The Many Daughters of Afong Moy(87)

“You will be called the Extraneis,” Guto explained.

Zoe and the Theo groaned. Outsiders. They remembered the word from their Latin class. Though Zoe wasn’t sure if the name was meant literally—as she looked at the field—or figuratively as she touched the ribbon around her neck, loosening it a tad.

Guto told them to remove their shoes and hand them over.

Zoe looked at him, confused.

“It’s so you don’t run away,” one of Guto’s girls said with mock sympathy as the shoes were taken from the younger children. “We’ll give them back at supper.”

Zoe hesitated, then remembered that Guto had her book. She unlaced her leather shoes, removed her socks, and felt the cool earth, pebbles between her toes. She told herself that if she had to, she’d go wherever she needed to barefoot.

Guto pointed them to a wheelbarrow that was filled with hand trowels, shovels, hoes, and rakes. “You will report here at this hour each morning for garden duty. At noon, you will be escorted to the back of the kitchen where you will take your meals, outside. You will be given fifteen minutes to rest. Then you will come back here to continue your work. You are not allowed to go anywhere else on campus. Zoe and Theo will be your supervisors while you are in the field. They are to follow my instructions and you are to follow theirs. Understand?”

Zoe heard one of the girls say, “This is stupid.” It was Zofia.

“I don’t want to do this,” she said in a Polish accent as she started to walk away. “I’m telling the headmaster and the teachers that you’re making us be your slaves.”

Zoe looked at Guto, expecting him to do something, but he merely stared back at her, raising one eyebrow and smiling. She thought about her book. The love letter she wrote was still inside, with Mrs. Bidwell’s name on it.

Zoe hung her head. “Zofia,” she said with a sigh as the younger girl turned around. “This is what the headmaster decided we should do. It’s just a lesson, okay. He wanted us to learn and appreciate other systems of government.”

Zofia stopped, still seeming unconvinced.

“Look,” Zoe said. “You can eat strawberries all day if you want.”

Zofia said, “Fine.” She followed Zoe to the garden tools and grabbed a rake.



* * *



That evening, at supper, Zoe, Theo, and the rest were told that once again they would have to eat outside while the other students had use of the dining hall.

“It’s fine, everyone,” Zoe told the younger kids with a grim smile. “We’ll pretend we’re having a picnic.”

They found a soft bed of grass and everyone spread out.

“I’m not hungry. I’m going to go jump in the pool,” Zofia said. She began to undress, when Zoe remembered her note in the hands of Guto and stopped her.

“We shouldn’t,” she tried to reason with the girl. “We’re all so muddy, we might make the water dirty for everyone else, and you wouldn’t want that, would you?”

Zofia shook her head. “I don’t care.”

“But you just ate.” Zoe switched to plan B. “Teachers always say we should avoid swimming after we eat, and by the time we wait it will be dark already.”

Zoe was grateful that her reasoning was enough to convince the younger girl. Though Zoe did feel bad considering how many times she and the older kids had gone skinny-dipping in the pool well after dark.

After dinner, a messenger told them that their shoes could be found in the now-defunct art studio. Inside they discovered that all the easels and painting supplies had been stuffed into supply closets. Now it was just an empty room, a wooden hollow, like the cargo hold of a ship but with paint on the floor and on the walls. In the middle of the studio they found their suitcases and enough blankets and pillows for all of them.

Zoe curled up on the floor, dirty and exhausted. As did the others.

The teachers and headmaster will be back in charge in a week.

Zofia sat up, rubbing her eyes as she turned to Zoe. “I can’t sleep without a story.” Karan and Neysa both chimed in, pouting, “We can’t either.”

Zoe looked around for something to read, then shrugged at Theo and gathered the littles around her as she spoke softly. “There once was a girl who lived in a kingdom by the sea, who was in love with a very special person. A person smarter than her, stronger than her, braver than her. But this person was cursed by a maleficent mapmaker—an evil, wicked, cruel, and callous man—who knew every corner of the world, but could never read the map of someone’s heart.”

“Hearts don’t have maps,” Zofia said.

Zoe smiled. “Oh, but they do. They’re written inside you, and only a very special person can read it and follow its directions to a buried treasure.” Zoe touched the place above her heart. “We all have a buried treasure and it’s right here.”

Zoe told the story, making up each moment as she went, about a girl who followed her heart map across a great ocean made of purple flowers. About following tigers that roared through the sky. She spun her tale until the children began to drift off, happy and content in a made-up world where the stars rise in their true love’s eyes.

Zoe touched the black ribbon around her neck and looked toward the windows and light wells, wondering if Mrs. Bidwell was nearby or had gone home. Wherever she was, Zoe could endure whatever nonsense Guto presented. This was not permanent and in the end, he’s only alienating himself from students and staffers alike. It’s hard to be dismissed from Summerhill for poor behavior, but this might do it, Zoe thought. She might be giving Guto just enough ribbon to strangle himself.