Free Beyond Belief by Jenna Miscavige Hill Page B

was too much or too extreme, probably because the adults did not see it that way. After all, they were the ones who wrote the project orders and determined whether or not we had satisfactorily completed our decks project. If not, we were sometimes required to finish it through our lunchtime. No project was considered finished until an adult or another specially appointed kid inspected it and signed off.
    In the end, we either complied with our decks assignments or we were sent to an adult. If we were repeat offenders, we could end up in the HMU, the Heavy MEST Work Unit, where we did heavy manual labor. This unit was for people who repeatedly broke rules or backflashed. The harder work, such as deep trench digging, was reserved for this group. They were also required to eat and study separately and we weren’t supposed to talk to them.
    Despite the fact that our Scientology supervisors didn’t seem to think it was strange that kids were doing this kind of work, every now and then we’d come into contact with outside contractors who did. Usually, they were hired to do the more technical projects on the Ranch, like laying the cement for a sidewalk. These outsiders didn’t come around often, but when they did, I always had a little bit of hope that they would advocate for us or that our work shifts would be cut back a few hours or even days. Most of the time, our supervisors just tried to keep us as separate from these Wogs as possible, but once, while the contractors were there, they actually complained when they saw a couple of young kids hauling a railroad tie, because they thought they were too young for that kind labor. What they didn’t know was that, since railroad ties were a featured element all over the property for edging pathways or creating planters, we hauled railroad ties all the time, usually two kids per tie. After the complaint by the outsiders, we were not allowed to work anywhere near hired contractors.
    Not surprisingly, the older and stronger we got, the easier the physical labor became. Some children, such as my brother, didn’t seem to have trouble keeping up with the deck work. Justin would usually make fun of me or call me a slacker when I would walk instead of run or complain that I was tired. I was a seven-year-old girl, and he was a fifteen-year-old boy, so it was just different.
    I didn’t like the work at all. My legs always hurt, my hands were extremely chapped, and I was usually either overheated or freezing cold, because we worked no matter the temperature. We often wound up wearing shorts in the winter because the funds weren’t there for new uniforms and, as kids, we grew quickly. The rule was that everyone had to run while on decks, so if I was caught walking, I would hear “Jenna, run!” or “Jenna, get to work!” Adults and kids alike would yell this out. There was nothing polite about it. If we backflashed, moved slow, or refused to do a project, which almost never happened, we were told to stop “nattering” (the word LRH used for complaining or talking badly about something) and we would get a chit written on us.
    The work itself was never-ending. We would finish a project one day, and then have a whole new one the next. It was incessant and repetitious, like being told every day to push a boulder up a hill and knowing full well that tomorrow another boulder would be there. We were making the Ranch into a beautiful place, but for whom? I’d certainly lost all appreciation for its beauty, and I longed for the days when the Ranch had been more run-down and I had downtime to enjoy it.
    To this day I don’t know whether the real motivation behind these projects was the virtually free labor, a way to keep us out of trouble, or to make us better Scientologists. Most likely it was a combination of all three. In the end we were a group of children who devoted hours of every day to doing the kind of physical labor that no child should have to do.
    We got calluses and blisters. We