Read P.N.E. (The Wolfblood Prophecies Book 4) for Free Online Page B

directions and he was dragged from the room.
    During the scuffle Jo heard a woman in front of her whispering to her husband. She said, ‘They’re not fit to be parents, those people. What those poor little Injun children need is to be reared with decent, God-fearing white folks, like us.’ Her husband, a thick-set man with a crew-cut, nodded agreement. That was when Jo realised the audience was almost entirely white, mostly men and, in a few cases, their families.
    As his parting shot Silver Lightning could be heard shouting, ‘You have betrayed the Earth, and when the Rainbow Warriors rise, you will pay the price!’
    Titus was clearly shaken. He tried to make light of the interruption. ‘Moving on from the comedy turn, or should I say Commie turn, I suggest we settle down without more ado and watch the film.’
    Jo had already seen parts of similar films at school. After the opening credits, three sub-headings appeared on the screen.
     
    The science of atomic radiation, atomic change and nuclear fission was developed from 1895 to 1945, much of it in the last six of those years. 
     
    Over 1939-45, most development was focused on the atomic bomb. 
     
    From 1945 attention was given to harnessing this energy in a controlled fashion for naval propulsion and for making electricity.
     
    The opening narrative concentrated on physicist Enrico Fermi who discovered the potential of nuclear fission in 1934. Six years later he created the first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear reaction and in 1945 the United States carried out its first test of a nuclear bomb in the New Mexico desert.
    When they were at college Jo’s parents marched with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in protest against the dangers of nuclear power. She remembered them talking about the atomic bombs used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, when hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians died. Where Paul and Ali saw unnecessary death, destruction and disease, the military strategists of the time, and the makers of the film, saw an early end to the Second World War, saving the lives of countless troops and civilians.
    Ali had struggled to be fair. ‘The Americans called for the Japanese to surrender, but their ultimatum was ignored. Some say they dropped leaflets warning the Japanese about the bombing. They certainly did give warning of other bombing raids, but it’s not clear that Hiroshima was leafleted. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed there and Nagasaki – so even if they had had a warning, where were so many people supposed to go? And what could they possibly have done? The nuclear bombs took so many lives – how do we know how many were saved? People are still arguing about that all these years later. In wartime, truth is the first casualty, and propaganda leaves you not knowing what to believe.’
    ‘Propaganda?’ The word was new to Jo.
    ‘ Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state ,’ answered Ali. ‘At least according to Noam Chomsky.’
    ‘Who’s he?’ asked Jo, struggling to keep up. Now as well as being in the dark about the word propaganda she wondered about democracy, bludgeon and totalitarian . And Noam Chomsky.
    ‘An amazing man. A critic of American foreign policy; a linguist; a philosopher; a scientist. Just for starters. He calls himself a traditional anarchist. I studied him when I was at college. He said that intellectuals are in a position to expose the lies of governments, and their hidden intentions. He’s worth reading.’
    Jo remembered their conversation as she watched the film. The commentary seemed to her to treat killing as a cause for celebration, but a lot of the audience members agreed, cheering whenever another huge explosion sent the mushroom cloud of deadly dust and debris high up into the atmosphere. A few people, like Jo’s grand-parents, did not join in the whooping, but they were out-numbered. The massive fireballs, the radio-active rain, seemed as