I put up my hand and my fingers came away covered with green paste.
I felt dizzy. I tried to tear a page from my exercise book, but my hands were shaking and it tore wide.
Neil said: “Judith tore her exercise book, sir.”
Mr. Davies looked up. “Judith, did you tear your book?”
Neil made a chopping motion with his hand.
“I didn’t mean to,” I said.
“She’s lying, sir,” said Neil. “She did it on purpose.”
“Be quiet, Neil,” said Mr. Davies.
“It’s true, sir,” said Gemma. “I saw her.”
Mr. Davies frowned. “Judith, I’m surprised at you. We don’t deface school property here.” He turned back to marking Lee’s book.
My head was very hot now. After a minute I tried to wipe away the snot, but the paper only spread it. Gemma said: “Sir, I don’t want to sit next to Judith.”
Mr. Davies said: “What
Rhian said: “Judith needs a tissue, sir.”
Mr. Davies said: “Judith, if you need a tissue, then go to the toilets and get one. I wouldn’t have thought I would have to tell you that.”
When I didn’t move he said: “Well, go on.”
As I got up, Neil smiled.
“And wash your hands!” Mr. Davies called after me.
The Other Cheek
I SAT IN front of the Land of Decoration for over an hour that evening. The little people looked at me with their painted-on smiles. I knew every one of them. The two little people I had made to begin with, years ago—a pipe-cleaner doll with a green sweater and a kite, and a fabric doll with brown hair, dungarees, and flowers—stared at me hardest of all. They seemed to be asking something, but I didn’t know what.
“God,” I said, “I’m finding it really difficult having this power and not using it to punish people.” But God didn’t answer.
AT TWENTY TO six I heard the front door slam. Father called up to me, then he went into the kitchen. I heard Mike with him. Mike is not a believer, so we shouldn’t associate with him, but Father says he is a good man so it’s all right.
Mike and Father work in the factory together. Most of the people in town do. Inside the factory they make steel for things that fly. Mike says as factories go it’s not such a bad place. In the next valley is a factory where they kill chickens, and someone got so tired of killing chickens he put his hand in the machinery. And not long ago in the paper, there was a factory where people began getting ill because their gloves weren’t protecting them from the chemicals they were using, though the factory said it was nonsense. But Father has never liked our factory much and is always in a bad mood when he comes home, unless Mike is with him.
I got up and went along the landing. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I stopped to tie up my shoe. And that was when I heard Mike say: “Doug’s a bad lot. I’d keep out of his way if you can help it. I know it’s easier said than done.”
Someone moved a chair and Father said something I didn’t catch, then Mike said: “Aye, I heard about that.”
Father put something on the Rayburn. “Jim and Doug go to the Social together. They’re like that.”
“Aye. Well,” Mike said, “I’d say something.”
“It’s cutting the hours that’s done it,” said Father. “It’s getting to some of them.”
“Extra meetings for the union.”
Father said: “The union’s a joke.”
Then Mike said: “It might be a joke, but if they do strike I’m not looking forward to it.” He sighed. “If it wasn’t this it would be something else. They’ll get this sorted and something else’ll pop up; it’s like molehills.”
Father said: “I didn’t read my contract properly,” and I could tell he was smiling.
Then they were quiet, and I went to the door and opened it and Mike said: “Top of the morning to you!” which is what he always says even when it’s evening. And I said: “How’re the hens laying?” which is what I always say back.
He said: “What have you been up to, Fred?”
I thought for a minute and then said: “Making things.”
Mike said: “Good for you. Why did the chicken cross the road four hundred and seventy-eight times?”
“I don’t know.”
“Because his suspenders were stuck to the lamppost.”
“Good one,” I said. I sat at the table and peeled a tangerine.
They went on talking, but not about the factory. After a minute I said: “What’s a bad lot?”
Mike looked at Father, then he said: “A bad lot is someone you should stay away from.”
I put a piece of the tangerine in my mouth. “What’s the union?”
Father said: “Judith, don’t you know better than to listen to other people’s conversations?”
Mike laughed. “The union is a group of people that hang around with one another.”
“Oh,” I said. I thought about Gemma and Rhian and Keri, and Neil and Gareth and Lee. I knew about gangs. “Why is it a joke?”
Father shook his head and got up. Mike said: “I suppose they just aren’t very good at what they do.”
“What do they do?”
Mike said: “Talk about the third degree! Well, they organize things so that us workers get a fair deal; that’s the theory anyway.”
LATER, WHEN FATHER and I were having tea I said: “Why isn’t the union any good?”
Father said: “You don’t give up, do you?”
I was just about to ask again when he said: “The union’s too disorganized to do anything.”
“Oh.”
He was eating quickly. I could see that a lump of potato was traveling down his throat. He said: “It’s nothing for you to worry about.”
“So why do they want to strike?”
“They don’t think our hours should be cut.”
“Should they?”
The muscles of Father’s jaw and temple were moving up and down. “It’s not important what I think, Judith. What’s important is that we honor the civil authorities as God’s representatives on earth. Jesus said: ‘Pay Caesar’s things to Caesar, God’s things to God.’”
“But is cutting the hours unfair?”
“Jesus said: ‘Turn the other cheek.’ We have to leave things in God’s hands,” Father said. “Most things aren’t worth getting wound up about. Most things are small stuff.”
Smoothed my potato down. “Small stuff is important too,” I said.
Father put down his knife. He said: “Are you playing with that food or eating it?”
I stopped mashing.
“Eating it,” I said.
The Present
