Sunrise (9 page)

“Ben’s assignment was changed by the Sister Unit,” Ben said.

“Is the Sister Unit in charge of the chore roster?” I asked.

“Ben always does what the Sister Unit asks of him,” Ben said.

“Almost always,” Alyssa said. “We were on fire duty.”

“The fires under the greenhouses are out!” I said.

“I’m sorry,” Alyssa said. “Will the kale be—”

“It’ll be fine,” I said, although I wasn’t totally sure about that. “Ed’s getting the fires relit, and the ground holds heat a long time. But what were you doing? Playing school?”

“We weren’t playing, Alex,” Mom said. “These kids need to be in school.”

“We need to eat,” I said. “School is a luxury we can’t afford right now.”

“Education is no kind of luxury,” Mom said. “Without it we’re only one generation removed from barbarism.” “Without food there won’t be another generation.” “Why do you have to fight me all the time?”

“That’s not the—”

“I’ll go help Ed with the fires,” Alyssa said, stepping toward the barn door.

“Wait,” I said.

“Well,” Mom said, “you seem to have ended all hope for any more learning taking place this morning.” She pivoted abruptly and marched off toward the house.

I stared, not sure whether to chase after her or not. “I’m sorry,” Alyssa said. “I just . . . Dr. McCarthy asked me this morning what I was planning to do before the volcano erupted. I always wanted to get a teaching degree, work with kids like Ben, maybe.”

“You’d be great at that.”

“Your mom was there, and she started telling me how she got her start teaching special ed.”

My mother was a special ed teacher? She’d never told me about that. She’d been a principal for as long as I could remember.

“And anyway,” Alyssa continued, “things kind of snowballed from there, and everyone was really enthusiastic about the idea, especially your mom. I figured we could teach practical classes too. I was going to ask you to run a taekwondo class, maybe have your uncle teach gun safety and marksmanship, stuff like that.”

“It’s a good idea, but—”

“I know. We should have waited until all the work was done. It doesn’t seem like there’ll ever be enough time to do everything we need and want to do.”

“Could you design lessons that could be taught while you do chores? It doesn’t take much brainpower to water the kale or wash clothing. I could change the duty rotations to give you time with each of your students and with Mom if you want.”

“That could work.” Alyssa turned toward Ben, who was still sitting on the floor, scratching columns of figures into the dirt. “Come on, let’s get our chores done.” He stood and brushed off his pants.

I started to leave, but Alyssa caught my arm, leaned in, and kissed my cheek.

“What was that for?” I asked.

“You’re sweet.” She left the barn, Ben trailing behind her, heading for the greenhouses.

I rubbed the spot she’d kissed, wondering what I’d done to make Alyssa think I was sweet. And why did my mother seem to disagree so adamantly?

Chapter 14

Dr. McCarthy and Mayor Petty were with us for almost a month. Petty clung to life stubbornly despite his amputated legs, despite the infections that raced through his body leaving him feverish and incoherent. When his condition improved enough, Belinda drove out in Dr. McCarthy’s old Studebaker, a folded wheelchair jammed into its backseat. A few days later, Petty, McCarthy, and Belinda moved back to town, and the farm settled into a routine of sorts.

We tore up all the carpet in the living room. It was too badly stained with blood, urine, and other unidentifiable fluids to be salvaged. The rough wood floor underneath wasn’t as comfortable, but it smelled a lot better.

Our kale crop came in blessedly fast, as if the soil in the greenhouses had stored up all that energy from going unplanted and now was pumping it into our crop. As soon as the first shoots were a few inches long, we started harvesting them, eating only one shoot per person per day to prevent scurvy.

Alyssa took all the most boring, repetitive jobs so she could practice teaching while she worked. She hung around Mom a lot, talking about her students: Anna, Rebecca, Max, and Ben. Ben was older than she, and the rest weren’t much younger, but they seemed to enjoy the classes. Darla never participated, and I was usually far too busy. Occasionally Alyssa organized evening classes that we all attended. The subjects ranged from taekwondo to fire safety, marksmanship, or greenhouse farming. Uncle Paul taught most of the evening seminars, although I led the taekwondo classes, of course.

