Penny’s apathy continued, until gradually, as the weeks turned to months, she began to trust and eventually made friends among the other children in the camp. I kept her under my wing, giving her little tasks to do and encouraging her to participate in the improvised lessons that Sister Monica, one of the Dutch nuns, and I gave to the junior children. We had organised all the children into three age-based groupings and three other nuns supervised the smaller children, while two young teachers from one of the secondary schools in Singapore oversaw the teaching of the older ones. By rights, Penny should have been in the last group, but she was so fearful of losing sight of me that I let her stay in my class, where she was an invaluable help with the younger children.
Lessons were fraught wi
