Chapter two

Chapter Two:

“I have to be to work in twenty minutes, what aren’t you understanding?” I ask Baylee and Will when we get about half way home.

“I was lost from the beginning, I’m going to fail if there are too many math questions,” Baylee says, and it is obvious she is about to start crying.

“No you won’t, math is easy once you get the basics down. We can work on it when I get home. You’ll do fine.”

“No I won’t. If I couldn’t get it in the last five years of Seminar I’m not going to get it in the next month either. It doesn’t matter how many times you tell me how to do it. I’m going to fail, I might as well give up now.” She is crying by the time she gets two words out and sobbing by the time she is done and I can barely understand a word she says.

“Bay, honey, you’re going to do great on the Exam. You are one of the smartest people I know.” Will steps in and saves me from saying something stupid that will hurt her feelings.

She was right of course. My sister was great at a lot of things, but math wasn’t one of them and as much as I tried to help her she didn’t get it. All she could really do at this point was hope the math section was small and study the things she did get to make sure she did well everywhere else.

“No I’m not, I’m stupid and I’m going to fail.” She runs ahead of us when she is done talking, apparently done with the conversation.

“I should go try and make her feel better. Would you help me with math when you’re off work?”

“Sure, I’m working a double shift though so it won’t be until tomorrow.” I sigh, wishing Baylee would have believed me without questioning it like she used to.

“Okay, sounds great. Thanks so much Dayten.” Then he is off, running to catch up to her and leaving me alone.

With both of them gone I turn back to town and head towards the generator. I’d been working there for three years and the path was familiar; so many times walking it in the dark made it easy to get lost in my thoughts and it shocks me when someone calls my name from behind me.

“Dayten, wait up!” I stop and turn around to see Evan running towards me.

“What’s up?” I ask as he falls into step with me.

“I just got off work and was heading to find you. I finally have enough money to pay you back.” He says, shoving a heavy bag of coins towards me. He’d borrowed the money about two months before when his mom first got sick. I’d never regretted giving to him, I wish someone would have done the same thing for me, but I knew dad would have been mad if he knew so it was good I got it back before he noticed.

“Thanks Evan.” I shove it into my pocket before anyone else can see it. He had perfect timing. Baylee was out of medicine again and I had been starting to panic. It was the whole reason I signed up for two double shifts in a row. Now that Evan paid me back we would probably have enough to get more.

“Thank you, I really don’t know what we would have done without it.” We walk in uncomfortable silence for a minute, the weight of what would have happened without the money between us before he changes the subject, “How is Baylee doing?”

“She’ll be better now that we can get her medicine.”

“Does that mean they know what is wrong with her? I thought they couldn’t figure it out.” They couldn’t figure it out, that was why Evan was one of the only people in the district who knew she was sick. She told me so that she didn’t have to worry dad, and I had told Evan because I couldn’t deal with it on my own. I didn’t want to watch her go through the same thing mom had, not alone, not again.

“They still don’t know what it is but they started giving her some pills that help with the headaches.”

The headaches weren’t the only thing wrong with her but she said they were the worst. The dizziness and fevers came and passed throughout the day. When she passed out she didn’t notice until she woke up on the floor. The headaches though, those lasted for days when they came and made even opening her eyes to painful to stand. Taking these pills made them come less often and let her get up and go out more and so they were worth it, no matter how high the doctors made the price.

“I’m glad she’s doing better. Has she told Will yet?”

“No. I doubt she does.” She didn’t want to worry him. She was sure that she would get better, not worse like mom had. She kept saying she would tell him if they ended up in the same district after the Exam, that if there was a future for them then she would tell him. I didn’t believe she really would though. She would marry him and not tell him. She was too stubborn in her belief that she was getting better.

“Poor guy. As bad as it sounds I hope they end up in different districts. He wouldn’t handle her getting sick and dying as well as your dad did with your mom.” Evan speaks me thoughts exactly but as much as I agree with him I want to punch him for saying it out loud. Baylee couldn’t die like mom, she was too young and I couldn’t imagine life without her in it.  We were twins for a reason, we needed each other. She was not going to die like mom. I wouldn’t let her.

“I have to get to work. I’ll see you later.” I try to get rid of him but he just speeds up with me.

“I didn’t mean to make you mad. I’m sorry, I figured it was a fact that this is going to kill her. I mean it did to your mom. I wasn’t trying to be rude. I’m not good at thinking before I say stuff.”

“It’s okay,” I say, even though I am mad, “I’m just late for work. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Okay. My mom wants you to come over when you have a few minutes. She has something for you.”

“I will.” I say, and then he stops and I’m walking alone again, my thoughts not as comfortable as they were before our conversation despite the money in my pocket.

By the time I reach the generator my mood is black and I’m ready for the day to be over. I want to go get Baylee’s pills, the ones that won’t let her die just like I won’t; and then I want to go home and all in my bed, it misses me as much as I do it; and I want to sleep and dream of the future, the one where I go somewhere I can learn how to make Baylee better for real. Instead I go into the building that is more likely to be my future to neglect me bed and my sister so that I can pay for them both.

Chapter One

“Dayten, are you still sleeping? Seminar starts in 10 minutes and if you miss again Papa is going to be so mad at you.” Baylee’s voice is coming from the other side of the room and I roll over to see her standing there ready to go.

She was wearing her red bow in her hair, the one she only wore when she wanted to look her very best. William must have been coming to Seminar today. He was the only boy Baylee wanted to impress these days.

“Isn’t Will working?” I ask, and she blushes at his name.

“No, his boss gave him every fourth day off so he could go to Seminar. His parents are worried he started working to soon and wouldn’t pass his Exam.”

