Chapter 3
I was fast asleep when I felt something tickle my face, waking me up. It took me a second to register what was happening as the thing ran right across my cheeks, scratching me with sharp little toes.
I screamed out in terror. ‘Arrrggggh. Moooommmmmmy’.
My yelling woke the others. I shared my bedroom with four other girls under the age of ten. ‘Natacha, be quiet,’ snapped my friend Anna who was sleeping in the bunk above me. She leaned over to chastise me, but as she looked down her eyes fell on what had made me scream. Her mouth opened in horror for a split second before she started yelling too. A brown lizard stared back at us, probably more terrified than we were. It ran for cover under the bunk, making me scream even louder: ‘MOMMY! HELP!’
The door flew open. My brother Matt stood there with an exasperated look on his face. ‘Natacha, what is this racket?’
Great gulping sobs came out as I tried to explain: ‘Lizard … bed … it was … on me … want … my … mommy.’
Matt sighed and shook his head at me with annoyance. ‘Cry baby. Mom is out. It’s only a silly lizard.’
He disappeared for a second and came back with a broom. He poked it under the bed, ordering the lizard to shoo. I watched with relief as it slithered out of the door and down the corridor, no doubt to join the rest of its friends in the attic where they nested.
I was just about to throw my arms around my big brother in thanks when the shape of adult bulk appeared in the doorway. Uncle Ezekiel. He was a heavy-set Australian man and probably the meanest uncle in our house.
‘What in God’s name is going on here? You children could wake the dead. Get back to sleep immediately or you will get a spanking, mark my words.’
‘There was a lizard,’ Matt tried to explain. ‘It scared them. They are only little. We should do something about that nest.’
Ezekiel stared at Matt with a look of disgust.
‘How dare you speak to me, boy. I was not talking to you. Nor did I give you permission to talk to me. Get out!’
He raised his fist in warning. Matt ducked under his arm and ran out.
‘We are sorry, Uncle. We promise it won’t happen again,’ said Sara.
‘It had better not or you will get the swat. Do you understand?’
I pulled my sheet up to my chin and nodded with wide-eyed fear. The swat was a plastic fly-swatter, which was used to discipline us when we were naughty. You got hit on the bare bottom with the handle and it stung like mad.
Uncle closed the door. I could hear Anna and the other kids breathing. I could tell they were still awake but no one dared talk in case Uncle heard us and came back. Our teacher, Aunty Joy, usually slept in the room with us. Her presence always reassured me, but tonight her bed was empty. I wondered if she was upstairs in Ezekiel’s room or if she’d gone flirty fishing with Mommy and the other ladies.
I tried to go back to sleep but it was too stuffy and the polyester sheets itched. I was terrified the lizard would climb inside my mouth or my ears when I was asleep. I was also bursting for a pee but I knew that if anyone heard me I would get the swat for sure. Under the commune rules, children were expected to last a full night without needing the toilet. I tossed and turned half the night, trying desperately to control my bladder and not wet the bed.
The next morning in school I could hardly keep my eyes open. We sat at rows of little wooden chairs and desks. Children of all ages shared the one large classroom, with the little kids at the front and the older kids at the back. A small fan buzzed in the corner but the windows were closed, allowing precious little breeze into the stifling tropical atmosphere. Everyone was quietly reading on their own, with the older kids occasionally pausing to scribble down a note. The quiet, the lack of sleep and the heat made my eyelids heavy. I could feel my chin about to droop down onto my chest when Aunty Joy’s voice startled me: ‘Natacha, wake up please, little lady.’
I sprang to attention, sitting bolt upright on my chair with arms folded tightly across my chest. Aunty Joy pulled up a seat and sat down next to me. Her youthful Thai features erupted into a pretty smile that lit up her face. Joy was my favourite teacher.
‘Natacha, I have something very special for you to read today.’
She handed me a large comic book, wrinkling her nose with excitement. The humidity made its greying pulp pages feel slightly moist to touch. I stared at the cover. It had a picture of a pretty young teenage girl with lustrous long black hair in a braid. Aunty Joy began to sound out the title for me.
‘He … van … s. Can you say that?’ beamed Joy.
‘Hev …’ I stammered, struggling to match the letters she pointed to with the correct sounds.
The next word was easy. I could guess its meaning from the picture.
‘Girl,’ I said triumphantly.
‘Well done, Natacha, you clever girl.’
A thrill ran through me as I looked at the image.
‘Do you want to read it together, Natacha?’ she asked.
I nodded so hard I thought my head might fall off. I rarely got individual adult attention and was determined to milk this for all it was worth. My clammy fingers fumbled with the thin paper as I opened it several pages into the story. A girl dressed in a short white robe was throwing two men backwards as if using magic. Her robe was see-through and her nipples stuck out through her dress. I was a bit fascinated by that because a couple of days earlier a visiting uncle had shown us a poster of another lady with similar sticky-out nipples and told us that nipples were his favourite thing in the world. He had grinned when he told us all little girls would grow up to have sexy nipples like the lady in the picture, too. Anna had whispered to me afterwards that the uncle was naughty to say that to us.
The men in the picture were dressed in helmets and sinister uniforms with armbands marked 666.
‘What’s Heaven’s Girl doing, Aunty Joy?’ I asked, puzzled and happy at the same time.
Joy laughed and pulled me closer to her.
‘She’s using her powers to fight the soldiers of the Antichrist. See, she’s shooting them with lightning. What do you think that word says, Natacha?’
She pointed to the large graphic letters drawn above the image of the dying men. I shrugged.
‘Zap!’ said Joy.
‘Zap!’ I repeated back, feeling very pleased with myself. ‘But Aunty Joy, why is she doing that?’
‘Because she’s in the End Time Army. You’ve heard your Grandpa David tell us about the End Time Army in his letters, haven’t you?’
Of course I had. For as long as I could remember it had been drilled into me that I was an elite child soldier in God’s army. Every day we were training and preparing for the End Time war, which would mark the beginning of end of the world. We were told Grandpa (which is what we children were instructed to call our leader, David Berg) had been sent a prophecy directly from God that the war would begin in 1993. My brothers assured me I would be ten by then and definitely old enough to fight.
Every day we listened to tapes of Grandpa talking to us. He explained how the Antichrist was already living on earth and making his evil plans to destroy the world. He said Europe and America were already under the devil’s control but the system people who lived there didn’t even