"Page0029" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bloom Howard - The Lucifer Principle (htm))

23

23

beg

ets dragons, a phoenix begets phoenixes, and mouse's children can

only dig holes."

In the coming months, belonging to the Red Guard would be a

matter of vital importance.  The Red Guard would take over the

administration of the cities and the schools.  If you belonged, you'd have

power.  If you didn't,   every petty grudge against you could be turned

into a political charge.  And the slightest accusation of ideological sin

could be used to make your days worse than your most appalling

nightmare.  The debate over who should be allowed in and kept out was

not an innocent children's game.

Eventually there would be two different Red Guards in Gao

Yuan's school.  One would embrace the children of the favored classes.

The other would harbor the rejects--the children of the forbidden castes.

At first the two factions were content to squabble over which one

upheld Mao's true line.  Each accused the other of right-wing

revisionism.  Both shouted torrents of Mao's quotes, determined to

prove the rival faction wrong.  Soon they turned from citations to taunts

and insults.  Then they graduated to throwing rocks.

The two sides armed themselves.  They made slingshots and clubs,

then wove helmets from willow twigs soaked in water--helmets so hard

you could smash them with a hammer and barely make a dent.  A few

lucky kids found old swords.  Others made sabers and daggers out of

scrap metal.  Everyone in Gao Yuan's town had grown up knowing how

to mix gunpowder from scratch.  Children traditionally crafted their

own firecrackers for annual holidays.  Now, the students of Democracy

Street Primary School put that skill to a new use.  They built arsenals of

home-made hand grenades.  And some found ways to get guns.

It wasn't long before the two rival gangs of Red Guards were

engaged in full-scale warfare.  Each occupied a separate set of buildings

on the campus.  And each began a series of raids to unseat the other

from its newly-established headquarters.  In those armed forays,

23

23

beg

ets dragons, a phoenix begets phoenixes, and mouse's children can

only dig holes."

In the coming months, belonging to the Red Guard would be a

matter of vital importance.  The Red Guard would take over the

administration of the cities and the schools.  If you belonged, you'd have

power.  If you didn't,   every petty grudge against you could be turned

into a political charge.  And the slightest accusation of ideological sin

could be used to make your days worse than your most appalling

nightmare.  The debate over who should be allowed in and kept out was

not an innocent children's game.

Eventually there would be two different Red Guards in Gao

Yuan's school.  One would embrace the children of the favored classes.

The other would harbor the rejects--the children of the forbidden castes.

At first the two factions were content to squabble over which one

upheld Mao's true line.  Each accused the other of right-wing

revisionism.  Both shouted torrents of Mao's quotes, determined to

prove the rival faction wrong.  Soon they turned from citations to taunts

and insults.  Then they graduated to throwing rocks.

The two sides armed themselves.  They made slingshots and clubs,

then wove helmets from willow twigs soaked in water--helmets so hard

you could smash them with a hammer and barely make a dent.  A few

lucky kids found old swords.  Others made sabers and daggers out of

scrap metal.  Everyone in Gao Yuan's town had grown up knowing how

to mix gunpowder from scratch.  Children traditionally crafted their

own firecrackers for annual holidays.  Now, the students of Democracy

Street Primary School put that skill to a new use.  They built arsenals of

home-made hand grenades.  And some found ways to get guns.

It wasn't long before the two rival gangs of Red Guards were

engaged in full-scale warfare.  Each occupied a separate set of buildings

on the campus.  And each began a series of raids to unseat the other

from its newly-established headquarters.  In those armed forays,