by Martha Adele
My head throbs along with the clenching of my fists. Once. Twice. Three times.
John marches to the end of the line to the boys who are no longer smirking and begins walking down the line. “I want you boys to keep in mind that Forge here is one of the only people that have ever made it to Bergland from Bestellen. One of the only people that have survived in those woods dealing with the flora and fauna without any sort of training. You show him just as much respect as you show your fellow soldiers. You treat him no differently than you treat any Taai newbie. Got it?”
All of the men in the line answer in unison, “Yes, sir.”
I clench once, twice, three times. John makes his way over to me, and I straighten up. I make sure that I appear 100 percent fine, as if nothing has happened. I appreciate John’s defense, but he still shouldn’t have sent me up there in the first place.
He asks me in a hushed tone, “Are you okay?” as if he actually cares.
I nod.
John points me over to the end of the line, on the opposite side of the obnoxious boys. I go over and stand by a man almost a foot taller and definitely a good hundred pounds heavier than I am. We all face forward to John as he turns back to the group. “All right. I assume everyone has warmed up. Time to begin.”
Mavis
The large white metal pot sits in front of us on the floor. It is the tallest pot I have ever seen. Even with it sitting on the floor, the top of it, with the lid on, comes up to my belly button.
Sarah, the food lady, comes over to Sam and me, who have just set the pot full of water on one of the metal plates in the corner of the room. Sarah reaches up and wipes the sweat off her forehead with her wrist. “Okay, so since it’s sitting on a burner, you want to be careful and maintain a safe distance because you will get burned if you touch it.”
Sam answers for both of us, “Got it.”
As I look around in the kitchen behind the cafeteria, I see a room much larger than I imagined. There are at least twenty different coolers, multiple sets of floor and stove-top burners, and many worktables. Sarah is the woman who was assigned to show us the ropes while everyone else in the kitchen goes about their business. Overall, Sam and I have received a lot of attention. Not in a bad way per se, but a lot of attention. In the kitchen, people have been congratulating us nonstop about making it through the woods and welcoming us to Bergland. Not that I have a problem with all the kindness—it’s just … I have never been a big fan of talking to people. Don’t get me wrong. I will be nice to you all day long and humor you and talk with you, but I won’t enjoy it.
Sarah scoots past us and twists the pot with its handles until it clicks into place. “Now we wait for the water to boil, just like we did with the pasta.” She looks back and forth from Sam to me. “Any questions for that?”
Sam and I shake our heads.
The three of us have just made three pots full of what Sarah calls “spaghetti” as our first lesson. Never before have I ever heard of spaghetti, seen any sort of pasta, nor made anything like that—hard food made soft by the hot water, made flavorful by the pasta sauce, and made ready to eat by the workers. The amazing scent that radiated from every end of the kitchen was one I had never experienced before nor an experience I wanted to stop enjoying.
The other members of the kitchen team continue to work on preparing the rest of the spaghetti for lunch while Sarah ushers us through the kitchen. “While we wait for the water to boil, I’m going to show you two how to shuck corn.”
Sam looks to me with an expression of surprise. “You guys have corn here?” he asks.
“Of course!” She rolls out a double-level cart stacked with boxes of corn. “We have a lot of foods you guys have, if that’s what you mean.”
Still confused, Sam crosses his arms. “What about the thing we ate the night we got here?” He quickly uncrosses his arms and waves his hands around to try to help him find the right words. “That … um, purple thing?”
“Oh, those were rollburries.” Sarah lifts up one of the boxes of corn and plops it onto the steel countertop. “They are one of our original fruits.”
“Original fruits?” Sam steps forward and grabs another box off the cart. He sets it onto the counter beside Sarah. “I am going to need further explanation.”
Sarah chuckles and rolls the cart beside the counter. She steps onto a little brake to keep the cart in place. “When I say ‘original fruits,’ I mean specially designed fruits. Our team of scientists were able to breed superfruits that have a high content of everything we need to live. All of the vitamins necessary, all of the calories necessary, and a whole lot of protein. Rollburries are one of those fruits.”
