Long ago, in a place called Eriden, there lived a young woman named Maggie. Maggie lived with her two younger sisters in the old family cottage by the brook. Tragically, their parents had died when they were young. Life had been tough, but the sisters had grown up with a strong work ethic, an appreciation of nice things and a keen sense of right and wrong. Now aged twenty-three, and her sisters both eighteen, Maggie was starting to look to her own future and the life she might carve out for herself.
In Eriden, nobody wanted for food or shelter. Everyone played their role in the life of the town and, in return, was rewarded equally for their time. An hour’s bricklaying saw to four short visits to the doctor. A fisherman’s wages for a six-hour night shift paid for school fees for a month (in a class of twenty). The publicly-owned Time Bank of Eriden administered the system, guided by the basic principle that people should be rewarded according to their contribution to society — as measured by their time — and not their wit, genius or luck. The system was not perfect, but people worked together — and generally towards the common interest — and found their needs were, for the most part, satisfied.
Maggie worked as a school teacher, skilled as she was in instilling knowledge and morals in children. Life was simple and sometimes hard, but she enjoyed her work and got great satisfaction from the knowledge that she was helping raise the next generation. At the end of the day, she left the schoolhouse for the market, where she would buy delicious produce from the surrounding farms and arrive home with enough notes to spare for times of illness, festivity, drought and learning — and the time to live it all.
However, over time, Maggie became increasingly frustrated by some around her who seemed to be playing the system. Once, she saw Frida the florist drinking heather ale in a dark corner of the inn in the middle of the day. Later that same day, Maggie noticed there was a ‘back in five minutes’ note pinned to the floristry door. Jim and Jacob from the stables seemed to spend more of their time lazing around on the haystacks than grooming the horses. Others were just frustratingly slow at doing basic tasks, which sometimes felt rather deliberate.
Although the people of Eriden prized themselves on their just financial system, Maggie was beginning to wonder if it was fair after all.
**
One day, a stranger arrived in Eriden. Maggie first noticed him when he walked, with a cane and wearing a collared black suit and a black top hat, right past her classroom window in the middle of a trigonometry lesson. Over the next days, gossip spread about this strange man and his intentions to start importing biscuits to Eriden. Intrigued to taste these biscuits for herself, Maggie invited him for dinner on the premise that she safeguarded important distribution networks as a teacher and was a strategic partner in any onward business. Over a spread of burdock and dandelion soup, accompanied by pickled gherkins and strawberry wine, Maggie listened to the stranger’s tales of distant lands and ways of life. He told her that, elsewhere, people were paid according to the value of their work, rather than the hours that they put in. Her ears pricked at this, so she drank some water and questioned him some more.
“You see,” the stranger started, “I can see you are an intelligent, hard working young woman. Here, lazy and less talented people can earn the same as you. Elsewhere, you could earn so much more — what you are really worth — and build yourself a better life.”
They talked into the night, and before he bade her farewell and retired to the stars, the stranger left Maggie with details of a teaching post he had heard recently vacant in a place called Pebbleshore across the sea.
**
Barely a month later, Maggie arrived in the harbour of Pebbleshore. She savoured the salt and freshness of the air, and enjoyed watching the white gulls sweep for their chances at the fishermen’s loot. She had secured her passage across the sea using her savings and brought with her what she needed and nothing more.
Happily, she was able to enquire about the vacant teaching position with ease and, impressed by her grasp of grammar and trigonometry, Maggie was offered the job. After the school day, she took to long walks around the town, mesmerised as she was by the hive of diversity and activity. The marketplace resounded in impassioned symphony as buyers and sellers bellowed and chimed for the best deal for today’s catch, freshly baked bread and dried apple rings. Some people displayed enormous wealth, adorned in gems and precious metals like kings without crowns; others wandered in rags.
**
Time flew by in Pebbleshore. Maggie’s days were literally shorter, she surmised, because she had no time to herself at the end of the long school day. Her leisurely evening walks were quickly replaced by lesson planning, marking, more lesson planning and more marking, alongside some extra classes in which the more wealthy parents enrolled their children. But Maggie did not complain, believing that, in Pebbleshore, she would be rewarded.
**
Months turned to seasons and Maggie was not able to save, despite her hard work. She began to see patterns that didn’t seem right. She’d met some of those kings without crowns and discovered that, contrary to her assumptions that they were wealthy because they’d worked hard, some (but not all) did very little work after all. She knew others who laboured long hours doing work that didn’t seem very useful at all, yet made a pretty penny.
She started noting down her weekly observations at the marketplace. Basic foods, like potatoes and peppers, sold for next to nothing — despite the work involved in growing them. The Magician’s stall, on the other hand, raised excitement from passers by, who willingly paid above what seemed sensible for a little light entertainment. But what particularly struck Maggie was how everyday garments, like woollen socks and plain hemp shirts, seemed to get bartered down to the cost of making them, but more fancy items, which were less useful — perhaps with bright colours or some special stitching, sold for far more than the additional cost of rhinestone buttons.
Maggie realised that, in Pebbleshore, people were not paid according to the value of their work after all, but rather what people were willing to pay. And it seemed that people didn’t want to pay so much for the necessities of life. Those with money sought to spend it on luxuries — the rarer the better — that might set them apart. Tired of working thanklessly, she decided to put her energies towards profit.