“It’s good that he could get days off. Not everyone could.” I don’t say what I’m thinking: that he probably wouldn’t pass any way or that he was probably the last person is the district who deserved every fourth day off. It was too early to be fighting with her and my head hurt in the quiet room. I’d been working in the generator most of the night and it left me out of sorts.

The air in the room was cold and empty without hundreds of volts of energy buzzing around in the air. The loud hum of the generator hung in my ears, the phantom noise hollow and ringing, making it hard to focus. Every morning was like this, but I couldn’t get used to it. Three years of work and I still woke up with a headache.

“He struck a deal with his supervisor. He is working longer shifts now: 12 hours instead of the regular 10.” She defends him, knowing what I hadn’t said. She knew me to well to hide anything from her, “now get up I’m not going to be late for you. Again.”

“Okay, give me two minutes.” I sigh, rolling onto my feet and looking around to see where I’d thrown my shirt a few hours ago when I got into bed. I’d worn it the day before but it was the only one I had that I hadn’t burned holes into yet and it bugged Baylee when I didn’t try to look nice for Seminar.

She was determined not to look as broke as we really were. Apparently we had to look like we had money even though everyone knew that no one in South-brook did. Somehow she’d gotten it into her head that nice clothes were more important than food, and they were what we should spend the money we had after we paid taxes on. It was silly and childish, and exactly like Baylee, to even care at all but Dad thought it was important to let her believe it mattered, especially now.

It was her reason to do well on the Exam. We all had one, the thing that we worked hard for, that made us try to cram facts and faces, names, dates, and numbers into our heads for years. For some people it was that they wanted to do anything but what their parents did, some simply wanted to prove they were better than everyone, a few girls were thinking ahead to where they wanted their kids to grow up, and Baylee wanted to live somewhere that she could be frivolous and girly and spend money and time on new clothes and makeup and her hair.

I would never understand that, but I could work a few extra hours to get a shirt if it meant she passed the exam. She was smart enough to pass, to get a high enough score to maybe even move up two districts, but I was starting to wonder if she would. Will wasn’t going to get a good score, everyone knew that by now, and Baylee thought she was in love with him. Enough people had failed on purpose to stay in the same district as someone they loved that we had to worry about Baylee doing the same, and so we were trying to make her remember how badly she wanted to spend her life in fancy dresses and shiny jewelry.

“Isn’t that shirt a bit dirty Dayten?” She asks, giving me a disapproving glance. So much for looking nice.

“I’m making you look better,” I laugh at her, messing up her hair as I walk through the door past her.

“Do either of you have any idea what she is saying?” Will asks, getting about half the room to shush him.

“I’ll explain later.” I whisper back getting my own round of shushes.

“You’re actually following this?” Baylee, who’d given up taking notes ten minutes ago, asks in amazement.

“Shut up!” Someone from the front of the room yells, drowning out the voice coming out of the radio better than any of us had.

“Two x plus nine over thirty two minus x.” Great, I had no idea where she was. So much for that problem.

That was the worst part of Seminar, the district council decided it would be better to put its money into the orphanage and hospital and pay East-town to broadcast their seminar lectures to us so we didn’t have to pay our own teachers.

It was great that we figured out a way to keep people alive, I wasn’t bashing that, I just wished we had a real teacher in the district. That way maybe we could follow in subjects like math and ask a question every now and then. It would definitely make scoring well on the Exam and getting into a higher district easier. And I wasn’t on the council, but it made sense to me that if more people moved we would have less need for the orphanage and hospital.

“If you aren’t going to listen to me, I’m not going to keep teaching you.” The faceless voice scolds someone in another district but we all get quiet in an instant, worrying she was somehow mad at us.

“I’ve all ready taken my Exam. I don’t need to know any of this. It is you who is preparing to take the Exam. I know children your age tend to forget the importance of most things but I expect you all remember that the score you get on your sixteenth birthday will determine where you will live fore the rest of your life. It decides your job, your income, who you marry, where your kids grow up. . .” She goes on but only the youngest kids were really listening. Everyone had gotten the same lecture a thousand times, we all knew how important the Exam was.

Your score decided everything about your life. A good score and you moved up into the higher districts and insured you and your family had an easy life and an easy job. On the flip side you could do poorly and stay in your district or go to an even lower district then you started out in. Either way your Exam was important. We all knew that and none of us wanted to be reminded of it.

Without a real teacher and most of us only going to Seminar on the random days we weren't working to help pay your family’s taxes only one or two kids from South-brook passed a year and they never moved up by much. Most of us set our goal at not ending up in South-town, mining and paying 98% of your income to taxes. Hoping for anything better than staying exactly where you were was setting yourself up for disappointment. No one needed a reminder of that.

“That is all for today, come back when you are ready to learn a thing or two.” She ends the session and we all sigh in disappointment, wondering if we would be able to come back that week.

Prologue

When we were younger everyone ran down to the river at the end of Seminar. We would stain our eyes and tell everyone what the things we imagined we saw in the upper districts, each more fantastical than the one before. I doubt any of them ever saw anything, I know I didn’t, but we could imagine it.

We saw fancy buildings and shiny people with no worries, and more importantly we saw ourselves thrown into that world. We saw ourselves scoring so high on our exam that we never had to work until our fingers bled; never had to go onto the generator where the air was so hot and charged your skin was charred and burned at the end of your shift.

I never thought I would be standing on the other side of the river wishing I could be back. I never could have guessed that working hard until I couldn’t anymore would be preferred to life in the upper city. I guess the air over the river tricked us all though because that is what I was wishing for.

I’m getting ahead of myself though. This story started back when I still stared to the north with everyone else, back before I took the exam, before I met Cara Capitol, or her brother, before any of it, back when the world made sense.