Mandy at school

A wary sobbing was all that could be heard at the Ferndale Community School classroom that fine Friday morning. Closer inspection would reveal a pair of shoe covered feet poking out from beneath the curtain. The feet belong to a curly haired girl aged maybe nine years old. The girl would would stop crying as soon as she heard our footsteps with only her tear-stained face and guilty expression giving her away.

Crying as forbidden at Ferndale Community School. As were many other things.

Mandy, for that was the girl's name, was crying because her fingers hurt. As did her back. The cane, though illegal in this country, was not forbidden at Ferndale Community School. Mandy had earned five whacks on the hand for speaking out of turn and another ten on the back for talking about life in the outside world.

Mandy was not the only one of hte six girls in her class born outside the community, just the only one who had spent eight happier years outside. She had experienced ice cream and playgrounds and lollies. She had experienced a wonderful schoolteacher who never caned her, and boys in her class though she wasn't particularly interested in them yet. She had had her own room for most of her life, and no strange people would enter it in the middle of the night.

Mandy did not like the community, but hadn't yet learnt not to say so. Which explained yesterday's caning, if not today's.

As for why Mandy was alone, part of her punishment meant staying in class while everyone else went swimming. She was hiding in case any of the other teachers, or worse, the head of the commune, came in. They would assume she hadn't been punished enough for whatever transgression she had committed this tiem. Mandy, of course, could never do anything right and needed the devil himself beaten out of her if there was going to be any hope for her.

***

Mandy could just about remember her father. A tall man, or so he seemed to the four year old Mandy, he used to come home before dinner and pick Mandy up with a cuddle and tell her what a precious girl she was before setting her down and asking if she had been a good girl for mummy. Many times he would come home with a present, maybe a toy, a chocolate or even a book which he would read to her when she went to bed.

Then one morning, Mandy woke up to find Dad's favourite pictures gone from the hall and his trophy he got from golf was gone too. And Mummy was crying. The four year old Mandy went to her mother and told her everything would be alright again when Dad came home. Dad would make sure everything came back. This only made Mummy cry all the more. This four year old couldn't understand why though the nine year old Mandy, much wiser now, cried with the mother of her memory. She had not seen her father since that day though her mother started ranting about "that bitch Jenny" whenever she got upset.

When the four year old Mandy, nearly five now, asked her mother who that bitch Jenny was, her mother slapped her for swearing. Mother then got really upset saying sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Mandy just cried. The nine year old Mandy joined in when she realised just how much she had been crying since her dad left.

The nine year old Mandy stopped crying at the sound of footsteps and pulled her toes in under the curtain properly. She had been caught once before when her toes had stuck out, although that had been at the commune itself, not the school.

Mandy listened. The voice belonging to the head of the school commented that Mandy wasn't in the classroom and so must have been good enough to go swimming. "The devil is losing it's grip on that girl. Must be sure her teachers don't let up on her or she'll get too above herself and the devil'll be there to stay."

Mandy had heard herself called "that girl" many times in the ten months she and her mother had been in the community. She stayed still, not willing even to scratch her nose in case she bumped the curtain and gave herself away.

"I didn't see her with the rest of her class." Mandy, now wide-eyed with fear, wished she could stop breathing in case even that sound gave her away. It was the son of the leader of the commune, who Mandy only knew as the man she was supposed to call father. She wished she dared refuse that demand and feared she was betraying the dad she remembered. She wished this all the more a the curtain was pulled roughly from in front of her. As the man she had to call father did not speak to her, Mandy tried to shrink into the corner.

"See the devil in her shrinking away from me, brother."