Disorder

by Martha Adele

  Oh, how I envied those who got to go to school.

  Henry nods in acceptance of my compliment. “Thanks. I skipped a few grades in order to be put in classes with those of my same mental status.” Henry narrows his eyes behind us as a large boom of laughter explodes throughout the training room. Sam and I turn around to see one boy hanging from another’s legs as he dangles from the monkey bars.

  “I may need to skip another grade or two,” Henry continues.

  Sam and I stand by Henry against the wall and watch everyone as they laugh and cheer for the boys on the bars. I cross my arms and add, “Back home, we were never allowed to jump ahead of our level of training, even if we were ready.”

  Henry shakes his head. “I know. That’s another thing I don’t like about Bergland. If you aren’t encouraged to do your best and rewarded for doing so, then how will you ever improve?”

  A long pause filled the air between us. Sam breaks the tension by forcing out a fake chuckle. “You are a very smart little boy, you know that?”

  Henry smiles.

  “Hey, Henry.” The longer I think about it, the more the questions force themselves out of my mouth. “I haven’t seen very many other kids your age around.” I pause, thinking back to my entire experience here at Bergland. “Actually, I don’t think I have seen any your age. Do they stay in a separate section of Bergland or what?”

  Henry’s smile fades. His silence seems to grow louder the longer he remains quiet. Though he is only quiet for a few seconds, it feels like much longer. When he finally speaks up, the kids drop from the monkey bars and land on each other. The foam flooring consumes them for a moment, then pushes them back up to the top effortlessly.

  Henry shakes his head. “Last year, we had a mass epidemic of a virus we call resporite. The virus killed off thousands of people, mainly those under the age of ten and over the age of fifty-five. I am one of the few lucky children that made it through without getting extremely sick.”

  Our eyes follow Henry’s back over to some of the boys who are trying to hang from one another under the monkey bars. Henry shakes his head and glances over to Janice, who is watching the boys with her arms crossed, as if she is just waiting for them to fall. “Mrs. Ludley wasn’t so lucky. Sure, she lived, but she lost something she valued much more than her own life.” Henry sighs. “She lost her husband, her two-year-old son, and her unborn child to the virus. She lost her whole family, and there was nothing she could do about it but watch them get worse every day.”

  Janice makes her way over to Logan, who is watching the kids try to complete the obstacle course as well as he could. A kid falls off the balance beam while racing her friend and gets swallowed by the floor, then spat out once again. Henry slides down the wall and takes a seat on the floor. Sam stays standing while I slide down beside Henry. I watch as Janice puts her hand on Logan’s shoulder and as she smiles to him, pointing at the kids as they fail the course.

  “Henry,” I ask, “what can you tell us about the Taai?”

  He smiles and pauses for a moment. Henry pushes his glasses by their frames back up his face once again and chuckles. “The Taai … Where should I start? They are the most prestigious of all our top career groups.” He holds up one finger and begins counting. “The Taai is our special forces group. You don’t ask to be put in it. You have to be chosen or suggested by an official. You have to be fast, fit, and so much more. I assume you are asking because Mrs. Ludley looks to be interested in signing Logan up for the group. His mental state and responses will later be determined through further testing and analysis if he is to join the Taai.”

  Henry holds up his second finger. “Our second special forces group is known for its brain power. We call them the Slim. They are the Berglanders who test well above average levels. If they desire to join the Slim, they have to go through multiple different tests, officials, and training courses. They design all of the weapons, energy systems, electronics, communication devices, and pretty much everything that takes electricity to power. They have even genetically engineered a few of our fruits and vegetables to be superfoods with all of the nutrients and proteins you need to survive. They even modified the produce’s growth times and sun needs to fit our desires.”

  One kid runs as fast as he can through the monkey bars onto the ledge to the rope and to the hanging rings. He runs through the whole easy course quickly without any flaws, but not as quickly as Logan. A bunch of his classmates ignore his success and try to do it themselves.

