The Book of Dave by Will Self

vehicles, and the equally peculiar burdening of jeejees and
burgakine. Even decades later the amazement that had prevented the Hamstermen from getting to the nub of it all was still
evident. For theirs was a word picture of only the surface of these remarkable things: the chaps with their shooters and railings
on the Bouncy Castle ramparts, the ocean-going ferries in the harbour, the beefansemis that clustered about it. Symun cherished
a desire to read, so he considered it foolish of the granddads not to have attempted to set down their account, so that it
might be read in the same manner as the Book. He sighed and, gathering his legs under him, got up. Eyem ahtuví, U Ió, he said
to no one in particular.
    Symun strolled away from the Council ground, slid between the shitter and the Edduns gaff, then sauntered up the stream through
the heart of the manor. Down by the Council wall the dads could hear the mummies singing: We R ve Amster gurls, we ware R
air in curls … When Symun appeared they fell silent. It was daddytime, with two days to go until Changeover. The opares
were minding the babies and toddlers in the dads' gaffs; the older kids were out with the motos. The bare earth surrounding
the walls of the gaffs was beaten and churned by the hurrying feet of the mummies as they worked. Symun stood and, since there
were no dads to observe him doing so, watched them intently.
    Shell Brudi and Bella Funch sat on the ground grinding flour in the quern set between them. Their legs were outstretched and
each bent forward in turn to grasp the wooden rod and pull the heavy top stone for half of its rotation. The air was white
with wheatie dust, and sweat stood out on their brows. Shell's sister, Liz, was nursing her newborn baby as she sat in the
lea of the Brudi gaff. The infant, a girl, was only a day old and had been anointed with moto oil by Effi that tariff. If
she survived the next two blobs without dying of lockjaw, she would then receive both a name and the wheel of Dave.
    Effi herself stood at a trestle table braiding the tops of some crybulbs together, so that they could be hung up in the rafters
for the kipper. On the table were piles of herbs: jack-by-hedge, comforty, blacktartdog and piss-a-bed. Two other mummies
were carding wool, two more were spinning thread. Another posse were changing the thatch on the Bulluk gaff. Three mummies
carried bundles of dried pricklebush on their backs and clambered up and down the curved walls, depositing them on the eaves,
while one remained aloft so she could lash them down. Nearer to Symun, at another trestle table set up between the Ridmun
and Dévúsh gaffs, stood Caff Ridmun, who was dyeing cloth in a tub. Caff, with her withered leg, who leaned heavily so as
to favour the sound one. Caff, whom he loved – much as he had once loved his mummy, and still loved Champ, his moto. Caff,
who as an opare had been courted, then wed, by Fred Ridmun. Yet, now Caff was knocked up, Fred had no more eyes for her than
any daddy did for a mummy. He had paid her childsupport, so he would lie with her again in the mummies' gaff once the baby
was weaned – but he would seldom, if ever, speak to her. When she was on the blob Caff would wear a red rag on her cloakyfing
– and at that time her old man would not come near her at all.
    Symun burned with his desire for Caff – or was it that strange mummyself left inside of him after his final Changeover that
wanted not only to lie with her but also to be with her, look at her and talk with her? He could not say; he knew only a desperate
motorage as he stared at her slim shoulders and the thick brown plait that trailed from her headdress. If she felt his gaze
on her, Caff made no response. She went on pummelling the cloth, gently shoving her full, round tank against the tabletop.
Eventually Symun turned and walked away along the shore in the direction of the Shelter.

    Fred Ridmun had a few words of the Book; Bill Edduns and