Eden

50

I try to speak. I say excuse me, and then wait, but no-one seems to have heard me. The crowd is still shouting, still happy, and is making so much noise it drowns out my voice.

No-one else heard me, at least, but Lexi seems to have.

Lexi heard, and as soon as I speak, she grabs my hand. She seems scared, as scared as I felt a moment ago. "Don't," she says. "Please. Just keep quiet."

I shake her hand off. I shake my head too. "No," I say, sure of what I'm doing now. "This is wrong. I need to try and stop it."

Lexi grabs me again, my arm this time. "You don't know that," she says. "You don't know what's going on."

"It doesn't matter," I say. "It's wrong. It's barbaric."

"Don't get involved. Please."

"I have to," I say to her, and then loudly, as loudly as I can, "Excuse me please?"

The crowd slowly begins to go quiet. A few people near me hear this time, and turn to look at me. And once they do, a few others turn to see what the first few are looking at. Slowly, more and more people turn to look, and start asking each other what's going on. A ripple is spreading out through the crowd, a ripple of silence and of attention on me, which I'm really not that comfortable with.

People fall silent, the people near me, anyway, and soon, very soon, the speech-making man notices too. Or at least, he notices everyone looking my way. He waves his hand for silence, and then points towards me. And then everyone turns and looks, everyone in the whole crowd. They all go quiet, and stand there staring, waiting to see what I'll do next.

My heart sinks. My hands feel clammy. I'm suddenly very nervous. I swallow, and look at them staring at me, and have no idea what to say.

"What is it?" someone says.

"Yes," someone else says, "What do you want?"

Then they're all asking, all shouting, demanding to know what I want.

I want to talk, to explain, but I don't think they'll hear me over the noise they're making. I look at the speech-making man, helplessly, and he understands and shouts, "Quiet. Let her speak."