"Jean! Jean! Jean! Jean!"
Leah watched in horror as the crowd of workers, mostly young children aged seven to twelve, chanted Jean's name. They have abandoned their work benches and gathered below the piled-up boxes on which Jean was standing.
There was a rhythmic thumping sound as everyone pounded their chest with their tiny clenched fists in sync, while blond-haired Jean - quite a rarity in this world- stood tall doing the same.
"Equal work! Equal pay!"
Jean shouted and the children followed in a wild frenzy.
"Equal work! Equal pay!"
The collective chant amplified the sound and the message in equal measure, reverberating in the big hall of this workshop.
"Weekend off! Weekend off!", Jean took the lead again.
"Weekend off! Weekend off!", and the children reciprocated.
Leah could sense that this wasn't going to end well. It didn't need Leah Lenov's smart brain to see that.
Concerned, Leah pulled at the bottom end of Jean's wrinkled and dusty trousers and whisper-shouted.
"Pssst-! Knock it off, Jean. You are going to get us in trouble!"
"FREEEDOM!", but Jean didn't take the hint and belted out.
"FREEEDOM!"
Leah didn't believe that the children of this world knew what freedom exactly meant, but they echoed Jean's battle cry.
"Down with the monar-"
'For fuck's sake!', Leah finally snapped and started to pull Jean off the impromptu podium by ankles, making her wobbly.
"You are gonna get us killed, Jean! Stop it now!"
Jean Simmers was a strong-willed girl though. Ever so rebellious, she shouted out one last time.
"DOWN WITH THE MONARCHY!!!"
Without really realizing what this all meant, the children repeated as if they were answering the call of their Messiah.
Leah didn't like this at all.
Not one bit.
"What the hell is going on here?!!!"
Suddenly, Big Makovski, the head manager of the workshop, ran into the room and shouted.
As Jean was about to scream God knows what at the big boss, Leah jumped up to the podium and palmed the mischievous girl's mouth.
"Back to work, you little rats!"
Big Makovski yelled at the children and having lost their leader, they quickly scuttled back to their workbench, to get back to making the small wooden statues of what they called 'angels' in this world, which to Leah looked like some hideous creatures fit to feature in grim fairy tales in 'her world'.
'God… why am I stuck here with this idiot…'
Lenov sighed and shook her head.
"Ouch, ouch! Let me go, Leah! Let me go!"
Jean protested as the smarter one of the two pulled her by the ear.
"Just keep your mouth shut and get the work done! Why are you always causing trouble here?"
"But… but… this is injustice!", Jean protested.
"Oh please, just stop with this nonsense. We got this job only two weeks ago and you are already asking for the weekend off"
"But weekend should be… weekend, right?"
"Duh-, yes, and in THIS world, people like us don't have 'weekend' off, you should know that by now"
"It sucks. It sucks big monkey balls", Jean started to pout and sulk and all Leah could do was take a deep breath, let it out, and try to calm her 'friend' down.
"Look, we are going to work hard, save up some money, and then we can try to look for better things, OK?"
"It's not about money, Leah. It's about the principles. Children should not be working like this"
Leah knew that Jean was right, but the reality of this surreal place was different.
"Jean, why are we working here exactly?"
"Because we need to work to earn money, obviously"
"No, I mean-, why did we end up in this shoddy place when we had better jobs before?"
"Aw, Leah-. Don't bring that up again"
"It seems that I need to bring this up every single time because you keep forgetting. We've been losing job after job because you have been causing trouble, and every time we had to change we've gotten worse jobs"
Leah spoke with facts and wisdom, while Jean had the heart of a child. That made her endearing to everyone - except for Leah -, but it also led to troubles like this as she planted her funny ideas to people of this world.
"Fine… I'm sorry"
"You better be, Jean Simmers. Now, get to work so we can finish this off and finally get home before it gets dark"
With that, the two girls returned to their bench and started to carve out the angel statues, angels with two horns and a forked tail, with wings that looked more like bat wings than any heavenly creatures with beautiful feathers.
Leah focused on the carving work while Jean did the sanding to make the surface smoother. Leah was a crafty girl with skillful hands, while Jean was clumsy and not trustworthy with anything that required any form of delicacy, or decency for that matter.
As she moved her hands in fast yet cautious motions, Leah couldn't help but look back.
'Jean Simmers. We weren't even friends back then. The rebel of the class, a delinquent, good-for-nothing F- student. How the heck did I end up here with this girl?'
At the same time, Jean looked at Leah with both admiration and disdain.
'She is so skillful with these things. She's surely smart too. I give her that. All straight A+ student, huh? But what's her problem? Aren't we in this together now? It's already been three months since we entered this world together. She's so stuck up, this girl.'
Jean eyed the hard-working girl carefully. She was firmly concentrated and as it often happens when she does that, her hair fell forward as she bent her neck down to keep a close eye on the work, blocking her eyes. Yet, Leah seemed oblivious and continued to work as if it did not bother her at all.
The good-for-nothing girl reached out and swiped the draping hair of Leah behind her ears. Leah was startled at the touch, but she quickly frowned and shot back.
"Could you please stop doing that?"
"Leah, I just wanted to help"
"I don't need your-…", Leah stopped short of completing her sentence though, let out a sigh, and continued.
"Thanks"
"Heh, you are welcome"
"Now get back to sanding that thing. I want the surface smooth, got it?"
"Meh, you sound like Big Makovski now"
Just as she said that the Big Boss came into the workshop again and shouted across the room.
"Jean! Leah! My office! Now!"
"Gees… you got us into trouble again", Leah let out in resignation.
"It's fine. We can talk our way out of this"
"Oh please, you keep your mouth shut. Let me handle it"
All Jean did was give a shrug and follow as Leah got up first and led the way, leaving the workshop.
'Just how long am I going to be stuck here with this idiot…', Leah thought to herself.