‘We saw your YouTube video, of course,’ said Mum, ‘so we know about the technology thing.’
‘There’s a lot more to it than that, Mags. It’s about sustainability and conservation too. For instance, we’re planting a whole new forest. We want Sloth to look exactly like it did in the Bronze Age.’
‘Super,’ said Mum, who probably hadn’t used that word since 1984. ‘It must be very rewarding.’
Sue took out a shoebox and placed it on the counter. ‘It’s about preserving this amazingly beautiful world for our children’s children.’
‘Has anyone got two buckets?’ said Millie. ‘I think I’m going to be sick. And anyway, you haven’t got any children.’
‘Shut up, Millie,’ said Mum.
‘But it’s not just about the tomorrow,’ said Sue, ‘it’s about today. Childhood is such a precious time. We want our young people to chill out and have fun. Like Earl says, they grow up far too quickly these days. That’s why we start by asking you to hand in all your gadgets and gizmos.’
Mum started rummaging in her suitcase. ‘OK, well, I’d better go first then. There’s my phone, and that’s my ereader. I’m halfway through The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Don’t suppose I could hang on to it for a bit?’
‘There are plenty of real books in the library,’ said Sue. ‘I’m sure you’ll find something more . . . appropriate there.’
Millie tossed her mobile onto the counter without a fight. ‘I hope you’ll be very happy together.’
I hadn’t been anywhere near my phone since the photograph fiasco. And Dad had obviously turned his off to avoid the press. Not being able to talk to him would be agony, but it made handing it over a whole lot easier. When I saw it next to Mum’s and Millie’s I realised what a crap phone it was anyway.
‘Right, how about your mp3 players or any handheld gaming devices?’ said Sue.
I’d just started another round of Temple Run. ‘What am I going to do all day?’
‘That’s what all the youngsters say to start with,’ said Sue. ‘A few weeks on Sloth and you’ll wonder why you wasted so much precious time on them.’
‘You said you wanted us to chill out,’ said Millie. ‘Well, this is how I do it – listening to music.’
Sue was lining up our phones with the others. ‘We make our own music here. And Kirsten holds regular music appreciation sessions in the Symposium.’
‘What if I refuse?’ said Millie.
‘Then, with regret, we’d have to put you straight back on the next ferry.’
‘Just give her the bloody thing,’ said Mum. ‘I’m not getting on that boat again in a hurry.’
Millie screwed up her eyes and surrendered herself to the music.
‘Come on, love,’ said Mum, in that tone she sometimes used with me when threats had proved useless. ‘Remember what we’re doing this for. It won’t be forever, you know.’
Millie screwed up her fist and surrendered her iPod. ‘I hate it here already.’
‘Thank you, Millie,’ said Sue. ‘Now how about you, Jess?’
I made one final attempt to escape the demon monkeys before handing it over. ‘Looks like I haven’t got much choice.’
‘I think you’d better have this, Mags,’ said Sue, handing her the shoebox on the counter. ‘It’s a bit of a hassle at first, but it really is a great leveller.’
‘What’s it for?’ said Mum.
‘Designer labels and slogans; you have to get rid of them. We’re all under so much pressure these days to have the latest gear – particularly adolescents. Earl says that no young person should have to suffer because they haven’t got the “right” pair of trainers.’
Mum nodded thoughtfully. ‘What’s in the box exactly?’
‘Sewing kit,’ said Sue. ‘If you can’t pick them out, sew a patch over them or stick black tape on the top.’
I suddenly realised what was different about her. She had a scar on the back of her jeans where the label should be, a square of tartan material on the front of her beanie and a strip of black tape across the swoosh on her trainers. The whole effect was kind of spooky.
‘I’m afraid this last one can sometimes get a bit emotional,’ said Sue solemnly, ‘but I promise you, in a couple of weeks, you’ll hardly give it another thought.
‘You’ve got me worried now,’ said Mum. ‘What is it?’
Sue took off her beanie. Her roots were showing. Whatever colourant she was using, it was a dead loss. She looked like a respectful badger about to break bad news. ‘Cosmetics and personal grooming products; it’s a multi-million dollar industry based on vanity and greed. We only use what we can find around us.’
