Grace McCleen - The Land of Decoration

“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.

ON WEDNESDAY, NEIL Lewis put a worm in my curry and threw me in the bin and I had to bang till Mr. Potts, the caretaker, heard me. When Father saw my clothes, he was angry and said he had enough to do without this, but I didn’t say anything about Neil, because I didn’t want Father to have to go to the school. I just went up to my room and told a story in the Land of Decoration.

On Thursday, Neil pulled my chair from under me and tried to start a fire in the playground with my bag. When Father saw my bag he said: “Damn it, Judith, money doesn’t grow on trees!” and I knew he was very angry because he had sworn. I went upstairs and played with the Land of Decoration and told a story about an umbrella that had a pattern of flamingos on it; if it had been opened, each flamingo would have taken flight, but it never was, because the little girl it belonged to loved it so much she didn’t want it to get wet.

On Friday, I kept my head bowed over my work and didn’t look up once, because if I had seen Neil I wouldn’t have been able to hide how angry I was. And it was strange how I didn’t remember being angry, only frightened, before I discovered my power, but now that I had, I was angrier than I had been my whole life and felt as though something was racing round inside me, like the Road Runner trying to get out.

Mr. Davies’s face was the color of putty that morning. He adjusted his glasses and his hand shook. Sweat glistened on his forehead. At ten to eleven he banged on the desk, fumbled in the drawer for a bottle inside, and stood up. He said: “I’ll be back in five minutes. Get on with your work quietly and remember: I’ll be checking spelling and grammar!”

When he had gone, pandemonium broke out. I bent over my book and leaned my head on my hand. We were doing creative writing in our news books. I like creative writing, but the subject was “Presents” and was difficult for me to write about. The Brothers don’t celebrate Christmas or birthdays, and Father didn’t buy presents, because he said the world was full of materialism and we didn’t have to add to it. I suppose I could have written about one of Josie’s presents, but I didn’t want to.

Gemma was saying: “I’m getting a pony for Christmas.”

“I’m getting a trampoline,” said Keri.

“I’m getting a pair of Rollerblades,” said Rhian.

Then Gemma said: “You don’t celebrate Christmas, do you?”

“No,” I said, “because it’s not Jesus’s birthday. It’s the birthday of the Roman sun god.”

Rhian said: “You don’t have birthdays either.”

“No, because they were pagan celebrations, and on the only birthdays recorded in the Bible, people were beheaded.”

Keri said: “You don’t have television either.”

“No,” I said, “because when my mother and father got married, my father said: ‘It’s either me or the telly.’ My mother made the wrong choice.”

They didn’t get the joke. They gave me the “weird” look, which is one eyebrow raised, chin drawn in, and a frown. Then Keri said: “You don’t have a mother, do you?” And I said nothing.

Gemma said: “Anyway, Jesus was born on Christmas Day. Everyone knows that.” And one turned her back on me and leaned on her arm and forced me over the edge of the desk.

But suddenly I knew what to write about: I would write about the snow. It was easily the best present I ever had, better than any Christmas or birthday present, and it was safe to write about too, because Father had only said I shouldn’t talk about the miracles and no one would read my news book except Mr. Davies, who wrote Good work at the bottom of everything—once I wrote I would rather die than go to school and he wrote Good work at the bottom of that too.

I drew a margin with my ruler. I wrote the date. I closed my eyes and the noise of the classroom faded. I could hear the wind rising. I could feel the air getting colder. Whiteness was filling my eyes. Everything got darker.

I DON’T KNOW how long I had been writing when I felt something behind me. When I turned, Neil Lewis was standing there looking pleased, as if he had just found something he had forgotten about. He said: “What you doing, spaz?”

“Nothing,” I said.

I opened the drawer to put my book away, but he was faster.

I grabbed at the book, but Neil held it higher. I grabbed at it again and he lifted it above my head. Then I sat very still and looked at my hands.

Neil found the page I had been writing on. He read in a loud voice: “I had the best present I found out I have a gift it was magic it happened on Sunday I made it snow—” He frowned. Then he laughed and shouted: “Oi! Everyone! Judith’s got magic powers!”

There were hoots. There were shouts. They gathered around.

Neil began to read again. “I made it snow I made it in my room I made it from cotton wool and sugar—”

There was shouts.

“God showed me how to make it—”

There were hoots.

“It was a mi-mir-a-mira-c-mira—there was no other ex-exp-expa-…” Neil cleared his throat. “… other explan- … explan- …” Neil frowned. “ As we appro-appro- the con-conc-conclu- we must be vigi-…” He was getting red. “ As we ap-ap-appro-appro- the con-conclusi- … we must be vigi- … we see an inc-inc-incre- in sup-erna- occ-occu-…”

People were staring. Neil said: “What the fuck ?” and he hurled the book at my chest.