The village girls were like dry sponges for information. They were picking up the alphabet, she had them up to four times table, she was feeling happy and successful. Then they told her about the Don. ‘All in all,’ Zachary said, ‘I think we’d better close down the school. As a gesture.’ ‘The gesture’s ideologically unsound,’ Meg answered, biting down hard on a carrot. ‘I’ve got some very bright girls in that class. Little Maze particularly, she’s a teacher’s dream. Sometimes it’s as if she can read my mind.’ ‘Maze can in fact read your mind,’ Zoe said. ‘You know what I mean.’ Harold was eating an apple. ‘I’m not sure I want to go back to eating ships’ biscuits and that blue stuff,’ he said through a mouthful of apple. ‘I don’t want to seem to be the wimp here, ’ Zachary put in, ‘but this Don character’s a little insecure, you know? A little unstable? On the subject of schools and civilization-as-he-knows-it and that kind of thing?’ ‘Classic paranoid patriarchal reaction,’ Meg said dismissively.