I was too shocked to say anything.
Mum sounded almost as traumatised as I was. ‘What about hairdryers? You can’t possibly mean . . .’
‘Of course.’ Sue smiled. ‘We’ve got a couple of wind turbines outside the Symposium and a solar-powered lighting system, but there’s nowhere to plug them in anyway.’
Mum reached into her suitcase and pulled out her detox and purify hairdryer, laying it out on the counter like the corpse of an old friend.
Millie and I followed suit.
‘So that’s the lot, is it?’ said Sue, doubtfully.
‘Oh yes, that’s right,’ said Mum, handing Sue her styling wand and a salon diffuser. ‘I almost forgot I had these.’
My digital hair straighteners joined them on the counter.
Millie’s long black hair was perfect; she didn’t need them anyway.
‘Great, so now it’s just beauty products,’ said Sue. ‘Makeup, shampoo – whatever’s your poison.’
‘No way,’ I said. ‘I’m not going anywhere without make-up. And shampoo’s not a beauty product, it’s a basic human right.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Sue. ‘There are plenty of natural resources on the island that are actually far less toxic.’
‘Could I just keep the ones that haven’t been tested on animals, then?’ I said. ‘I’m sure my mascara’s organic.’
Sue smiled and shook her head. ‘That’s not really the point, Jess. You’re a beautiful, intelligent women. You just don’t need this stuff. Come on, who’s going to be first?’
Mum heaved an industrial-sized jar of anti-ageing cream plus a tube of foundation and an eye-liner pencil onto the counter. ‘I’ve been fighting a losing battle for the last ten years. Maybe it’s time to throw in the towel.’
Millie had managed to fit an entire beauty routine into a plastic bag the size of a pencil case. ‘There you go,’ she said. ‘I look like shit anyway.’
It was a technique I’d picked up at school: own up to about fifty per cent of your crimes and misdemeanours, and you can usually get away with the rest. It was probably the hardest choice I’d ever had to make. I could have spent all year on it, and still not came up with the same list twice. ‘We didn’t have much time to pack,’ I said. ‘So, this is all I’ve got, I’m afraid.’
I unzipped my Where’s Wally? sports bag and started laying out sacrificial cosmetic victims: first the lettuce and juniper face mask, next – and slightly more reluctantly – my second favourite conditioner.
‘Is that it?’ said Sue.
Just because she’d given up fighting, didn’t mean that Mum had to drop me in it. ‘Come on, Jess,’ she said. ‘You’re telling me you haven’t got some shampoo in their somewhere?’
‘You saw what happened when Ella tried that “no-poo” thing,’ I said. ‘It was absolutely disgusting.’
‘We make our own out of baking soda and seaweed,’ said Sue. ‘It’s more of a paste really, but it’s just as effective as anything you can buy in the shops.’
‘OK,’ I said, putting on the poker face that Dad taught me on that waterlogged weekend in a so-called luxury caravan when he forced us to learn gin rummy. ‘This really is everything.’ I played my crackle nail varnish first, next, a beautifully acted yelp of pain followed by my Soft and Silky Salon Results shampoo. And finally, i
n what felt like my cleverest move yet (especially if it meant hanging on to my foundation and mascara), the packet of sanitary towels. I didn’t dare think what the Dawdler alternative might be.
Sue reached across the counter and grabbed my sports bag. ‘Sorry, Jess, but I think I’d better make sure that you haven’t missed anything.’
‘Give me that. You can’t just —’
‘Look, if we’re going to do this, I think we’d better do it properly, said Mum.
‘Oh yeah, that’s right. Treat her like a kid, why don’t you?’ said Millie. ‘What gives you the right, anyway?’
For one glorious minute it looked like she’d missed my anti-frizz serum. A few seconds later it was lying on a pile with my Big It Up conditioner, my grape and pomegranate cleanser and all the rest of my beauty products.
‘OK, OK, fine,’ I said. ‘But please just let me keep my mascara.’
‘Sorry, but it’s the same for everyone, I promise,’ said Sue. ‘And I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask for the bag too. Don’t worry, I’ll find you another one.’