  Henry holds up his third finger as Sam slides down the wall and takes a seat beside us. “That leaves the generals and government officials, which includes the secretaries of any given subject or career and head officers. Secretary of education, secretary of health, head of Department of Sanitation, head of security, general of defense, or our military, and so much more.”

  Henry brings up his pinky. “With those all listed, we have one more unofficial group. The group made up of our farm overseers, our chefs, and our energy suppliers. By ‘energy suppliers,’ I mean the people who go outside the mountains to fix our solar panels, windmills, waterwheels, et cetera.”

  Janice glances over her shoulder and leaves Logan to watch the kids. She smiles at us as she makes her way over. Sam cracks his knuckles and turns to Henry, who continues to stare off into the distance. “Do you want to be part of the … um …” Sam squeezes his lips closed and cocks his head as he tries to come up with the name.

  “The Slim?” Henry fills in. “Well, I would like to, but I don’t know if I’m smart enough.”

  “What? You are totally smart enough!” I chuckle. “And if you aren’t ready by the time you finish schooling, you will probably be, like, eleven. Which means you will have more than enough time to study for whatever you have to study for to be a part of the Slim.”

  Janice approaches us, and Henry shoots up to his feet. She smiles at him, then at Sam and me. “Hey, guys. I see you’ve met Henry.”

  Henry nods sporadically at Janice as Sam and I rise. “Yes, ma’am! I was just telling them about the Taai and the Slim.”

  “Ah.” Janice’s smile grows as she turns to Sam and me. “The Taai and the Slim. Did you guys ask him about the groups? Or did he just start showing off his big brain without any warning?”

  “We asked him about the Taai,” Sam confirms, “since you were telling Logan about them.”

  Janice nods and smiles again. “Yes. I think that Logan would be a perfect addition to the Taai. Just like I think Henry here would be a perfect addition to the Slim.”

  Henry blushes and looks away. He folds his hands and mumbles, “Thank you, Mrs. Ludley, but I don’t know about that.”

  “Oh yeah?” Janice rolls her eyes. “You are several grades ahead of your fellow eight-year-olds, and you can answer nearly every question I ask in my class. Not to mention your ability to comprehend material as fast as you can.”

  Henry blushes even more to the point that his whole face is red. It is clear to me that he has a big crush on Janice.

  I chuckle at the thought, but my giggles are interrupted by an idea.

  “Hey,” I snicker, “Janice. I … I mean Ms. Ludley. May I use the monkey bars?”

  Janice nods happily. “Yeah, sure! Go ahead.”

  “Henry, can you come with me?” I ask.

  Henry does a double take, almost causing me to snicker even harder. “Me? Why?”

  “Please?”

  Henry sighs at my plea, then agrees. He follows me over to the ladder, and we stop at the bottom. “Hey, Henry?” He looks to me as I try to hide the smile on my face. “Could you show me how to do this first?”

  “Whoa, me? Out of everybody, you chose me?” Henry pushes up his glasses and looks up to the bars.

  “Well, I figured that since you are the smartest kid in here, you could show me the … um … most efficient way of doing this.”

 
; Henry takes a moment to consider. He looks back to Janice, who holds up two thumbs to him. “Um … I guess so. I do come in here sometimes when I am not with my class, so I can show you what I do when I am without them. I am pretty slow at it, though.”

  “That’s perfect!” I exclaim, trying not to sound too enthusiastic. “Everyone knows that in order to show someone how to do something, the teacher needs to go slow.”

  Henry nods in agreement. Lucky for us, everyone has migrated over to Logan and the hard obstacle course. They are all trying to impress him, so Henry shouldn’t feel too much pressure.

  Henry makes his way up the ladder, then pauses at the top. He looks down to me and takes a deep breath.

  “Go ahead, Henry,” I say loud enough that Janice can hear me, but not loud enough to attract attention from the rest of the class. “Show me what to do.”

