Back at the farmstead Gwen Cook had suspected the girls were getting roped into factory work, and it turned out they had been, but the nature of it was more diffuse than they’d imagined. Clio had collected thirty-three farmstead girls age fifteen and under, all of whom had a guileless look that complemented the simple goodness of the folk delicacy they mixed, baked, shoveled out of ovens, and boxed with handwritten labels. On weekends she kitted them out in dresses, petticoats, bonnets, and aprons and scattered them around what Harriet described in letters to Margot as an authenticity theme park. The house Harriet, Dottie, Zu, and the other Gingerbread Girls slept and worked in was cinnamon-colored and had a sugar-dusted effect to its roof and windowsills. The girls were too gaunt to be the legitimate inhabitants of a house like that, so Clio met with nutritionists, came up with a potion that guaranteed vigor, and had the girls eat seven meals a day. Seven bowls of vitamin-and mineral-enriched gruel that couldn’t really be differentiated from hogfeed. The gruel ensured that the girls came across as the epitome of plump-cheeked country childhood in photos and in the documentaries and TV adverts. Their eyes and teeth sparkled, their skin was smooth, and their pigtails were extra-bushy. The gruel that took care of all this had a stomach-turning odor of rotten eggs and roasted rubber. There was envy toward Dottie, who supped her gruel with a tranquility of sorts. Her sense of smell hadn’t yet returned. Did that eerie brat do me a favor? I think she did . . .
You had to finish the whole bowl. There was water to wash it down, and the mixture was so claggy you had to have a lot of that. If you rebelled, a matron came and brought you a new letter from some member of your family who was either bursting with loving pride in their miraculous breadwinner or anxiously awaiting your next pay packet or both. About three weeks in, Harriet and a few of the others twigged that Clio had a forger in her employ and the letters were faked. Harriet stopped writing home. The temperate wisdom of the replies she was receiving from “Margot” rang a lot of alarm bells for her even though the handwriting was an impeccable match. She could only assume that Margot was receiving reassuring missives from “Harriet” too. A lot of the girls didn’t mind this: they found this mother Clio Kercheval had assigned to them was much better at cheering them on than their actual mothers were. The fake mother took more pride in them.
So none of the Gingerbread Girls were forced to do anything. Not forced, no, nobody could say that . . . it was more that there were frauds they helped perpetrate against themselves, hoaxes they somewhat willingly became beholden to. If being manipulated like that did your head in too much, you could run away, like Gretel did, but unlike Gretel, you wouldn’t be welcomed back. Bearing this in mind the Gingerbread Girls stayed on and were sorted into different teams each weekend.
Team 1 was on in the afternoons, hosting tea parties on the third floor. Tasks: pouring tea, handing round gingerbread, giggling a lot, and conveying country sayings they’d memorized from a book. The book was almost certainly a parody, but Clio lost her temper when asked about it. Things said with a pure heart are pure!
There was a warren of kitchens on the second floor, and in the evenings Team 1 donned daisy-patterned hairnets and piped pink icing onto gingerbread figurines. They leaned so close to the gingerbread that this was where they’d have been in danger of depleting stock if it hadn’t been for the perennial nausea induced by all the gruel they ate. Zu became an art-nouveau icing artist, blending her yearning for the forbidden into every embellishment. Gingerbread compasses were her speciality.
Team 2 played “Pass the Parcel,” “Please, Mother, May I,” or “What’s the Time, Mr. Wolf?” in the garden with other kids who were biding their time until their parents took them home. Team 2 always found it impossible to convince the visiting kids that they weren’t robots.
Team 3 spent the afternoons concocting gingerbread lore in the library on the fourth floor. Gifts of the Four Wise Men: Gold, Frankincense, Myrrh + Gingerbread . . . In the evenings they hosted Breadcrumb Balls. They had no problem with the singing and choreographed dancing with Hansel dolls; after weeks of practice they had those bits down to a tee. But the bit where they had to skip around the grown-ups’ chairs with their skirts shimmying wasn’t easily done without flashing underwear. Some of the grown-ups didn’t like that bit either, but a greater number had a good old stare. Might as well; they were allowed. With a “look but don’t touch” rule, everybody knew where they stood. You could ask some of the older girls to jump higher and most obliged, looking convincingly abashed at their naughtiness. This wasn’t done for tips—they didn’t receive any—it was done out of determination to give their all to the gingerbread experience. The less idealistic Gingerbread Girls were free to refuse, but the worst they could say was “Fudge off,” as Clio had a zero-tolerance policy toward swearing.
Another option for Breadcrumb Ball attendees was taking turns dressing in gray shock-haired wigs and ankle-length black gowns and chasing the girls around growling, “Give-me-Hansel-give-me-Hansel.” Stop it, Zu said, the first time that happened. Just . . . stop, OK? You can have him. Here.
At the end the grown-ups would ask if that had been fun. They wanted to show that they were high-spirited and spontaneous, perhaps even a teensy bit unsafe to be with. They’d had what they remembered as carefree childhoods and wanted a reprise, or they’d had unhappy childhoods and wanted another chance. Yes, we had fun, we are bona fide children and we think you’re great, please come again soon. That was the only permissible response. If you gave any other, you were sent home to be a drain on resources again: that was the biggest threat Clio had up her sleeve.
The girls’ commitment to endorsing adults aged them a bit, but they were fine with it as long as they got to stay where they were. Failing to hack a cushy job as a professional child impersonator . . . that was a defeat too terrible for the girls to contemplate.
Besides, the cash cauldron was boiling over. City dwellers paid less tax than farmstead people, but they were subject to a Compulsory Purchase Law, which made sure all the overpriced farm and factory goods were sold. You could get a waiver if you bought Druhástranian Experiences like visiting the Gingerbread Girls instead. Some of the visitors asked, “Can’t we have a sleepover with the girls? Can’t you offer a package that involves staying here awhile?” and every other night a gang of bankers got drunk and tried to break in, smearing their faces against the windows and reciting the names of their first loves. Harriet held out her hands to them, and a matron cuffed her around the head: Exactly what are you seeking to encourage right now?
At their morning assemblies Clio told them they should feel flattered that people wanted to be with them. If you were a Gingerbread Girl, people found shelter in your company. At least, they did until you were sixteen and became an ex-child. Then you were to take on the role of a blue-and-white-uniformed matron and stay in the background.
Harriet wasn’t homesick like Zu was, and she wasn’t happy to be there like Dottie was.
Mrs. Kercheval.
Yes?