It looks rather like a Web already, thought Ruth, shivering in anticipation, with the spokes reaching out to the edges of the room and the four seats at the centre that would become the nexus of power when the Great Pattern was made.

Ruth's class filled the first three rows of one section, with the girls placed in order of age, so that Constance, Faith, Honesty and Angela, whose birthdays fell in January and February, occupied the front row. She was in the middle of the third row, with Grace and Charity on either side of her. The girls of Grade Eight A were in the opposite quadrant, flanked on either side by the boys of B and D.

How nice we look, she thought, in our clean uniforms. This will be the very last day we wear pale green. From now on what will it be? Behind her were scattered all the colours of the community. It was like a meadow full of flowers, the blue, yellow and mauve dotted among the dark green of Communicators. There was a low buzz of conversation, but running through it was the tingling heady excitement of Togethering. It was already beginning.

Ruth shivered and her hands went up to run through her hair. Supposed she failed to mesh, to become part of the Web, now, at this crucial moment?

“Don't you dare!” hissed Charity. Ruth looked at her angrily, but Charity hadn't been intruding on her thoughts. She grabbed Ruth's hands and put them firmly back in her lap. “After all the trouble Angela and I went to, to get your hair to lie down neatly, you're not to lay one finger on it!”

“Sorry. I forgot. Oh, Charity, do I look all right?” “Fine.” Charity was trying to catch the attention of Fidelius, the dark- haired boy from the library. “I just can't wait till the dance. Five hours to go. I'll die!”

Dance? thought Ruth. If I can just get through the next two hours!

A stir went through the Assembly as the four elected leaders walked down the aisle towards the centre. The Protec- tor was in gold to depict the concentration of healing power, the Custodian was tiny in her dark green, the colour of Esper power, the Warden short, stocky, matter-of-fact in dark blue, to signify the passing on of knowledge and wisdom. Then there was the Initiator, strikingly tall and blonde, with a strong bony face, her purple a rich contrast to the others.

For the eighty-one neophytes this Assembly was their first. Even the bouncy Charity and the self-assured Angela stood in awe as the Four bowed to the community and took their places, each on one of the four scats that faced outward towards the people.