  Henry nods and, very quickly, slower than Logan, but still quickly, swings through the monkey bars and makes it to the other end. He climbs back down the ladder on the other end and hits the floor with pride. A kid from across the room hollers out, “Woo-hoo! Go, Henry!” This makes Henry blush even more.

  Janice careens over to Henry with her mouth hanging open in surprise. “Henry! I have never seen you do any of these before other than the weights! That was wonderful!”

  Henry’s face reaches a red that I had never expected it to hit, though I can’t tell if it is from exhaustion or embarrassment. He smiles and nods to Janice. “Thank you. I practice in my free time.”

  “Well, good job, Henry!” Janice says.

  “No!” a boy’s voice booms from across the room. “I would’ve won if you wouldn’t have pushed me!”

  The four of us glance over to see two boys shoving each other by the end of the course.

  “I didn’t push you!” the other boy shouts. “You were in my way!”

  Janice shakes her head and rolls her eyes. “I have to go take care of this.” She quickly rushes off to the aid of the blue-shirted workers and helps separate the boys.

  Sam chuckles and saunters behind her.

  “I know what you did,” Henry jests to me. I turn back to him to see his glasses in his hands, using his shirt to wipe the lenses.

  I am sure he does know what I did. I am sure he knows that I only did that to help his mini ego. I am sure that he got what I was doing from the moment he reached the top of the first ladder, but I am not going to admit to anything.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Henry places his glasses back onto his face and pushes them up his nose by the center of the frames. He looks up to me and squints with a smile. “Yes you do.”

  I roll my eyes and turn away. “I’m going over there with Sam.”

  I walk for a moment before Henry’s small voice floats over to me. “Thank you.” His comment forces me to smile as I continue over to Sam. It’s the same comment that Derek got when he did that same trick with his little brother and me.

  I had always known that Derek’s little brother liked me. One day, when Derek decided to help out Sander, his brother, he chose to pretend that he couldn’t climb one of the trees in our woods. Sander gladly decided to “show” Derek how to climb it once I was there to watch, and after he made it to the top, Derek elbowed me and gave me nonverbal hints to praise him. I did.

  Not too long after that, Sander passed away from an unknown parasite. He got it from an unsafe piece of fruit he bought from someone in town. I guess Sander reached the point where he felt that he really needed to get his own food in order to help his family out.

  I don’t really know for sure why he decided to buy the fruit without his mother or Derek. All I know is that unless you are mentally equipped with the knowledge of what good and bad fruits look like, you would never last more than a week shopping in our marketplaces. Vendors sell whatever they can without worrying about the good of their customers. All they worry about is making enough money to survive the next few days.

  I see a lot of Sander in Henry. I see a lot of the things I loved about Sander in Henry.

  Would Sander and Henry have been good friends? Definitely.

  Would Sander have grown to be an amazing kid? Probably.

  Would my dad drink less if he didn’t have the guilt of selling Sander the bad fruit? Maybe.

  Would my mother and brother still be alive if Sander hadn’t gotten sick from the fruit? I don’t know.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Logan

  Dreary. That’s all it is. Dreary.

  And bright. Dreary and bright.

  I wake up on my new bed in the same room as Sam, Grayson, Caine, along with a few other guys. As I force my eyes open, I take a breath and enjoy the fact that I just got a full night’s sleep for the first time in days and in a bed that doesn’t have a spring in the middle that wants to penetrate my spine.

  The light above is brighter than I originally expected it to be. Sam, in the bunk beneath me, takes notice much more verbally than I do.

  I look around to find Grayson making his bed, along with one other guy. Caine and the rest of our roommates have already made their beds and left the room.

  Sam beneath me groans. “Why is it so bright in here?”

  I slide out of bed and rub the crust off my eyes, trying to figure out that same question.

  Sam continues to hold his pillow over his face. “Can we turn the lights off?”

  Still making his bed, Grayson chuckles, “No, we can’t. Not until everyone has left the room.”

  I sniffle and stretch my arms out. “Did the lights just come on?”

