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.