They passed under the archway to the area where the children’s dormitory and classrooms were and entered a door numbered one.
The classroom was a ramshackle, shabby space with children’s pictures pinned haphazardly on the walls. Twenty small children in scarlet tracksuits were already sitting at the tables, their ages, Robin guessed, between two and five. She was surprised that there weren’t more of them, given that there were a hundred people at the farm having unprotected sex, but was primarily struck by their strange passivity. Their eyes wandered, their faces blank, and very few were fidgeting, the exception being little Qing, who was currently crouched under her desk pressing blobs of plasticine onto the floor, her mop of white hair contrasting with the rest of the class’s buzz cuts.
On Robin and Shawna’s appearance, the woman who’d been reading to them got to her feet with an appearance of relief.
‘We’re on page thirty-two,’ she told Shawna, handing over the book. Shawna waited until the woman had closed the classroom door before throwing the book down on the teacher’s desk and saying.
‘Orlroight, less get ’em started on somefing.’
She took up a pile of colouring sheets.
‘Yew can do us a nice picture of a prophet,’ she informed the class, and she passed half the pile to Robin to hand out. ‘Thass mine,’ Shawna added carelessly, pointing to a colourless shrimp of a girl, before barking ‘git back on yer chair!’ at Qing, who started to wail. ‘Ignore ’er,’ Shawna advised Robin. ‘She’s gotta learn, that one.’
So Robin handed out colouring sheets, all of which featured a line drawing of a prophet of the UHC. The Stolen Prophet’s noose, which Robin might have expected to be omitted from colouring pictures for such young children, hung proudly around his neck. When she passed Qing’s desk she surreptitiously bent down, prised the plasticine off the floor and handed it back to the little girl, whose tears somewhat abated.
Moving among the children to offer encouragement and sharpen pencils, Robin found herself still more disturbed by their behaviour. Now that she paid them individual attention, they were unnervingly ready to be affectionate to her, even though she was a complete stranger. One little girl climbed into Robin’s lap unasked; others played with her hair or cuddled her arm. Robin found their craving for the kind of loving closeness that was forbidden by the church pitiful and distressing.
‘Stop that,’ Shawna told Robin from the front of the class. ‘Thass material possessiveness.’
So Robin gently disengaged herself from the clinging children and moved instead to examine some of the pictures pinned up on the wall, some of which had clearly been drawn by older students, as their subject matter was discernible. Most depicted daily life at Chapman Farm, and she recognised the tower like a giant chess piece which was visible on the horizon.
One picture caught Robin’s attention. It was captioned
Turning, Robin saw Mazu, who was wearing long scarlet robes. Total silence fell inside the classroom. The children appeared frozen.
‘I sent Vivienne to the stables to fetch Rowena,’ said Mazu quietly, ‘and I was told you’d removed her from the task I set her.’
‘Oi was told I could choose moi own helper,’ said Shawna, who looked suddenly terrified.
‘From your
‘Oi’m sorry,’ whispered Shawna. ‘I thort—’
‘You can’t think, Shawna. You’ve proven that time and again. But you’ll be made to think.’
Mazu’s gaze ranged over the seated children, alighting on Qing.
‘Cut her hair,’ she told Shawna. ‘I’m tired of seeing that mess. Rowena,’ she said, now looking directly at Robin for the first time, ‘come with me.’
Light-headed with fear, Robin crossed the classroom and followed Mazu outside. She wanted to apologise, to tell Mazu she’d had no idea she was transgressing by agreeing to accompany Shawna to the classroom, but she feared unwittingly making her predicament worse.