Darla got steadily stronger, working longer and longer days beside me. There was—as always—no end to the work. Clothes had to be washed by hand, wood had to be cut, kale watered. Darla kept sleeping beside me too, abandoning the girls’ room where Alyssa, Rebecca, and Anna slept. Ben, Uncle Paul, Max, and Ed all slept in Max’s bedroom too, so it wasn’t like we could make out or anything. The greenhouses were better for that. They were warm—particularly in the middle of the day—heated by the hypocaust and what wan light filtered through the ash and sulfur dioxide still polluting the stratosphere.

Darla had started challenging me to arm wrestle every night after dinner. Before her enslavement to the Dirty White Boys, I would never have agreed to arm wrestle with Darla—getting my wrist slammed to the table did nothing good for my ego. But I found that I could beat her easily now. Still, she kept challenging me, night after night, and losing.

Finally, after almost two months on the farm, she beat me. The next night I won—barely—but then she beat me three nights running, winning easily the third time.

The night after that, she waited until everyone else had left the dinner table before she banged her elbow down, holding her hand up, ready to clinch mine. “Ready?”

“Not tonight.”

“Really? You beat me, what, fifty or sixty nights running, and after three losses, you’re calling it quits?”

“Four losses. And yes.”

“Weak.”

“My ego may be weak, not my arms. You’re just freakishly strong.”

“You’re calling me a freak? Now you’ve got to wrestle.”

I reached out and grabbed her wrist, twisting her arm and pulling her out of her seat toward me. I caught her by surprise, wrenching her arm around and pulling her into my lap. “I guess I like wrestling after all,” I said, laughing.

I released her arm and craned my neck over her shoulder. She turned her head, and we kissed. She wrapped her

newly freed arm around my shoulder, pulling me closer.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” she said when the kiss ended.

“Yeah?”

“We’re running out of wood.”

“Yeah,” I said, sighing heavily. I’d noticed the same thing—Apple River Canyon State Park was mostly stumps now.

“I want to try to get one of those wind turbines running,” Darla said.

“Wind turbines?”

“The big windmill things, east of Warren. There’re sixty or seventy of them. I’ve been talking to your uncle, and I think we might be able to do it—rig them to run under local control and use them to heat greenhouses. We’d need a lot of components—mostly parts from electric water heaters, some big metal tanks, insulation—oh, and tools. Some heavy gauge—”

“Okay, I get the picture.”

“I want to build another Bikezilla too.”

“So we need a couple of bicycles and a snowmobile. We’ve got enough kale to trade now. You ask Uncle Paul if we could take some to Warren to trade?”

“Yeah. He said to check with you.”

“What? Why?”

“I dunno. But we should go soon. The right time to deal with this is before we run out of wood completely.” “We’ll pick kale to trade in the morning. Head to Warren first thing.”

“Okay, good.” Darla kissed me again and slid off my lap. I didn’t mind. Somehow the talk of windmills, kale, and running out of wood had dampened my ardor. Why was Uncle Paul letting all of the farm’s problems fall into my lap? I wasn’t sure I wanted the responsibility: if I failed, we would all die.

Chapter 15

The next morning Ben found me in one of the greenhouses. Darla and I were picking kale, bagging it for trade.

“Lieutenant,” Ben said, “are you mounting an expedition to Warren today?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “We’re going to try to trade some kale for electrical parts Darla needs.”

“I request permission to accompany your expedition.”

“Sure, you can come along.” Then I hastily added, “If you bring Alyssa.”

Darla shot a sharp look my way, but I ignored

her. I didn’t think Ben would have any problem on a day trip to Warren, but if he did, I wanted Alyssa there too. She was the only one who could calm him on the rare occasions he melted down.

“When do we leave, sir?”

I’d told Ben to quit calling me “lieutenant” and “sir” about a million times. It didn’t help. “Meet us in the kitchen in about a half hour.”

Ben saluted and left the greenhouse.

The four of us piled into the captured pickup truck. Usually we walked the five miles to Warren—gas was nearly impossible to come by—but Darla had a huge shopping list of electrical components, tools, and parts. If the trip was successful, we’d need the carrying capacity of the truck.

As we approached Warren, Ben spoke up. “Where is the wall?”

“What wall?” Alyssa asked.

“The wall that Warren needs to build. Since no one has air power, tanks, or heavy ordinance, a wall is an effective means of defending the town. They should have built one by now. In fact, we need to move to town—”

“Move to town? Why?” I asked.

Ben had kept talking. “—because the farm cannot be defended effectively.”

