Teach Your Children Well

Lee Murray

The boy was nine, and the girl just six, when they came to George and me. Their father was one of the few who came back after the war, him with half his face blown off at the Somme. Folk had been talking after church about how well he was doing when he took himself off to the barn, shoved his shotgun in his mouth, and finished the job. After that, the wife – a skittery, pale thing at the best of times – well, she fell to pieces, didn’t she? They had to cart her off to a sanatorium in Christchurch. So when the minister asked us, George and me, we agreed to take the kids in for a while, just until their mother came right, although no one could tell us when that was likely to be. We’d never been blessed with kids of our own and, with so few men come back, George thought the boy could help him with the tobacco.

They called me Nanny Too since I was older than their mother. They had a real granny up north, near Kawerau somewhere, although she wasn’t much use to them way up there.

The girl was a pretty thing. Small and round-faced and cheeks downy like a peach. But she was sullen, too. Kept her eyes downcast, like she was shy. Everywhere she went, she’d cling to her dolly – her baby – which she’d named Mary. It had a porcelain face and wooden body and had seen better days, that doll. Still, she seemed to like it, and it kept her from squirming when I fixed the rags that curled her hair into ringlets.

The boy was an odd one. Bony-kneed. Skinny. Not lively and boisterous like the Ramsey boys over the back. Those boys are always nagging their dad to let them use the tractor, rig up a flying fox, light a bonfire, or some other nonsense. This boy preferred to read. George would want him to chop a bit of firewood and he’d be out behind the shed, his nose in a history book, which I’m sure was a bit of a disappointment to George.

I did see the boy use the axe once, though. It was about a week after the pair of them arrived. I was out the back at the line, pegging out the washing, and the children were hanging around the shed by the wood stack. I don’t think they knew I was there. I shook out a pillowslip and watched from behind the fabric as the boy took the doll from his sister, laid it on the old stump George uses for chopping kindling, and brought the axe down on its neck. Straight away, the girl started wailing about her baby being dead. I came running from the washing line and George, alerted by the noise, came out of the shed.

‘He’s killed Mary! He’s killed her,’ the girl howled. By now, she’d snatched up the doll’s body and was clutching it to her chest. Its head lay on the ground in the wood shavings, the painted eyes staring.

‘I was teaching her history, Nanny Too,’ the boy said.

His nails black with engine grease, George took the axe from the boy and wedged it smartly into the stump.

‘What’s this about history?’ I said.

‘I was showing her how they killed Mary, Queen of Scots. They chopped her head off. It’s in my book.’ He thrust his hands into his pockets. ‘I was teaching her.’

‘He’s hurt her!’ the girl wailed again.

George picked up the doll’s head and peered at the neck. Then he held his hand out for the body.

‘Let’s have a look, shall we?’ The girl wasn’t keen to let it go, but after a moment she handed the doll to George. ‘Well, now, he hasn’t hurt her, really,’ George said. ‘It’s a clean cut. I can glue her back together. She’ll be fine.’

The girl swallowed her sobs. ‘And then Mary will be alive again?’

‘Yes, Mary will be fine,’ I said.

‘I told you,’ the boy said. I didn’t like the way he said it.

George straightened up and turned to him. He said, ‘You shouldn’t have chopped Mary’s head off. We don’t go around hurting people, you hear?’

I was going to add something, but George gave me a look that said leave it, so I did. I went back to the washing, the boy to his book, and George went into the shed to fix the doll with the girl grasping his shirt-tail.

That was two weeks ago, and I figured we’d heard the last of it. But yesterday, I was out at the garden weeding around the carrots, when I heard something odd. My first thought was the boy’s done it again: the way it sounded, I reckoned he’d chopped that damned doll’s head clean off. I thought I could hear whimpering, so I left the trowel in the dirt, and went to see what was what.

But at the wood stack, the axe was still on the stump.

I decided the noise must have come from the shed. That’s where I found them all.

Oh, my Lord!

‘I was teaching her!’ The girl wasn’t moving. To the left of me, she was on her knees, still clutching her dolly. Staring.

I took a step back. George looked at me, wide-eyed like he couldn’t believe it either, but he didn’t say anything. He was still stretched out beneath the tractor where he’d been twiddling with the mechanics. He moved a little, but I knew it was nerves, because his head rolled a ways, over by my feet.

‘I didn’t hurt him,’ the boy said from atop the tractor where he’d dropped the blade. ‘It’s in my book. The guillotine doesn’t hurt. It was built especially not to hurt.’

Clutching Mary, the girl sniffled. I reached for her, slowly, but she shook her head and refused to move. The boy was jumping down.

I turned and ran.

I’ve been locked in the house since then, the boy roaming around outside. I haven’t seen the girl at all. I’m hoping the minister will stop by soon.