Sarah waddles over beside us, opens a drawer, and pulls out a knife. She reaches into one of the boxes and grabs one corn. “The best way to do this is to cut off the ends, then to peel off the husk. Like so.” She does exactly what she describes, very slowly to show us what to do. Sarah slides out two pots on a wheeled platform from underneath the counter and drops the shucked corn into one and the shuck and ends into the other. “One more time.” Sarah goes through, strips the whole corn within a few seconds, then hands the knife to Sam. “I think you guys are ready.”
Sarah pulls out another knife and hands it to me. “I am going to go and add another few pots of water to the burners. Come get me after you have shucked all these, and I will show you what to do.”
She waddles off, leaving Sam and me holding knives beside eight boxes of corn. Sam turns to me, holding the knife up in one hand and a piece of corn in the other. He chuckles at me and gets to work cutting and shucking.
“So …” I pull out a cob and start cutting. “How are you liking Bergland?”
Sam sets down his knife and tries to pull off the husk. He does it so quickly and efficiently compared with me. I try to do the same, but I have trouble getting off all of the little stringy bits that lie underneath the husk.
“It’s okay. I like Janice. Grayson seems cool too. I just …” Sam tosses the cob into one pot and the trash bits into the other. “I miss my mom. I am worried about her.”
I nod. “I’m sorry.” I don’t know what to say to him. I can’t say I miss my dad. I miss Derek and his family. I miss my uncle. But my dad?
Sam looks over to me, still cutting up the edges of the corn. “I’m happy I met you and Logan, though.”
I can’t help but smile. “Thanks. I’m happy I met you guys too.” The image of those giant rats from the woods comes into focus. I remember that feeling of walking in the woods all alone when, all of a sudden, I heard a gnarly gurgling noise behind me. I remember turning around to find one giant rat after another slowly approaching me. “I’m not too happy about the way we met, but I’m still happy we did,” I chuckle.
“Yeah.” Sam finishes two more cobs. “Sorry about that.”
“Don’t be. It’s not your fault.” I finish one cob and accidently toss the trash bits into the wrong pot.
As I fish the bits out, Sam continues with his cobs. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure. First, let me ask you a question.” Bit by bit, I manage to get them out just before Sam throws in another cob. I toss the trash bits into the right pot and turn to Sam. “How are you so good at this? Shucking corn?”
He chuckles, “My mother is a farmer. We eat corn a lot.”
“Oh.” That sounds nice. Eating corn a lot. The only time corn ever makes its way into my house is when it has been distilled and bottled.
“My turn.” Sam finishes another cob and tosses it. “Um … did you … um … notice John Young yesterday?”
“Notice him?” I pull off what I can of the shuck on one cob and toss it into the trash pot. I start picking at the little stringy bits of the cob and turn back to Sam, who is trying his best to avoid eye contact. “What do you mean? I noticed he was at the table.”
He throws another cob into its pot
. “I mean he was … um … staring. At you. I noticed he was looking at you a lot.”
I noticed it too, but I don’t want to admit it. “What do you mean? He was staring at you and Logan too. Not just me.” I haven’t really thought about John since breakfast. Sort of.
Okay, a little bit.
Why was he staring at me?
Sam pulls out a few cobs and cuts all of the corners off first. He sets down the knife and starts shucking each one. “Are you sure he wasn’t staring? Because it looked like he was.” Sam tosses the cobs into their pots. “I used to be really good at picking up on these sorts of things. I was always able to tell if someone liked someone else.” He brushes off the counter and swipes all of the shuck trash into the pot beside him. “I guess I’m losing my mind.”
“No, Sam. Don’t worry.” I grab another cob. “I did notice him staring at me a bit.”
Sam pulls out a few more cobs, and a smirk rises up on his face. As he begins cutting, I realize that he pulled the guilt card on me and tricked me into admitting. Well played, Sam.
