The Book of Dave by Will Self Page A

Sid Brudi also. Symun Dévúsh had some as well. The granddads didn't
set any great store on reading. Fukka Funch, who had no words at all, held more of the Knowledge than any of the other young
men, and it was often he who led the calling over in the Shelter. There may not have been a Driver on Ham for five years,
although Mister Greaves had promised them another, yet it was universally – if tacitly – understood that for any Hamsterman
to have too many words would be a usurpation of that role. In the meantime, the Guvnor needed only enough words to mark out
the sections of the Book: where a run began and where it ended, the order of the points, the headings for the Doctrines and
Covenants, the instructions set out in the Letter to Carl. This was sufficient, for the dads' collective memory furnished
the rest.
    When old Dave Brudi knew that he was dying he called Fred Ridmun to him in the Brudi gaff and handed over his Guvnor's cap
and the Council cudgel. The screen was tinting earlier and earlier in the second tariff, while the final darkness was fast
approaching, for the old Guvnor as well. Passing by the door on cold mornings, when the ground was irony hard and his breath
misty, Symun saw his mate bent low over the old granddad's sofabed and heard Dave grunting:
    â€“ Iss nó nó, iss no-
t
, no-
t
. Ve Búk iz awl in Arpee, C. Vese wurds wiv ough in em – vair trikki. Sumtyms vair off sahnds lyke coff, uvvatyms vair ow sahnds lyke plow. Nah less ear yer kee wurds, mì sun.
    It was a testament to the departing Guvnor's bearing and fortitude that he had enough strength at the end to instruct Fred
in these phonics, for, by the time the kipper season came, Dave was dead and buried in the little graveyard behind the Shelter,
where the wheels on top of the headstones spun crazily in the mournful winds.
    Symun made a point of always being the last to leave the Shelter after the dads had called over the runs and points. He helped
Fred to tidy up the tincans, swab the table and straighten its cover, then put the Hamstermen's sole copy of the Book away
in the micro. Fred was usually preoccupied – the office of Guvnor brought heavy responsibilities and only modest rewards.
He was entitled to an extra tank of moto oil from every slain beast, an extra rip of land in the home field, and an extra
share of both feathers and seafowl whenever the pedalo went out to the Sentrul Stac or Nimar. In turn he had to be the first
to make the leap on to the rocks when the dads were birding, and he had to be first up the stack – a dizzying, dangerous ascent.
He also had to settle all disputes on the island, thus making himself the focus of much resentment. When the Hack came, it
was Fred who would have to negotiate with him, bartering the Hamsters' produce for the rent, and this too was a thankless
task.
    Fred thought it a bit odd the way Symun would open the Book whenever they were alone together and, pointing to this or that
word, ask him to read it out; yet not very, for Symun had never been like the other Hamstermen. Where they adapted themselves
to the rhythms of their island, its seasons and its tides, he jibed against them. Where they found certainty in the Book and
its Knowledge, he was always questioning, his dancing eyes piercing to the core of things.
    As autumn progressed, the island's multitudinous greens changed to a cascade of copper finery, which then faded to tawny browns,
dull silvers and mossy blacks. The equinoctial gale rose one night and come lampon the trees were bare, their branches making
thin cracks in the clear, kipper screen. The mums retreated to the mummies' gaffs, where they wove rough bubbery with the
woolly the Hack had brought that summer. The dads also retreated to their own gaffs, where they turned this coarse stuff into
cloakyfings, jeans, T-shirts and jackets; for just as weaving was mummies' graft, so was tailoring daddies'. The motos were
brought into the byres that took up