Read When the Tripods Came for Free Online

playing them. Martha tried cutting down, but Angela went hysterical on her, and she didn’t push it. She’d joined the new Trippy fan club, and got a lot of stuff through the mail.
    I overheard Martha telling Pa one night they ought to do something about it.
    Pa said, “Kids have these crazes.”
    “But not behaving the way she does when one tries to curb her. I’m not sure she doesn’t need treatment.”
    “I thought you despised psychiatry?”
    “I think Geoffrey should see her, at least.”
    Geoffrey Monmouth was our doctor. He and Pa played golf together.
    “I don’t see the need.”
    His voice was resentful, perhaps because he didn’t like the idea of admitting there could be anything wrong with his Angel, especially to someone in the golf club.
    “You haven’t seen her in a mood.”
    Pa didn’t answer.
    “There are other things to be concerned about,you know, apart from when Ilse might be coming back.”
    I’d been listening from the hall. I turned away and went up to my room.
    • • •
    A couple of days later, the Daily Mail came out against Trippies. We didn’t have that paper at home but it was being passed around in the playground when I got to school. There was a banner headline:
    TRIPPY BRAINWASH?
    Underneath they asked, I S T HIS S HOW A M ENACE TO O UR Y OUNG ? They went on to quote from a couple of psychologists, saying the Trippy cult could be dangerous because it was developing a fanatical following which showed signs of getting out of hand. They gave examples of children behaving in ways which made Angela’s craziness seem dead normal. One boy had tried to burn the house down when his Trippy tapes were taken from him; and a girl of thirteen had almost killed her father with a kitchen knife. They claimed things were even worse in other countries: in the United States and Germany, kids were leaving home in droves to live together in Trippy communes. As fast as they were brought back, they took off again.
    One of the Trippy fans at school produced a lighter, and set fire to the newspaper in the playground. The rest watched it flare up; their faces werelike some I saw in a movie about people burning witches.
    They were still muttering at the beginning of first class, which happened to be physics. The noise didn’t stop when Wild Bill came in, and I expected him to erupt. He was tight on classroom discipline. Instead he looked at the Trippy fans in a funny way, fondly almost.
    He said, “I saw you burn that evil newspaper. They had one in the common room, and I burned it, too.”
    The Trippy fans were still cheering him when the school secretary, Mr. Denlum, knocked and entered. He was a little man and timid, especially where Wild Bill was concerned. He went close and whispered something. Wild Bill smiled contemptuously.
    “If the headmaster wishes to see me, I am of course at his disposal.”
    He told us to get on with our work and went out, with Denlum creeping after him. At the door he stopped and turned round, still smiling. He cried out, shouted almost, “Hail the Tripod!”
    • • •
    Trippies were the lead in the television news that evening. They showed a mob of them rioting outside the Daily Mail offices, and scuffles when police tried to disperse them. There were Trippies being dragged into police vans, a policeman with blood running down his face. The announcer said that another mob had assembled outside the editor’s home.Windows had been smashed and Tripod figures daubed on the walls.
    “In the House of Commons this afternoon,” he went on, “the prime minister said that the situation is being closely watched. There is particular concern that the practice of Trippy cultists banding together to live communally has now spread to this country. It is reported that there are several groups in London, squatting in empty flats and offices, and that similar communes have been set up in a number of provincial cities, including Birmingham and Exeter.”
    Martha said, “I