“I thought so,” he affirms.
Neither of us say anything for a moment. The only sound between us is the chopping and shucking. The people on the other side of the kitchen are all busy with their chores. They are sweeping, cutting, cooking, talking … glancing. Glancing at us.
I avert my attention from our surroundings and go back to the conversation at hand. I slide the shuck and trash off the table and into my hand. I toss them into the pot behind Sam.
“So …” I grab another cob and cut off the ends. “Why do you think John was staring at me?”
Sam shrugs. “I don’t know.” Another moment or two of silence pass. Sam finishes off one of the boxes and switches it out for a full one. “I mean, he is a little old for you. But who am I to judge?”
I chuckle and scoff. “What? What are you talking about?”
Sam picks up a single piece of corn that had fallen on the table and pops it in his mouth. He smirks. “Well, why else would he be staring at you like that?” He swipes off some of the trash. “He thinks you’re good-looking.”
I toss some of the corn strings left over from the table at him. “Shut up.”
Sam pulls off some of the strings that stuck to his shirt and tosses it back at me. “Well, I mean, you asked!”
“Yeah yeah yeah. Whatever. John may have been staring at me, but at least I didn’t have a whole table of preteen girls fawn over me at breakfast.”
“What?” Sam is taken aback by my claim. He picks up the flung-around strings and puts them in the appropriate pot. “What are you talking about? Those girls like Logan.”
I scoff again. “They may like Logan, but they definitely like you too. I mean, can you blame them?” I grab a piece of corn that separated itself from the cob and pop the piece in my mouth. “You are adorable.”
Sam sputters. He tries to get some sort of defense out, but all he can spit out is “No! Uh-uh.”
“Yes you are!” I grab another cob and start cutting. “You may not know it, but you are.”
He looks down at the corn and tries his hardest not to make any eye contact with me.
I chuckle and continue with the corn.
After a few more moments of silence, Sam looks over to me, scratching the back of his head. “You think?”
I snort, “Yeah. I do.”
His face grows red as he goes back to shucking. I turn back and try to catch up with his pace but can’t. For every cob I do, Sam does three. The part that takes me so long is the picking of the strings. I can’t seem to get them all as quickly as Sam does.
Time flies by, and Sarah returns to us as Sam and I finish the last few cobs of the first three boxes. “Oh good! You guys have almost filled the pot.” She hobbles past us and to the pots in the corner of the room. Sarah peeps over and into the pot and gives a giddy chuckle. “Perfect timing too. The water has come to a boil.” She makes her way over to us and rolls the filled pot of cobs over to the pots that are boiling.
Sarah reaches back and tilts one of the lids backward so that the steam rises away from her face. Once the large puffs of steam leave, she sets the lid on the counter beside her. “Now you are to take half of the cobs and put them in this pot and half in the other. Can you do that for me?”
Sam and I nod. Sarah smiles at us and pulls out a small gray plastic rectangle with buttons. She punches something into it and hands it to Sam. “When you get all the corn in, press the ‘start’ button. When it beeps”—Sarah waddles over to the wall beside the pots and points to a set of buttons on the wall—“press the blue button, and it will drain all of the water. Once you do that, come get me.”
“Yes, ma’am,” we answer.
Sarah walks off one way, and Sam another. I watch as he makes his way back to the table from where Sarah pulled the knife. He shifts through the utensils in the many drawers, leaving me alone with the corn.
I assume he knows what he is doing and begin with the corn. I grab five cobs at once and hold them over the pot. The steam rises up and burns my arms the longer I hold the cobs over, so I drop them.
“Wait!” Sam shouts at me as the water from the pot jumps up and scalds every bit of my arm it touches.
I groan and pull my arms back, holding them against my stomach.
Sam closes the drawer and scurries over to me. “Sorry, I was trying to keep you from doing that.” I look up from the ground to him, who is holding up two long pairs of tongs, which he clicks twice when he sees that I have noticed them.
