then. I felt all-powerful, and full of love.
“Well done,” said Mama. “I’ll harvest them for you this time. Next time we grow them you’ll be a great big teenager, and do it all yourself.”
My Lindquists were still alive, sleek and playful in their miniature kingdom, when it was time for me to leave. Mama had tried to get a voucher for the tractor ride so she could come with me to the train platform: but Nicolai had told her it wasn’t allowed, because she was a
peepee
. I sat in the metal cart by myself, with the bag that held my clean and mended clothes, and as much extra food as Mama had been able to put together. I waved until she was out of sight: then I crouched there and stared, as Nicolai’s tractor jolted me through the ruts and the mud of summer’s end, until all sign of our Settlement had vanished over the horizon.
The New Dawn Rehabilitation College stood on the edge of a town that was just another Prison Settlement, much bigger than ours, and not so remote. I had traveled there over four days, with the guards who had been waiting for me at the train platform: sleeping in station huts and on hard railway carriage benches. I never found out what the town was like, I only glimpsed it on the way from the station.
New Dawn had formerly been a hospital. The buildings were low and gray, and surrounded by a very tall fence. The corridors smelled of disinfectant and the wardens, who were in charge of us except for lessons, wore nurses’ uniforms. Mama needn’t have worried about my underwear. Everything I’d brought with me, including my extra food, was taken away as soon as I arrived. I was scrubbed, deloused, had my hair cropped, and was given my junior school uniform: a dull red dress and a round cap, scratchy gray drawers to below my knees, gray socks, indoor shoes, outdoor shoes; gray underwear. Then I was taken to my dormitory by a white-coated warden, with a clanking chain of keys, who kept unlocking doors ahead, and locking them behind. I was given a bed, and I was told some of the most important rules, which all started
Don’t
, or
It is forbidden
.
Before the end of the first day I wished with all my heart that I had failed the stupid test, so I could have stayed with Mama. We weren’t allowed to use the word
prison
, or say we were at prison school. We were being rehabilitated now. But New Dawn felt more like a prison than the Settlement ever had.
The idea of having a school for Settlement children was quite new, but this wasn’t the first year of New Dawn. It was just that remote areas, like the place where Mama and I lived, had taken a while to catch up. There were already seniors who looked down on the juniors, and traditions and special words that you had to learn quickly, if you knew what was good for you. Juniors were Bugs, in red and gray. If you were over fourteen, you were a Rat and your uniform was brown. The teachers were Gulls, the guards were Dogs, and the wardens were Cats. I’d been afraid people would pick on me, because of my crooked leg, but about the only good thing I found out in the first few days was that lots of juniors—and seniors—had something wrong with them, and I was far from being the worst off. I was assigned to a physiotherapy class. They screwed a brace onto my leg, to straighten it where the front shinbone had knit badly (there was nothing they could do about my knee); and put me on vitamin pills, because I was undersized and my teeth wobbled. I also had to join the line for malt extract, a disgusting brew that the dormitory Cat spooned into us weakling girls, night and morning.
At mealtime hundreds of new Bugs with stick-thin gray legs poured into the junior canteen and sat down in roaring confusion, to eat the food that had been dumped on our plates by the dinner Cats. When I saw the fibrous brown stuff on my plate, I rammed it into my mouth without a thought: everyone else was doing it. Too late, I found my mouth was full of tough, slimy string.
“Well done,” said Mama. “I’ll harvest them for you this time. Next time we grow them you’ll be a great big teenager, and do it all yourself.”
My Lindquists were still alive, sleek and playful in their miniature kingdom, when it was time for me to leave. Mama had tried to get a voucher for the tractor ride so she could come with me to the train platform: but Nicolai had told her it wasn’t allowed, because she was a
peepee
. I sat in the metal cart by myself, with the bag that held my clean and mended clothes, and as much extra food as Mama had been able to put together. I waved until she was out of sight: then I crouched there and stared, as Nicolai’s tractor jolted me through the ruts and the mud of summer’s end, until all sign of our Settlement had vanished over the horizon.
The New Dawn Rehabilitation College stood on the edge of a town that was just another Prison Settlement, much bigger than ours, and not so remote. I had traveled there over four days, with the guards who had been waiting for me at the train platform: sleeping in station huts and on hard railway carriage benches. I never found out what the town was like, I only glimpsed it on the way from the station.
New Dawn had formerly been a hospital. The buildings were low and gray, and surrounded by a very tall fence. The corridors smelled of disinfectant and the wardens, who were in charge of us except for lessons, wore nurses’ uniforms. Mama needn’t have worried about my underwear. Everything I’d brought with me, including my extra food, was taken away as soon as I arrived. I was scrubbed, deloused, had my hair cropped, and was given my junior school uniform: a dull red dress and a round cap, scratchy gray drawers to below my knees, gray socks, indoor shoes, outdoor shoes; gray underwear. Then I was taken to my dormitory by a white-coated warden, with a clanking chain of keys, who kept unlocking doors ahead, and locking them behind. I was given a bed, and I was told some of the most important rules, which all started
Don’t
, or
It is forbidden
.
Before the end of the first day I wished with all my heart that I had failed the stupid test, so I could have stayed with Mama. We weren’t allowed to use the word
prison
, or say we were at prison school. We were being rehabilitated now. But New Dawn felt more like a prison than the Settlement ever had.
The idea of having a school for Settlement children was quite new, but this wasn’t the first year of New Dawn. It was just that remote areas, like the place where Mama and I lived, had taken a while to catch up. There were already seniors who looked down on the juniors, and traditions and special words that you had to learn quickly, if you knew what was good for you. Juniors were Bugs, in red and gray. If you were over fourteen, you were a Rat and your uniform was brown. The teachers were Gulls, the guards were Dogs, and the wardens were Cats. I’d been afraid people would pick on me, because of my crooked leg, but about the only good thing I found out in the first few days was that lots of juniors—and seniors—had something wrong with them, and I was far from being the worst off. I was assigned to a physiotherapy class. They screwed a brace onto my leg, to straighten it where the front shinbone had knit badly (there was nothing they could do about my knee); and put me on vitamin pills, because I was undersized and my teeth wobbled. I also had to join the line for malt extract, a disgusting brew that the dormitory Cat spooned into us weakling girls, night and morning.
At mealtime hundreds of new Bugs with stick-thin gray legs poured into the junior canteen and sat down in roaring confusion, to eat the food that had been dumped on our plates by the dinner Cats. When I saw the fibrous brown stuff on my plate, I rammed it into my mouth without a thought: everyone else was doing it. Too late, I found my mouth was full of tough, slimy string.
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