    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,

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