Vanquished (2 page)

 

 

 

 

2

 

“All of you in this class will be taking your Test in three weeks' time,” Mrs. Sewell says. She stands in front of our small class and points to the chalkboard. “This is the list of occupations you will be vying for.”

I don't even glance at the board, since I already know which occupation I hope to get. Really I'm just eager for Mrs. Sewell to finish up. This is the last class of the day, and I want to see Mom. I need to know she's OK, that she's hanging in there.

“I want you to take a good look, because we're going to be discussing each of these occupations today, and you're going to tell me why you want the job you choose. Later this week is the career fair, and I want you to be prepared.”

A collective groan moves through the room.

Mrs. Sewell smiles and rolls her eyes. “Trust me. It's better to choose what you want to do with your life and to work toward it, than to let it be chosen for you. Or worse, not to Test at all.”

That statement gets everyone quiet pretty fast. If a citizen chooses not to test, he is automatically demoted to Lesser for the rest of his life. The Lessers get less food and electricity than everyone else. We can barely survive as Middles—we don't want to try and make it as Lessers.

“Is that how you ended up teaching?” one of the students calls out playfully. It breaks the tension and everyone laughs.

Mrs. Sewell laughs, too, but shakes her head. “No, I always knew I wanted to teach. Is there anyone here who hopes to be a teacher?”

At first no one says anything. I glance around to see if anyone is brave enough to raise their hand. Finally, Bernadette Dobbs slips up a hand. “I'd like to teach, but I'd rather teach small kids, like the five and six year olds.”

Mrs. Sewell nods. “Excellent! Who else knows what they want to do?”

I duck my head. I've never liked speaking in front of a group, but when Mrs. Sewell's eyes hone in on me I know she's going to call on me.

“Hana, what about you?”

Which is ridiculous, since she already knows what I want to do. I've talked with her about it more than once. I clear my throat. “I want to work in the government.”

Immediately I hear chuckles from the others. My cheeks tingle, and I look at my notebook. I've doodled cats and birds all over the cover.

Mrs. Sewell puts up her hand to stop the murmurs. “Hana has a great plan. Tell us why you want to do this.”

My mouth is suddenly as dry as the sidewalk when it hasn't rained in three weeks. “I want to help the Lessers.”

There aren't any chuckles this time. In fact, there's no noise at all. You could hear a pin drop, as they used to say in the Early Days.

“Why would you want to help them?” someone asks.

I turn to Lilith Winters. “Why would you
not
? If we had more Greaters and Middles, wouldn't the country be better as a whole? Why keep feeding the Lessers' bad habits? We can train them to do better—to be better. They're people too, you know.”

Lilith opens her mouth—to argue, I'm sure—but Mrs. Sewell cuts her off. “Do you see how passionate Hana is about her future? It's best to choose something you can be equally as passionate about. Who else can tell me what they hope to do?”

Passionate? I've never thought of myself as passionate. I only want to help them. My mom told me that she gave a Lesser boy her lunch once. She said she was on a walk with her father when she was young, and they came to the fence around a Lesser city. She said the boy was so skinny she could see his bones, so she slipped him the cheese sandwich when her dad wasn't looking.

I've wanted to be like her ever since.

I turn back to the front of the class, but I can feel Lilith behind me, frowning. She's disliked me since we were fifteen. She told everyone in school that year that she hoped to marry my good friend, Keegan. She said she would sing, and Keegan would play his guitar. They would be stars. Keegan had ignored her completely that year, while he continued to hang out with me and Jamie.

Really, I don't know what she expected. The three of us were best friends. I don't understand why she thought she could change that.

After class she meets me in the hallway. Her hair is black and naturally curly. She wears it cut short, so her curls fly around her head wildly. Most of the boys say she's pretty. I guess I can see why, but she's meaner than anyone I've ever met.

“Why do you think you could ever even get a job in the government? You have to have special connections for jobs like that. You don't have those connections, especially since your dad is only the dean of the agricultural college.” She pronounces each syllable of ‘agricultural' as if it's a separate word.

I throw my chin in the air, refusing to bow to her no matter how much fear her words put in me. “That's not true, Lilith. The Test determines who qualifies for what job. I've been studying for this occupation for two years.”

She rolls her eyes. “We'll see.”

“Why?” I ask. “What occupation are you testing for?”

She smiles coldly, her eyes narrowing like a cat's. “Entertainment.”

I'm not surprised, but I am through with the conversation. If I stand in the hallway arguing with Lilith all afternoon, I won't get to see Mom. “Goodbye, Lilith.”

“Bye,” she calls to me. “Just make sure you have a backup plan for when the original fails.” She says it like she's reminding me to put on fresh underwear and wash behind my ears.

I don't bother with a wave as I head for the doors and Jamie beyond, but her words echo in my head. What if I don't get government? What other occupation could I get stuck with? Entertainment's out, since I'm not at all entertaining. I know how to grow things, thanks to Dad, but the thought of being in agriculture for the rest of my life sounds almost as bad as becoming a Lesser for not testing.

Jamie's long brown hair sways in a ponytail ahead of me. I'm glad for the distraction.

“Jamie!” I call out, waving over my head.

She turns around and sees me, then waits while I catch up.

Lilith is already forgotten. I lean toward Jamie and say, “Something strange happened yesterday.”

 

 

 

 

3

 

“Something strange at the hospital?” she asks. This is why she's my best friend. She knows what I'm thinking even before I say it.

We walk the four blocks home together, just like we always do. She towers over me. We're as different in looks as night and day. I'm short, she's not. I have short blond hair, she has long brown hair. But inside? Kindred spirits.

“I overheard the doctors talking.” My stomach rolls at the memory. “They said they were thinking about giving Mom chemo drugs.” I glance around, remembering how it was supposed to be a secret. Not a single soul can be seen among the blooming trees on the quiet street.

