I smile at Carmen. “I’m Poppy. Do you know where I can get a towel, I’d like to dry my hair.”

Carmen just gazes at me.

“Do you not want a room mate?” I ask nervously. “I’ll try not to disturb you.”

Carmen arises from the bed, swathed in a pale pink night dress, and walks up to me, not stopping until our faces are almost touching. “Try harder.”

I wrinkle my nose involuntarily. “Your breath smells of vomit! Are you OK?”

She tsks at me. “I’m pregnant.” She points at my bed. “Look, you have a blue maternity dress. It’s right there, by your uniform and nightdress. And there’s your cradle by your bed. You’re going to be a mother.”

“Um… why?”

She curls her lip. “Marriage is expensive and there is a stigma against being childless. We have to prove that we are fertile and can be mothers. To prove we are fertile and that we’re good with little ones, we each have to give birth to a baby and show the guys looking for wives that we take good care of them. And it’s an insta family. Our husbands are guaranteed to have at least one child when they marry us.”

“How do we conceive?”

“I don’t wanna spoil the surprise,” she drawls and then she turns and plumps back down on her bed.

I find a towel and rub my damp hair.

“Oh ye gods, I want picks and ice cream,” mutters Carmen, touching her belly.

I touch her arm gently. “Congratulations.”

She ignores me.

I make a further attempt at conversation. “So, where are you from? I’m all the way from the Capitol…”

“Let’s enjoy peace and quiet while we can, before the babies come along,” she interrupts. “They’ll keep us up all night.”

“OK.”

I carefully unpack my luggage, trying not to disturb her. Carmen’s sitting on her bed, making a doll. Her fingers work really cleverly, putting a layer of rubber over its wooden head, and then sewing flaxen thread into its scalp so that it has yellow hair. Now she’s poking the face with a pencil to draw on freckles and wiping them with a cloth so that they look smudged and real.

“You’re very clever,” I tell her. “Your kid will love it.”

She turns and puts a finger to her lips.

OK, hint taken. She’s firm about me not disturbing her. I hope she learned to make dolls here. I want to learn how.

I get myself washed. There’s a bare stone side room with a carved face that spews soapy water on me if I stand near it. When I come back to the bedroom, Carmen’s gone. I lie back on the bed and close my eyes.

“Boo!” Carmen’s voice above me. I open my eyes and stare up at her. Her face is covered in thick, green slime. She giggles. “Not afraid of weird green faces, I hope. It’s all part of my beauty regimen. You’ll be expected to start yours tomorrow.”

00O00

I awake the next morning to the morning sun streaming in through my window. Carmen is standing up, her green face mask is dry and cracked, and now she covers her mouth with one hand, retching.

“Are you OK?” She lurches towards the bathroom and I follow her. She’s leaning over a basin and now she vomits.

I put my hand on her shoulder.

She retches and then vomits again. Then she stands up. Her face is close to mine and her breath reeks. I involuntarily wrinkle my nose.

“My breath stinks, doesn’t it? There’s something you have to remind me to do.”

“Um… what is that?”

She picks up a jar with a fine white powder. “This is a harmless breath freshener. When we’re wives, we’re not supposed to let our husbands smell our bad breath. You have to remind me to freshen up.”

“OK.”

Cermen turns away from me. “My baby had better be cute after putting me through nine months of this…” She dips her finger in the white powder and touches it to her tongue.

“All babies are cute,” I say.

“Good that you have such an open mind,” says Carmen. “You’ll love your baby. Now please let me have some privacy.”

I get myself washed, fix my hair and now I have to tackle my uniform. It’s nearly folded still. I’m not pregnant, so I don’t need a maternity dress. My uniform is a pristine blue shirt with heptagonal buttons and a midnight blue jumper and a tie with sky blue and midnight blue stripes. The tie is tricky. I hope I’ve done the knot right.

This is my first day. My mantra is “A new school, a new beginning.”

I study myself in the mirror. Carmen sidles up to me.

“Want to know how the rest of us see you? Auburn hair in a neat braid, a freckled face, eyes widened with apprehension, you look innocent?” She sniggers.

We step out into the corridor. The building has an entirely different atmosphere now. Sunlight streams through stain glass windows and cast rainbow lights over Carmen’s face. The hall is full of girls, many of them heavily pregnant and others are carrying babies in slings tied around their waists. The babies are all bright green!

Lottie the heavily pregnant head girl comes waddling towards me, her huge belly sticking out in front of her. There’s a bright green toddler toddling along beside her. “Poppy!” the head girl lays a hand on my arm. “I was just about to come to your room to see if you needed any help.”

“Thank you, that’s really sweet.”

Lottie lifts up the little green girl who smiles at me. She’s wearing hand knitted blue clothes and has a blue ribbon tied in her red hair. “This is my daughter, Violet,” Lottie tells me. “Violet, say hello to Poppy.”

“Hi. Hi Poppy,” says the toddler in her tiny little voice.

