SUGAR AND SPICE AND ALL THINGS NICE
Part 3 of 8
They shared their classroom as a happy home. Practice materials filled the cabinets: sorting baskets, knotting boards, cleaning supplies, musical instruments. Animal cards. Shells to arrange, beads to thread. Picture books. Simple blue novels with moral lessons proper to unquestioning hard work.
Twenty sleeping mats unrolled at night on the classroom floor. Twenty pillows. Twenty blankets.
They were all ten years and eleven weeks and two days and five hours old, and they were all good sisters together.
Andromache laid her sewing out neatly on her workmat. Eight rows of stitching. Six button holes. Zigzag stitch, running stitch, chain. She was good at sewing. She needed no practice.
It went in the basket. The workmat was put away. Teacher said, “Briseis, it is juice time! Who shall get the juice?”
Briseis ignored Andromache. “Zmara shall get it, Miss.”
Zmara smiled brightly but heads and eyes turned. Would Andromache say something?
Silver-haired Andromache stood as still as stone. The juice cart’s wheels squeaked as the dietician rolled it into Violet Three’s common hall.
“All right, girls, line!” Teacher clapped. Quick they ran. “Breseis, who shall get the medicine?”
Wary eyes at Andromache.
“Capreola, Miss.”
Capreola ran for the pharmacy cart and brought a tray of folded papers, and each paper had a name, all twenty. Each girl took her medicine, two pills, or three, or five, sipped her juice, and swallowed. The medicine helped make them perfect, and they smiled in their perfection.
Andromache had six pills. She put them in her mouth and sipped her juice gone, then went to the toilet. She latched the door, though they were not supposed to, and spat the softened pills from between her cheek and molars in the sink, running water until they were gone. She wiped the sink clean, washed and dried her hands, and took in her reflection in the mirror. Green eyes. She made her mouth smile. Her eyes smiled with it.
Now, writing practice.
Andromache. Andromache. Andromache. Neat, small letters. She studied her name. Imagined it with loops and descenders, like Teacher’s on the gray-black slate wall. Like a queen’s. Not dull bug-printing. She traced her graphite stylus in the air. Loop. Loop. Loop. Andromache. Andromache. Andromache.
She stopped the fluid motions. Zmara was watching.
Slow, square, painful, ugly letters. ANDROMACHE.
“Here’s a shopping list, girls: copy it!”
Olives. Chickpeas. Salt. Thyme. Courgettes. Garlic. Limorancios. Dates. Honey.
“Good work, Briseis. Good work, Gemma. Good work, Andromache!”
“Thank you, Miss.”
“Class, get your sandals; we shall walk to Administration. It’s our turn to clean the offices.—Briseis, line everyone up!”
Lyrik nineteen crossed the green grassy quadrangle. The clouds raced across the aqua sky as the girls walked in two straight rows and went up ten broad marble stairs, leaving their sandals two-by-two near the doors. Inside were the Offices. Adults worked at terminals, blind to the little girls amongst them, pairing off as regular as tin soldiers, getting dusters, buckets, brooms, and mops from a cupboard. Briseis assigned them duties. She chose Andromache to work with. Andromache preferred girls she could make do most of the work. Pleione, maybe. She stared at the back of Briseis’s head as they pattered down the hall, marble cold under their feet, and imagined hitting it with her galvanized bucket.
Briseis paused at a wide mahogany door. The sign read DIRECTOR. She tapped the door, and the clerk bid them enter.
The woman waved a hand, annoyed, as Briseis began speaking. “Quiet!” the woman said.
“I shall do the Director’s office,” Briseis murmured. “You, the clerk’s.”
The clerk sniffed at Andromache’s curtsey, then flounced her chiton and left, muttering, “Little bints.” It was unfit to be in whilst being made clean. The Director, too, was elsewhere, the near-goddess atop of a pyramid of citizens lyrik-girls could scarcely perceive from their position beneath it.
Briseis vanished within the sanctuary of private spaces.
The black doors closed and the duster went tap-tap. A smile fleeted across Andromache’s face. On silent feet, she went to the clerk’s terminal, brushed fingers across the black glass desktop, summoning numbers and letters. The terminal screen swam blue and white within and without, clarified like clouds admitting dawn.
Login.
Welcome, Miss Yilmaz.
Her pale fingers raced across the surface.
Current meds Andromache BĜ5-AJ7Ŭ-G
Yes, Miss Yilmaz. Here are her medications and dosages.
Paravolicol … perspektra…semasperant…commtiva…somarient…eidosion.
Her fingertips persuaded the glass. Recent changes?
As of 13:45 today, paras +5mg, persp -2.5mg, semas unchg., commt +2mg, soma unchg., eidos +3.5mg.
A curve of a lip, almost like a sneer, turned her mouth.
Thank you. Delog.
Goodbye, Miss Yilmaz.
She signed in again.
Welcome, Miss Zugasti.
Progress ectogenos Andromache BĜ5-KP3F-K
Ectogenos 98.2% complete, Miss Zugasti. Progress supernominal. Viability outside ectogenos vessel estimated 99.98%.
Current meds.
The terminal listed multiple, mentioning that most were replaced or reduced by saline “per your directions, but noted as original dosages except in records in this private sublogin.”
Visual Andromache BĜ5-KP3F-K.
The terminal provided a dimly red-lit view of a round, fat face, eyes closed, fists tight to the chest, a gleam of gold light and silver. She stared, breath drawn slowly in, at a small human bathed in wet half-darkness. She reached, then snatched her fingers back. “Oh,” she murmured. “Oh!”
Her lower lip trembled. Her fingers brushed the worktop.
Thank you. Delog.
Goodbye, Miss Zugasti.
She grabbed her duster and worked until Briseis emerged from the inner office. “Sister, are you ready to sweep?”
“I am ready, sister Briseis.”
She picked up the broom. Briseis smiled. “You’ve done well, sister doula.”
“Thank you, sister doula. May I please sweep and mop the Director’s office?” She pitched her voice intently at Briseis.
Briseis hesitated. “You should sweep and mop the Director’s office,” she said, almost to herself.
“Thank you, sister. We are all good sisters together.”