Jamie's smooth face scrunches up. “Chemo drugs? I thought you said they didn't have those anymore.”

I had explained all about the mutation and the treatment when Mom was first diagnosed. Jamie had held my hand and cried with me, and then listened as I explained every part of the mutation that I could understand enough to tell.

“Exactly.” I round the corner onto our street. “That's why it's strange.”

We stop in front of Jamie's house so she can put down her school bag. Jamie lives next door to me, but we always go to my house instead of hers after school. I have my own room, and she's always telling me how lucky I am for the privacy. I get what she's saying, but sometimes I wish my parents had opted to have both of the allowed two-children-per-family.

I breathe in the heady scent of the newly blooming trees as I wait for her, excited for summer to come. It's three weeks until graduation, and I'm ready for it.

“So, what do you think?” I say as we push through my unlocked front door.

Jamie shrugs and we head up the stairs. She kicks off her shoes and sits on my bed. “Maybe they're calling something else chemo drugs. Or maybe they've come up with a way to make the old ones again.”

I bite my lip. “Maybe. The doctors were disagreeing about it, though. They said Mom would have to keep it secret. I guess I wasn't supposed to overhear them. They didn't see me listening.” That part confuses me the most. Why shouldn't they help everyone, if they can? I thought that's what the Greaters were here for.

“Hana, they wouldn't keep secrets from your family. They're going to do all they can to help your mom.” She squeezes me in a hug. “Do you want me to go with you to the hospital today?”

“That's OK,” I say. I need to come to terms with this scary new life on my own. Besides, I'm not sure I agree with Jamie about the chemo drug issue. Maybe she's right, but I want to find out more before I forget about it completely. Like, if they're calling something else chemo, what is it? And if they can make the old drugs again, why aren't they telling people?

I want to ask her other things—like what she thinks about dying, and what happens afterward—but I don't. She was so quick to take the Greaters' side about the chemo; she'd probably just remind me about reincarnation, which is something I've never been too sure of no matter what the Greaters tell us.

“There was this medic in training there. He was really nice.” I change the subject.

Jamie raises her eyebrows. “Have you already forgotten about Keegan? It's only been a couple of months since you saw him last.”

Keegan is my other neighbor and is a year older than Jamie and I. He took his Test last year and has been away for training off and on ever since.

I let out a laugh, hoping my cheeks aren't turning red. I don't want her to know I thought the medic was cute and caring. “Not exactly, even though I think he's forgotten me. I haven't heard from him in at least two weeks. He never even responded to my letter about my mom's diagnosis.” We have really great mail service these days. Letters can travel between cities by train within a couple of days. Our teachers tell us about something called email. They say it had traveled around the world in seconds, back in the Early Days. That would be so great.

“He probably just doesn't know what to say,” she says. “If he was here he'd have the perfect words for you, but from far away he isn't sure. And he's busy training for his occupation. He'll write soon.”

“I guess so,” I say, but I'm not really sure of it. Why would he ignore my letter about Mom? We've been inseparable since we were little. I thought he'd be the first to comfort me when I wrote him a few weeks ago, and instead he's the one person I haven't heard from.

She gives me a stare down. “He'll write, Hana. He will.”

I sigh and nod. “I know. It's only been two weeks. And he's training for the future.”

Jamie nods. “Exactly. A future with you.”

“Besides, you'll be busy training too, after the Test. It's only three weeks away,” she says in a sing-songy voice.

“Can you talk about something else to distract me?” I don't want to think about how little I've heard from Keegan any more.

Jamie smiles at me. Her eyes twinkle. “Of course.”

I nod and we close our eyes. Meditation is a requirement, although it doesn't make me feel better. I really need the soothing affects after Mom's diagnosis, the questions about chemo drugs, and Keegan's silence on it all.

We breathe in and out. Deep, slow breaths, just like we've been taught.

“I've been seeing Easton,” she says between breathing exercises. Easton goes to our school, and Jamie's been talking about changing her Test answers to reflect interest in agriculture, because that's what Easton wants to do. I told her it's crazy, and they're bound to get caught. My dad is the dean of the agriculture college, and while we don't always agree, he's not stupid. Our Tests determine what our optimal occupation is—or how we can best serve our small country. Faking on the Test is like letting the whole country down, and that is not a good thing. Besides, Jamie couldn't even grow a bean sprout for our third grade science project.

“What do you mean you've been seeing him?” I ask. “Like outside of school?”

“Yes.”

I stop to stare at her. “Jamie, is that a good idea?”

“I think I love him.”

“Jamie!” Hanging out alone with the opposite sex is against the law. It's the Greaters' form of birth control. “What do you do when you see each other?”

She gets back into position and closes her eyes. “Sometimes we meet at the levies. We just sit and talk and watch the river.”

I study her for a minute, frowning, but then take her lead and go back to my meditation pose. “Don't do anything, you know, stupid.”

She stays silent for so long I can't help looking at her.

“Jamie?”

She sighs and opens her eyes. “I won't, Hana. I promise.”

I study her another moment, just to make sure she means it. We both shut our eyes and go back to meditation, but my mind wanders. I can picture them sitting on the levy, watching the murky water of what used to be the mighty Mississippi River, but now is more of a sluggish trickle.

We finish up and then study for an hour. After that, it's time to head to the hospital. I have to get there and back home before dark, because being out in the city after dark isn't allowed.

 



 

The hospital lobby is empty and dim again, but I don't need the signs to find the stairs. The buzzing of the long bulbs on the third floor doesn't bother me as I pass the desk with the clunky computer. The young medic is sitting behind it. I pause.

He smiles when he recognizes me. “You're back!”

I smile and nod. “I'll probably be here a lot in the next couple of weeks.”