‘No way,’ I said, grabbing back my Where’s Wally? sports bag and holding it close to my chest. ‘What do you want it for, anyway?’
‘It’s a brand, isn’t it?’ said Sue. ‘Well, a franchise anyway.’
‘You’re not having it,’ I said. ‘You can take everything else, but you’re not having my bag.’
It wasn’t especially cool for someone in Year Ten to be carrying a Where’s Wally? sports bag. There were a couple of Year Sevens who thought it was hilarious to enquire after Wally’s whereabouts whenever they saw me. But I didn’t care. I’d had that bag since primary school and I wasn’t giving it up for anybody.
‘What’s so special about it?’ said Sue. ‘I mean, it’s not exactly Gucci, is it?’
‘Dad gave it to me,’ I said. ‘You can say what you like, but you’re not having it.’
‘Please, Sue,’ said Mum, suddenly on my side for once. ‘It’s only a bag.’
OK,’ said Sue. ‘Just make sure you wear Wally on the inside so no one can see him. Oh and you’d better have these too.’ She handed me back the sanitary towels. ‘Earl says we should use something recyclable, but most of the women think that’s taking things a bit far!’
‘Right, thanks,’ I said, wishing they’d felt more strongly about eye-liner.
‘Anyway, let’s get you to your pod, shall we?’ said Sue. ‘I bet you can’t wait to meet some of our amazing young people.’
I had a feeling they’d be a bit like that weird girl in Year Eleven who wore hand-knitted jumpers and refused to wear make-up.
If only.
Aquiescent Adolescents
‘The last crofters left Sloth in 1957,’ said Sue, ‘but if you look up on the moor you can just make out the remains of an old blackhouse. They called their dwellings blackhouses because the open peat fires stained the walls.’ She pointed to a row of brightly coloured beach huts. ‘And those are the composting toilets. Rather fun, aren’t they? You’ll find some buckets of sawdust in the shed round the back.’
Luckily my mind was otherwise engaged. I was trying to imagine a world without mascara; trying to convince myself it wasn’t the dystopian nightmare that every other film I’d seen that year, not to mention Mrs Woolf’s English lessons, had led me to expect. I was half succeeding until we arrived at the pods, and a bleak vision of the future walked – very slowly – across our path.
‘Oh look,’ said Sue. ‘It’s Derek and the Striplings.’
‘They sound like a sixties pop group,’ said Mum, bravely attempting to disguise her horror.
‘Earl’s not keen on the expression “teenager”,’ said Sue. ‘He says it’s nothing more than a cynical marketing ploy. That’s why we call our young adults the Striplings. As you can see, Derek’s taking them through a walking meditation.’
There is nothing at all unusual about middle-aged fashion disasters. They all look the same to me. So the man in the disgustingly baggy shorts, blue anorak and clown-sized walking boots was no more unsettling than Mr Catchpole’s infamous denim jacket.
‘That’s great, folks,’ he said, beaming proudly as the ‘amazing young people’ turned every step into a five-act tragedy with eighty pages of footnotes. (Footnotes – get it?) ‘Now I want you to feel grounded. Just stay in the moment; that’s what it’s all about.’
No, the disturbing part of the vision wasn’t Derek, it was his so-called Striplings, who were parading in front of us like a creep of unfashionable tortoises.
‘Amazing, isn’t it?’ said Sue. ‘Some of this lot were so chronically addicted to twenty-first century toxicity when they first arrived they could barely function unless they were doing three things at once.’
It was wrong on so many levels. Most of them looked about my age, with maybe a couple of older ones thrown in. How was it then that all eight Striplings were taking the slow-motion walking thing so seriously? What self-respecting St Thomas’s kid would have passed-up the opportunity to exchange libellous banter and wedges of bubble gum behind the teacher’s back?
But if the boys looked like a mad Victorian barber had assaulted them with a blunt pair of manually operated hedge clippers, the girls were simply unspeakable. Pastier than movie vampires, but without the quirky fashion sense or perfect skin tone, their greasy hair hung lankly about their faces, giving them the appearance of undernourished rescue ponies.
‘Good afternoon,’ said the knobbly kneed meditation teacher, bounding towards Mum with his hand outstretched. ‘I’m Derek. Welcome to Sloth.’