Aww. She has such a sweet little green face with chubby cheeks.

“Hello Violet. I’m very pleased to meet you,” I say smiling at her.

“We wan’ help,” says Violet.

“That’s right, Violet. We were both coming to check and see if Poppy needed help,” says Lottie.

“You want to know if Poppy needs help? We’re growing babies,” says Carmen, pointing at her own belly and then pointing at Lottie’s hugely swollen belly. “You’re about to be a mother of two. Then you might need help.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Lottie tuts. “Carmen, please… And Poppy, what have you done with that tie?”

“I’ve never tied one,” I say sheepishly.

Lottie sets Violet on the floor and steps close to me. Within seconds she has undone the knot and rearranged it nearly. “There,” she says. “Try and do that tomorrow.”

“Blue bow,” babbles Violet, touching the blue bow tied in her hair.

“You’re honing your mummy instincts,” says Carmen.

Lottie gazes at her with stern green eyes. “Young lady, you have face mask attached to your eyebrows. Here…” Lottie steps forward and licks her finger and starts rubbing carmen’s eyebrows.

“Hey!” says Carmen.

“Hold still, young lady. There.” Lottie takes a step back to admire her. “Now you look like a bride to be.” She gathers Violet up in her arms and the three of us make our way down to the entrance hall where Lottie picked up Alfie and me yesterday. Now, with Carmen and I following and little green Violet toddling along behind her, she leads the way through another door. I can hear the clattering of plates and cutlery, the scaping of chairs on the stone floor, and a hubbub of voices intermingling...

“The Mother Hall,” says Lottie. “We have our communal meals here.”

Mother Hall is a vast hall with long rows of tables and benches. Banners of sky blue and midnight blue, the colours of the school, adorn the stone walls and are wrapped around the tall pillars. We all follow Lottie to the buffet, where I’m engulfed by the smell of pancakes.

“We have to take a balanced diet,” says Lottie when we reach the buffet. “Carmen, we’re both eating for two…”

Lottie’s telling Carmen what to eat. I load up my plate with rainbow coloured tart and a slice of meat that’s purple with little green spots on it.

We sit down at a table of Lottie’s choosing. I’m only too glad to follow her lead, because I don’t belong to any clique as yet. Lottie chooses a table near the entrance where her own age is already seated, along with four green kids in handmade clothes, the oldest is a little girl in a pale blue dress who looks about five, and the youngest is a tiny baby in a sling around her waist.

Lottie puts Violet in a highchair with a tray of food. “Hey Maddie. Hey kids. Everyone, this is Poppy. She starts here today.”

Maddie’s kids all clamour to greet me except for the tiny baby. Maddie smiles. “So glad to have you with us, Poppy.”

Maddie’s oldest kid looks up at me, her green face wreathed in smiles. She has dark blond hair like her mother. “My name is Star,” she says. “I’m very pleased to meet you.”

With a bubbly feeling of happiness, I see Alfie make his way towards us. The tray he’s carrying has two plates of food clattering together. I move a little to one side to make room for him. He sits between me and Star.

“Everyone, this is Alfie,” says Lottie.

“So glad you’re here,” I say.

“I’m glad too,” says Star, bouncing up and down on her seat. “I’m Star. This is Poppy, Lottie, Mummy, and my bwothers Caleb and Romeo and my baby sister Princess. We’re all happy you’re here.”

“That’s wonderful,” says Alfie. “Everyone, Ruby decided there’s a place for me after all,” says Alfie.

“That’s right. We all have to practice socialising with guys if we’re to be wives,” says Lottie. “Be prepared for lots of female attention, Alfie.”

“You’ll do fine,” says Maddie.

“And you?” Carmen asks Maddie. “Will you pass the tests this time, Maddie?”

“Pass?” I say out loud.

“I did the three year course to become a wife and had Star and Caleb here,” says Maddie, indicating first Star and then her little brother who’s sitting on the other side of Maddie. “But I still wasn’t feeling it. I wasn’t ready to be a wife, so I had to repeat the course and have another two babies - Romeo and Princess here,” says Maddie, pointing at her third kid in a highchair and her green baby who is now suckling at her breast. “Then motherhood just clicked for me. I feel confident. Now I just need to find the right guy and my family will be complete.”

Star grins up at Alfie. “Would you like to be my Daddy? You’d have to marry my Mummy.”

Alfie chuckles. “You have to give these things time, Star.” His freckled cheeks have flushed faintly pink.

“We’ll be interviewing potential daddies all in good time, darling,” says Maddie, stroking her green skinned daughter’s dark blond hair.

“Mummy, I wish you were my age so you could be my daughter,” says Star.

“You’d like to be the Mummy of four, would you sweetie?” says Maddie smiling.

“Are you going to abdicate responsibility to her?” says Carmen with a wry smile.

“I’d take good care of you,” says Star, and she gets into a kneeling position on the bench so that she and her mother can rub their noses together. So cute. I really do wonder though, how do they make babies in this place? And why are the kids all green?