**
After pondering long and hard, Maggie came up with an idea; to establish an exclusive Academy, with limited places and a guaranteed 100% exam pass rate. Wealthy parents would pay, she thought, because students needed good grades to get the best jobs. She spent a rainy weekend painting large signs heralding the new Academy and its guaranteed pass rate, and advising parents:
ONLY THREE PLACES LEFT! BOOK YOUR CHILD’S PLACE NOW!
… Despite the fact that, she had as yet, no students, or, for that matter, an Academy.
With pressure to find an appealing location, Maggie approached the owner of the town casino, Boris, who she had heard, on the grapevine, had just inherited a dilapidated mansion overlooking the sea. After some persuasion, Boris agreed to lease the building for a trial year, on condition that he receive a third of the school fees.
Filled with new enthusiasm, Maggie left her teaching job and spent the summer holidays touching up the old mansion, using the forward fees from parents who had been keen to snap up the offer. She hired the Magician from the market and a weaver friend who had shown promise as a teacher with his undulating patience, and together they painted colourful murals over damp walls, tidied the overgrown gardens and fashioned new desks and chairs from the adjoining coppiced woodland.
By September, they were exhausted, but the new Academy was as ready as it could be. They had acquired smart outfits for their new positions as Headmistress, Professor of Headwork and Professor of Handwork, and enthusiastically welcomed their first cohort of thirty three children who arrived in thirty three carriages.
**
The first year was challenging, not least as they battled to devise a scheme that could deliver on their guarantee of exam success. Maggie believed that the children would all pass through great teaching in a nurturing environment. Indeed, her past successes as a teacher gave her confidence that, with the right effort, they could deliver — even if the promise had been a little bold.
But the Magician disagreed.
“Why would you put so much risk into this business and leave your biggest selling point to chance?” He lamented. “Kids are unpredictable. You can’t just slot them into a machine and expect that they come out to order.”
After much debate, and the Magician threatening to pull out, they agreed to install a series of mirrors to enable the students to see the correct answers without raising the suspicions of the external adjudicator. Although somewhat uncomfortable, Maggie accepted this as a one-off necessity — just for the first year — to get the Academy off the ground. In the meantime, they could focus on attracting the best teachers and fostering a culture where children loved to learn.
The first year was also exhausting, as Maggie rushed to prepare meals for all the children (without the funds for a chef) alongside her teaching duties. The Weaver proved a great success, however, taking the children on adventures to the seashore and the forest, while helping prop up the building with the Magician’s ongoing advice on visual illusions.
But, they pulled through, and by the following summer had successfully sent thirty three children home with thirty three sets of first class results.
Boris was delighted, so agreed to continue with the arrangement for five years. The parents were happy too, reunited with their rosy-cheeked children and their golden results. Maggie accepted new students for the next year, while deciding to keep numbers to an exclusive fifty.
**
The Academy’s success grew and, after a few years, Maggie stopped teaching entirely, having hired a whole team (and a chef) to run the school day. They’d even raised the funds to make the proper improvements to the building, which now stood proud and strong. Each year, they successfully devised new schemes to retain their perfect exam scores, thanks to the Magician’s ingenuity, although the Magician did request to become co-owner of the business in return.
With their profits, they built a sister school on the other side of town — this time with no need to share the spoils of the fees. The Academy went from strength to strength, fees increased, students graduated to important roles in government, and Maggie moved to a comfortable house in the countryside.
**
Over the years, Pebbleshore began to change. Discontent started brewing in the town as people began to feel that life was getting tougher. There had always been inequality, but an article circulated by an independent magazine (named The Underground) showed just how bad this had become — every single government minister, the article claimed, came from the ten wealthiest families in Pebbleshore. There was outrage, and new stories began to surface.
“Some banking executives can’t do basic maths,” disclosed one internal whistleblower, who had asked to remain anonymous, in the following week’s cover story. “If your bank balance has gone down,” he continued, “don’t blame the interest rate. They probably entered the numbers in wrong.”
This revelation caused a backlash, and overnight the streets had filled with people queueing to empty their bank accounts. As the economy plummeted, riots came to the streets.
**
Maggie was reading The Underground and its stories of people playing the system when there was a knock at the door. She hesitated, and decided against answering, instead remaining seated in silence. After a second knock, and a third, and five minutes that lasted for an afternoon, she heard the faint sound of paper falling through her letterbox to the keystone floor, and footsteps tailing into the distance.
After another hour frozen to her chair, she tiptoed to the door and picked up the letter.
GET TO THE SHORE FOR 8PM. BLUE BOAT WAITING.
She was overwhelmed by relief. She recognised the writing; it was her loyal friend the Weaver’s. Terrified, she packed a small bag and quietly left the house, saying goodbye to no-one and covering her footprints with the sand.
**
The journey back to Eriden was long and cold. It was mid-winter; the waves were tall and the chill travelled far. There were two other passengers aside the skipper, whom neither she knew. They huddled together in silence, battling sea monsters alone.
When they docked in Eriden, Maggie was confronted by a town she had long forgotten, and no longer recognised. As she wandered the streets, her memory started to return, and she understood that Eriden was not the place that she had left all those years ago. Where once homes were simple but loved, they had been replaced by gated mansions and slums. Her heart sunk as she found her old family cottage by the brook, boarded up and covered in ivy, her sisters nowhere to be seen.
**
And over the decades, the town grew, and prospered, and gentrified. And tales were whispered — and dares exchanged — in the school yard of the strange old woman who lived alone and covered in ivy, in the old boarded up cottage by the brook.