“But the greenhouses—”

“The postapocalyptic society will inevitably devolve into a feudal system. We will live in town in times of danger and travel to the greenhouses outside to farm, or move all food production inside the walls, or perhaps inside a larger fixed defense system of some sort.”

“If I can get the windmills running,” Darla said, “it might be easier to move the town to the windmills.”

“Why not run power lines to the town?” I asked.

Ben answered, “Your solution would leave the power source vulnerable. The windmills could be attacked—or the power lines cut—leaving the town completely at the mercy of a besieging army.”

As Darla turned the truck into the parking lot at Dr. McCarthy’s clinic, Ben added, “Whether we move to the windmills or not, the town must adopt a better defensive posture. We should not have been able to come this far unchallenged.”

“I’ll talk to them about it,” I said.

Dr. McCarthy and Belinda were at the counter in the clinic, reading by the light of an oil lamp. “Slow day?” I asked.

“Yes, thank God,” Dr. McCarthy replied. “Only three rooms occupied. Two cases of pneumonia and a reinfected wound. Hope you aren’t bringing me any business.”

“Nope. Everything’s okay out at the farm. Well, except for Mom.”

“What are her symptoms?”

“She’s not sick, really. Just hardly ever sleeps. Spends a lot of time compulsively sorting old pictures.”

“I’d prescribe an SSRI if I had any or refer her to a specialist in cognitive behavioral therapy, if there were any in Warren.”

“What’s she got?”

“Maybe post-traumatic stress disorder? I’m not an expert. Maybe she’ll get better with time.”

“There’s nothing we can do?”

“Wait. Reassure her if you can. She was a big help with the hospital and Mayor Petty. I think she’ll pull through.” I slung my backpack off my shoulder and pulled out a large bag of kale. “For your patients. Anyone showing signs of scurvy?”

“Not yet, but they’ll be starting to present symptoms soon.”

“Don’t tell anyone he gave you that for free,” Darla said. “We’ve got a bunch more we’re going to try to trade.” Dr. McCarthy nodded.

“Who’s in charge now?” I asked.

“Bob Petty. Same as always.”

“What? Really? After the forked-up mess he made of retaking Warren?”

“Yes. Really. Soon as he was getting around okay in that wheelchair, he picked up where he left off. Seems more determined than ever to run things. Couple of people suggested holding elections, but nothing came of it.”

The mayor’s office was a three-room brick building across the railroad tracks from Warren’s tiny downtown. The front office was deserted, but I saw a bustle of activity in the conference room. Eight women sat around the table, laboriously copying a notice about food distribution. The mayor chatted with the women from his wheelchair at the head of the table.

The mayor looked up as I stepped into the room. “Alex, pleasant surprise. What brings you to Warren?”

“Glad to see you’re on your . . . feeling better, I mean.” I felt my face flush at my near-gaffe.

“Doc’s a miracle worker.”

“Yeah, he is. I’ve got a list of stuff we’d like to trade for. Our kale came in—we brought some to trade.” “Already? Our kale’s barely sprouting.”

“How long did it take them to plant?” Darla whispered scornfully.

Evidently Mayor Petty overheard her. “The town’s greenhouses were badly damaged during the occupation. Folks had to clean up their own homes too. And not everyone has as fine a green thumb as the Halprins. Your aunt could grow turnips in the tailings from a coal mine if she put her mind to it.”

“Not anymore,” I said quietly.

“Yes,” Mayor Petty replied in a similar tone. “Sorry. What were you looking to trade for, anyway? Got plenty of pork.” “Darla’s got a list.”

Darla pushed past me and handed the list to Mayor Petty. He slid a pair of reading glasses over his nose and peered down at the paper. “Believe Abe Miller, outside town, might still have a snowmobile. Don’t know if he’ll give it up or not, though. Should be plenty of bicycles around—city doesn’t own any, of course. I’ve got no idea where you’d find all this electrical stuff.”

“You should check your inventory,” Ben said.

“What inventory?”

“You must have taken an inventory of all supplies available in the town. It would be a basic survival preparation.” “Now, son, we don’t go messing with making lists of people’s private property. I don’t know what kind of big city you come from, but around here folks’ stuff is their own, and we don’t go making lists of it. Don’t tell them they can’t have Big Gulp sodas either. You want that stuff on your list, you’ll have to ask around, see if they want to trade.”