At that moment a green women comes up to us. She has long, curly black hair that spills out from underneath a floppy purple hat. “You two must be new here,” she says to me and Alfie. “You’re in my courting class?”

“We are,” says Alfie.

“Fantastic!” says the green woman, clapping her hands in excitement. “Follow me, follow me. We’re starting presently. Oh it’s so good to see new faces and always a joy to have male company. We will have so much fun together, I’ll make sure of that.”

We follow her out of the hall.

“I’m Amy the love witch,” says the green woman. “As you can see, I am a hag. And there’s nothing I love more than teaching people about romance. also the boarding parent for the girls who aren’t mothers yet, so if you encounter any lady problems, I live in the tower of the west wing and I always have an open ear.”

“Nice to meet you,” says Alfie, looking vaguely amused. “But I’ll apologise in advance. I’m not really prepared.”

“That’s alright dear…” Amy looks at him quizzically.

“I’m Alfie,” he tells her.

“Well Alfie, the girls all have to make the moves on you. It’s practice for when they court their future husbands.”

She ushers us into a room full of desks with a larger desk at the front on which there is a crystal orb. The golden morning light streams through the high windows, catching in the specks of dust that were lazily floating about.

The room is almost full and Alfie and I quickly sit ourselves down at an empty desk in the back. We see Carmen saunter in with a silver haired guy. Amy beams at him. “Jasper! So good to have you with us.” She turns to face the entire class and claps her hand. “Good morning! This year I am happy to welcome five fine young men to this glass. I’ve already greeted our two new arrivals. To the rest of you, hello, I am Amy the love witch. I am boarding parent for all you mothers to be and I will teach you about courting the opposite gender.

I notice Carmen rolling her eyes.

Amy asks each girl to gaze into her eyes. She has deep piercing eyes and I find it hard to look away. It’s like her gaze is hypnotic. Then we have to practice the gaze on one of the guys and ask him to dance. I have to ask Jasper and I’m nervous to, but Alfie whispers encouragement so I go up to him and gaze into his eyes. Jasper’s eyes are grey like the clouds on a stormy day.

I start with the formal opening gambit.

“I wish that someone would lead me in a dance,” I tell him.

“Your wish is my command, my lady,” says Jasper with a curtsey.

He takes my hands and leads me in a waltz. He’s directing me. It’s lovely. I can feel my cheeks reddening. He releases my hands and I feel like I want more.

After that Amy instructs us about simple ways to get a guys attention, like dropping a glove so that we have an excuse to talk to him.

Then Alfie and I go our separate ways. My next class is cookery – essential for home making. Then there’s a kind of general info class about why we’re here, but it’s delivered in the style of a history lesson. It’s hosted by a hag with a wrinkled green face, like a green prune.

“Mothers are valued as prospective partners,” she tells us. “On a family farm, strong and healthy children can be workers from a young age. Women with existing children come with free workers ready to help support future children she and her husband will conceive together. Marriage is expensive and sterility and infant mortality are both commonplace, so here you will bear children with magical assistance to demonstrate that you are not barren and that you come with a ready made family. An insta-family. In a society that has a no-divorce law, marrying a barren woman is something that a man must avoid.

The wrinkled hag picks up a plate mail armour vest and places it on the desk. There’s a dent in the armour.

“Most plate armour has a major dent in it. Even if it’s never seen combat. It’s important for a blacksmith to prove their armour by shooting it with an actual gun. The tell tale bullet dent is evidence that the armour stops bullets which is what matters. For any man, marrying a barren woman would be like getting shot through armour he has paid for. The more common defective products are, the more you care about proving they are not defective before buying them.”

I really don’t like this comparing women to armour! We’re not products.

The hag continues: “How do we guarantee that you bear strong, healthy children with no risk of infant mortality or pregnancy complications? We keep an ogre in the dungeons and you all breed with him. Ogres have magic which guarantees that whoever they mate with bears healthy children. If the mother is barren, the magic makes her fertile. If the mother has a weak constitution, then the magic strengthens her. And there’s a lasting benefit to the mother as well in that the magic makes her fertile and healthy for life. Human and ogre genes mix very well. The hybrid children of humans and ogres can be observed to be very healthy and good tempered. They make good workers and good adopted children.”

“Breeding with an ogre? I don’t think so. I’m not doing it,” I say.

“You don’t really have a choice, freckleface,” says the hag. “Prepare to have a green kid put in your belly.” She pulls a lever by her desk and the floor opens up beneath me and I’m sliding down a slippery chute, down and down until I land upon a mound of earth and hay. There’s a shuffling and a grunting sound nearby. I’m in an underground cavern with rough stone walls. Some freak property of the rocks causes them to glow with a greenish light, so I can see a tunnel beyond the cavern. Out of the cavern there comes a hideous, bloated green monster with a swollen belly, shuffling along on all fours. It sees me and its eyes seem to light up…