a dream that kept me going as I strode down the endless rows of tea. It was better than dreaming of fudge!

  “All things are possible,” Amanthi said. “You are a determined young woman. You could make anything happen.” I felt my face blush at this compliment and put up a hand to wipe away the sheen of sweat that was already covering my cheeks. I batted my hands in front of my face.

  “The heat!” I complained. This year was like no other. We had started to call it Agni’s Year, after the Hindu god of fire. “It isn’t good for the tea.” The plants enjoyed the humidity, it was true. But this much heat – with the morning mists disappearing so quickly – made the plants dry and brittle. It was getting more and more difficult to find fresh, juicy tea leaves. And that meant fewer rupees at the end of each day.

  As I turned back to my work, a mosquito came to hover in front of my face. Most of the time they only bothered us at sunset, but this summer there were so many that they even hovered in the air on cloudy days. Fortunately, I know what the trick is with mosquitoes – you ignore them. They get so annoyed that they have to fly away and bother someone else. Go away! I willed my unwelcome companion. Leave me alone.