  “No.” Grayson finishes making his bed and turns back to us. “The lights start coming on at seven thirty. They gradually grow brighter as time goes on. Once it reaches about 8:00 a.m., they are up all the way.”

  The other guy in the room finishes his bed and heads out. Sam shoves the pillow off his face and narrows his eyes at the other roommate as he leaves. “Okay. Why would they do that?”

  Grayson crosses his arms and looks around to check everyone’s beds. “Because in this dorm, our breakfast shift is from eight fifteen to nine. We are the last shift of the morning. Everyone usually gets up at around seven forty to go to the restrooms to shower, brush their teeth, whatever before breakfast.” He pauses at the end of the row of beds and nods. “Before you leave, you guys are going to need to make your beds.”

  I nod. As I make my bed, Sam slowly gets up and asks Grayson a million questions. Grayson explains that he is his room’s advisor; and he is responsible for making sure everyone gets up on time, makes their beds, and makes it out of the room okay.

  After Sam and I finish with our beds, we head out to the restrooms and do what we need to do. Grayson leaves us and heads up to breakfast after Sam and I meet up with Mavis in the stairwell between our dorms.

  I ask Mavis how she slept last night, but I already know the answer. The bags under her eyes are as dark and purple as mine and Sam’s. All of our brains were too distracted to be able to sleep well, but the exhaustion we felt overpowered our brains and knocked us out within minutes of lying down. Though we slept for a good nine hours, we still feel dreary.

  On our way up the stairs, a bell rings, and people scatter. The cafeteria is packed with people by the time we make it up there. People who are leaving and people who are coming in. Most of the tables are already filled up, but there are a lot with just a few people sitting here and there.

  “Over there.” I point over to the table we sat at for every meal yesterday. Mandy and Janice are both over there talking with a man that I have never seen before. He looks to be a bit older than Janice. If I have to guess, I would say he is about thirty.

  As we make our way over to the table, the ladies catch a glimpse of us.

  “Hey!” Mandy perks up and excitedly waves us over, so excitedly that for a moment, she s
hakes the table. “We were waiting on you to eat.”

  The man gets up out of his seat adjacent to Janice and moves to sit beside her. He nods to the three of us and gestures for us to take his seat on the opposite side of the table.

  As Janice scoots over a bit to make room for the man, she looks to each of us and gives a large and warm smile. “Good morning, I trust you slept well?”

  Sam looks to the new man beside Janice. The man smiles and nods to him, then to me, then to Mavis. He holds Mavis’s gaze a bit longer than he did for us, but Mavis averts her eyes after a few seconds. The man continues to subtly smile at Mavis even though she has looked back to Janice.

  Sam shrugs in response to the question. “If ‘well’ means passing out from exhaustion, just to be wakened by a bright light, then yes, very well.”

  Mandy chuckles. She quickly looks over her shoulder at the lines of people waiting to get their food at one of the five different service bars. “That’s good. Are you guys hungry?”

  Before anyone can answer, Janice interrupts. “Before you all go and get something to eat, I want to introduce you to John Young, the leading Taai recruiter and trainer.”

  John nods his head. His dark facial stubble matches his hair in its color but seems to get even darker when he flashes his obviously bleached teeth at us. “Morning.” John extends his hand to Sam. “Mr. Beckman, right?”

  Sam nods and takes his hand. After a brief shake, John moves on to Mavis. “Ms. Wamsley.” Mavis nods quickly, then retracts her hand. Their eyes lock for a moment, only because John refuses to move his eyes over to me as he reaches out his hand.

  I quickly take his hand and give it a firm shake. John gives Mavis a final smile, then looks back to me. “And Mr. Forge.” John looks into my eyes and smiles. Not the same kind and cocky smile he gave to Mavis, but more of a cocky and overconfident smile. After a moment, John begins to return my tight-gripped handshake. His hand clenches with mine inside and crunches my knuckles together. “Nice to meet you. I have heard nothing but good things.”