I chuckle, trying to forget the new burns I have on my forearms. Sam hands me one pair. “Watch.” He uses his pair to grab one cob from the pot and sets it into the boiling water without making the slightest splash. “See? No mess.”
I wipe off the rest of the water that is left on my arms and follow his example. One cob after another, Culinary Aid passes by much quicker than it had arrived.
I wonder how Logan’s training is going …
CHAPTER TWELVE
Sam
Day 3 of following a schedule has been much easier than days 1 and 2. Now I know where I am going or where to meet up with Logan and Mavis at least. According to my schedule, today is the only day of the week that our class, including Mavis, Logan, and me, are to go to the “orange room.”
Mavis and I have just finished our Culinary Aid session and are meeting up with Logan in the elevator room on the physical floor after he finishes his training. The physical floor is only part of the PL, or the “physical level,” which holds not only all the training rooms but also the top section of the hospital.
Coincidence?
I think not.
Bergland is separated and built in levels. Each level has different floors with different things on it. That’s the reason there are so many elevator rooms. There are elevators that take you horizontally and vertically, along with stairs that can take you every which way.
Mavis and I break off from our conversation about Sarah’s guffaw when we see Logan come around the corner of the hallway. He holds one hand on the back of his neck, rubbing it as if he has a crick, and the other fist clenched by his side.
“Hey, guys.” He makes his way over to us, moving his hands from their original position to the straps of his backpack. Logan shifts the straps and gives Mavis and me a smile. “Ready to go?”
Mavis returns the smile and presses the elevator button. A flat bulb above one of the elevators lights up green, and the doors slide open. The three of us pile in and go through an awkward pause as we realize just how many buttons and levels there are in this mountain. Almost a full wall of the elevator is taken up by these buttons. Lucky for us, there is an encased list of where everything is on the wall adjacent to the buttons.
After making it to the correct floor, we follow the sounds of rowdy kids to find Janice bent over, unlocking a door w
ith the keys hooked on her lanyard, and our classmates hovering around her. Her keys clink against the door as she pulls them away and swings it open. She holds the door for us as we file in behind all of the other students.
As soon as I enter the room, the first thing I notice are the lights, then the bins, and then the smell.
Janice closes the door behind her and shuffles out from behind the three of us. “Welcome to the orange room!”
I look past her to the long orange bulbs lining the ceiling, the risen garden beds spaced throughout the room, and all of the plants seemingly growing perfectly fine without any real sunlight.
Janice pardons herself as she scoots past Logan, Mavis, and me to the large bins on the wall of the room. She hands us each a pair of gloves and turns to the rest of the students. “All right, everybody, go get a pair of gloves, a hand shovel, and a bucket.”
The kids all rush past us to the bins, knocking into Mavis and me on the way. We scoot back to join Janice by a framed picture of the layout of the room and listen to the kids as they fight to get the best equipment.
“Come on! I need the gloves to match!”
“Yeah, so do I. So give it to me!”
“Um … no, I had this one first. You stole that one from me!”
“No I didn’t! I had this first.”
“Hey, come on. I literally had my hand on the end of the shovel.”
“Oh yeah? Then how come the shovel is in my hand?”
“Mrs. Ludley! Marcus stole my gloves!”
Janice rolls her eyes at the commotion she obviously deals with every week. “I’m sorry about them. You’d think that they would have learned to share by now.”
“Why don’t they have their own gloves?” I ask, shocked at how quickly these so called “friends” are turning on each other.
“The only ones who have spent their credits on gloves are Henry, Rea, and Jackson.” Janice points over to Henry, a boy twice his size in height, and a long-haired brunette girl who is about a foot taller than him, standing side by side, awkwardly awaiting instructions. They each have on a fairly decent pastel-colored pair of gardening gloves compared with the torn-up, ratty brown pairs of gloves the other kids have pulled out of the bins. “The others usually spend the few credits they earn on food or entertainment.”