Mum winced as he pumped her hand. ‘Thanks very much.’
‘This is my dear friend, Maggie,’ said Sue. ‘She’s the doctor I talked about in the Symposium.’
‘That’s splendid,’ said Derek, ‘but Sue seemed to think you weren’t coming. How long do you think you’ll be here? And what made you change your mind?’
Mum stared at her favourite boots. ‘Well, I don’t know, I —’
‘Anyway, I haven’t introduced the girls yet,’ said Sue. ‘This is Millie and that’s Jessica.’
‘Two more Striplings, I see,’ said Derek. ‘I expect you want to unpack right now, but don’t worry, you’ll both be joining us tomorrow morning. I’ll try and plan something special for your first day.’ He must have detected my super-sized misgivings. They were like the Great Wall of China; an astronaut could have spotted them from outer space. ‘Don’t worry, Jessica; it’s nothing like school. We’re not an exam factory. And you won’t find any bullying here. Our youngsters are the nicest bunch you’re ever likely to come across.’
I wanted to believe him. Unfortunately, from where I was standing, the prognosis wasn’t good. When a new kid arrived at St Thomas’s, at least we gave them the benefit of the doubt until we’d seen their Facebook page. This lot treated all my attempts to make contact with zombie-like indifference. I smiled, practically pouted like a porn star, and got nothing, not even the slightest nod of recognition, in return. I didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but they could quite easily have been the kind of teenagers who fought to the death in state-sponsored killing competitions, or at the very least wrote short stories and played a musical instrument freakishly well.
‘We’d better get going,’ said Sue. ‘Once I’ve settled these guys into their pod, Earl thinks they could probably do with an afternoon nap.’
Just as we were turning to leave, I made a bit of a breakthrough.
He would have been OK-looking with decent clothes, better skin and a hairstyle from the twenty-first century. In fact, the boy in the disgustingly grubby jumper with the cute nose and soft beginnings of what might many years from now blossom into a credible moustache, had a lot going for him. That’s why I wasn’t exactly heartbroken when I realised he was checking me out.
At least that’s what I thought. Teach Yourself Flirting decreed that after returning his gaze for a nanosecond, I should look away and do that simpering thing I’ve always been
so crap at. But when I turned back, expecting a full on smile, he was staring at his feet like all the rest.
‘There’s just one little thing before you go,’ said Derek, sidling up to Mum and lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘I don’t know if it’s the organic diet or what, but the thing is I’m having a bit of trouble with my . . .’
Mum got quite cross when the people she met in town wanted medical advice. (‘I mean, you wouldn’t ask an off-duty plumber to unblock your toilet.’) I couldn’t hear what Derek said next, but judging from Mum’s face it was the sort of embarrassing ailment you saw most weeks on a documentary.
Derek, on the other hand, looked much chirpier after his free consultation. ‘Well, that’s a relief, I must say. Anyway, I’ll let you good people get on. And we’ll see you two girls tomorrow morning outside the Symposium.’
‘Over my dead body,’ muttered Millie.
Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that. But from what I’d seen already, the alternative didn’t look much better.
We Need To Talk About Kevin
The pods were the opposite of the Tardis: smaller than they looked when you got inside.
‘This is your living area,’ said Sue. ‘Don’t get me wrong, Mags, the communal aspects of Dawdler life are incredibly rewarding. It’s just nice to have a room of your own to hang out in once in a while.’
‘There’s so much more space without a television, isn’t there?’ said Mum, casting her eye over the grim collection of second-hand furniture, the depressing family of purple beanbags and the black hole where the telly should have been.
‘Now, how about I show you to your sleeping area, Mags?’
‘No,’ said Mum, her happy camper act starting to falter. ‘I think I’d better stay here and get to work on these labels. Why don’t you show the girls to their room first?’
Sue led us down the narrow connecting tube until we came to a baby pod just tall enough to stand up in.
‘Cosy, isn’t it?’ said Sue, flicking on the solar-powered lighting system, which failed to throw much more light on the situation than the tiny porthole in the roof. It was probably just as well. The cheap chest of drawers, two lumpy futons and a cold grey colour scheme made Death Row look like The Ritz.
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