AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Yes,’ said Penny. ‘That’s what really – I mean, once you’ve seen that, there’s no going back to normal life, is there? Like, the proof.’
‘Absolutely,’ said Robin. ‘I felt the same.’
Penny looked disconsolately at her reflection, with her green hair now covered in a thick white paste.
‘It was growing out anyway,’ she said, with an air of trying to convince herself she was happy to be doing what she was doing.
‘So what have you been up to?’ asked Robin.
‘Um, loads of stuff,’ said Penny. ‘Cooking, working on the vegetable patch. I’ve been helping with Jacob as well. And we had a really good talk this morning, on spirit bonding.’
‘Really?’ said Robin. ‘I haven’t had that yet… how’s Jacob doing?’
‘He’s definitely getting better,’ said Penny, evidently under the impression that Robin knew all about Jacob.
‘Oh, good,’ said Robin. ‘I heard he wasn’t too well.’
‘I mean, he hasn’t been, obviously,’ said Penny. Her manner was somewhere between anxious and cagey. ‘It’s like, difficult, isn’t it? Because someone like that, they can’t understand about the false self and the pure spirit, and that’s why they can’t heal themselves.’
‘Right,’ said Robin, nodding, ‘but you think he’s getting better?’
‘Oh yeah,’ said Penny. ‘Definitely.’
‘It’s nice of Mazu to have him in the farmhouse,’ said Robin, subtly probing.
‘Yeah,’ said Penny again, ‘but he couldn’t be in the dormitory with all his problems.’
‘No, of course not,’ said Robin, carefully feeling her way. ‘Dr Zhou seems so nice.’
‘Yeah, it’s really lucky Jacob’s got Dr Zhou, because it’d be a nightmare if he was on the outside,’ said Penny. ‘They euthanise people like Jacob out there.’
‘D’you think so?’ asked Robin.
‘Of course they do,’ said Penny, in disbelief at Robin’s naivety. ‘The state doesn’t want to look after them, so they’re just quietly done away with by the NHS – the Nazi Hate Squad, Dr Zhou calls it,’ she added, before looking anxiously in the mirror at her hair and saying, ‘How long d’you think it’s been on? It’s hard to know, without a watch or anything…’
‘Maybe five minutes?’ said Robin. Seeking to capitalise on Penny’s mention of the lack of watches, and encourage the girl to share anything negative she might have noticed about the UHC, she said lightly,
‘Funny, having to get our dye out. Mazu’s hair can’t be naturally that black, can it? She’s in her forties and she hasn’t got a single bit of grey.’
Penny’s demeanour changed instantly.
‘Critiquing people’s looks is pure materialist judgement.’
‘I’m not—’
‘Flesh is unimportant. Spirit is all-important.’
Her tone was didactic, but her eyes were fearful.
‘I know, but if it doesn’t matter what we look like, why have we got to take out our hair dye?’ said Robin reasonably.
‘Because – it was on the bit of paper on the box. The true self is natural.’
Now looking alarmed, Penny scurried away into a shower cubicle and closed the door behind her.
When she estimated that twenty minutes had passed, Robin stripped off her tracksuit, showered the product out of her hair, dried herself, checked in the mirror that all traces of blue dye were gone, then returned to the dark dormitory in her pyjamas.
Penny remained hidden in her shower cubicle throughout.
