Chapter One.
In my room, it's warm. Our Junta believes in conserving energy, so we don't have air conditioners, cell phones, or anything that takes up any form of energy.
It's about 4:oo in the morning, and I haven't slept all night. I'm worried about today. I'm turning 17 and that's when they start watching you.
The sun starts to rise, it's beautiful, like every other morning. The pinks and oranges are mixed together wonderfully. I think that it's one of the most beautiful things the earth could ever have.
The alarm clock goes off, it's the only thing in our Junta that uses electricity. They were supplied by the government when they first created the Juntas to make sure everyone is up at the same time to go to their jobs.
Our Junta house, like the others, is 7 floors and have rows of beds. Mine is on the 6th floor, and right next to a window. The younger kids take up the two bottom floors, then the 10-14 year olds take up the the next three floors, and then 15 and over take the top two floors. It sounds super crowded, but it's really not. After the age 50 the adults move to a different house, where all of their needs are taken care of.
When all of us were born, we were separated from our parents, either they never let us know who they are, or moved us to a completely different Junta.
Our clothes are laying at the edge of our beds. Normal attire for our Junta is jeans and a green or blue tank-top or t-shirt depending on how hot it is, they might even let us wear shorts on hot days. They give us a choice in the shoes that we wear, and I always pick the tennis shoes. They're the easiest to walk around in. I ask one of the girls to put my hair in a braid going down my back, and I do the same for her. It's how we have to put it.
The government lets us go between the other Juntas but, we may not go into the house. That would be betrayal to our Junta.
Everyone over the age of 15 in our Junta has a job. Mine is to pick up the trash that was left over by the other Juntas. It's not that bad, though. My friend from the Literary house helps me.
"So how's my buddy from the Greenhouse doing on her 17th birthday?" She says.
"Well, she's really enjoying picking up this trash," I say sarcastically. That's one thing about our Junta house. They don't like it when we use sarcasm, but when I'm around Jess, I can be myself.
"I ain't helping you pick that up! That's gross!" She yells, jokingly. In the Literary house, they have to use perfect grammar by the time their 5 otherwise, they have to go to a different house, and they get all of the bad jobs, but that's where the Greenhouse comes in, we do the bad jobs so they don't have a terrible childhood.
But, Jess was different, and still is. She didn't have perfect grammar, but she knew almost every word in the dictionary, by the age of 3. So they bent the rules so that she could stay, and they would work on her grammar.
"Please? It'll go a lot faster. And then we can have more free time to explore," I say.
"Fine. But only because I want to go see that spot in the Edge," she says.
"Okay, we're almost done here, but I got the job of the Reckless Junta today, also," I say, a little disappointed. The Reckless are the ones who don't care about what they do. They drink, smoke, dye their hair weird colors, and get tattoos.
We walk over there and there are some girls the same age as us, but are wearing super short shorts and tank-tops. "Oh look, here to pick up our trash? Oh, here. Let me help you," she throws a piece of plastic onto the ground.
"This is going to take all day, Jackie," Jess says.
"Oh, and by the way, red looks good on you," says the girl and then she smears lipstick on my arm.
"Whatever Crystal. You're just jealous because you have to dye your hair and wear makeup to look pretty, but it's just natural to us," Jess yells back at her as we move away.
"How do you know her?" I ask.
"Did I never tell you I had a twin sister?" I shook my head, "Yeah, she wandered into the Reckless house and she never came back, she was so young that they just kind of accepted her." she says.
"How did you know it was her?" I ask, "It seems weird that you haven't seen each other for years and you just recognized her."
"We have the same birthmark," she points at her hand, "If she wouldn't have known it was me, I probably would have never recognized her."
"Well then, we should continue picking this up," I say.
By the time we're done, it's about 1 in the afternoon and we have to be back in the houses at 5:00 for our schooling. "We have about three hours until we have to go back, so that's three hours we have to go see the Edge," I say.
We walk over the boardwalk and make sure that no one was watching us. It's against the law to go over here. We jump off onto the rocks, and run to the nearest tree and hide behind it. Then we run to the next one. We continue this pattern until we get to the edge. I then hear footsteps. With one look, Jess and I climb into one of the caves near the edge.
I take the chance and look around the edges of the cave. I see one of the police officers that roam around here to make sure no one wanders near here.
"Jess," I whisper.
"Yeah?" she says so quietly I can barely hear it.
"Officer."
"Darn it."
We stand as near to the wall as humanly possible. I listen for his footsteps pass. He circles around and goes back up to the boardwalk.
"Let's go before he comes back," I say.
"No! There's something I wanna see if it's real," she says. She has a little smirk on her face, this means trouble, or something dangerous.
We walk all the way to the Edge, meaning if I trip, I will fall to my death. It's a scary thought.
"Okay, there should be some footholds here," she says and steps over the Edge.
"Oh my gosh, you're gonna climb the side?" I say.
"Shh," she says. Her foot moves down and so does her other. She get's lower. Then she yells, "Come here! The view is amazing!"
"I think I'm good," I say, But then I hear footsteps, I hop over so that my foot was on it and looked back. There was two adults coming. I place my feet on the other ones and climb down it like a ladder.
I see Jess, and she is sitting in another cave, her legs dangling off the side. I hop into the cave, it's a long way and I almost fall. When I get into the cave, like she said the view is amazing, I could easily watch sunrises here, if only I could get out of the house that early.
"I wonder if this cave goes anywhere," I say, after a few minutes of admiring the view.
"Let's look, we've got another hour," she says.
We swing our legs over the side and start to walk. It's tall enough that we can stand all the way up. We continue walking for about five minutes, and then I trip.
"What was that?" asks Jess.
"I don't know."
"Hey who stepped on me?" asks a male voice.
We both scream. "Hey, quiet, people are going to hear you." he says, "So what are you two doing down here? Meeting someone?"
"I don't think we should have to tell you that information," I say.
"Woah, a defensive environment lover, and a quiet bookworm, this is new."
He stands up, he is very tall, at least 6 feet. Jess and him can almost see eye-to-eye, and she's 5' 8'', but I am about 4 inches smaller than Jess, the top if my head only reach his chin.
"What's your name?" I ask, demandingly.
"I asked you first, and I will not answer until you tell me," he says.
"I'm Jess," Jess says.
"Jess! You weren't supposed to say it!" I snap.
"Just tell him!" she yells.
"Fine! Jackie, what's your's?" I say.
"Clint," he reaches out to shake our hands, Jess does, but I don't move a muscle, "Woah, just trying to greet you, didn't know you didn't wanna shake my hand, how do the Greenhouse people say hi? I never really thought about it."
"The Green Junta is supposed to shake hands, the Literary Junta is supposed to nod their heads, the Truthful Junta is supposed to say whatever they want to the person, and the Reckless are supposed to high-five each other," Jess says like she's reading out of a book, "So really, you should have tried to give us high-fives instead of shaking our hands, unless you're wearing the wrong attire for your Junta," she says then comes back down into the real world instead of her book fantasy one.
"Okay someone does a little too much reading," Clint says.
"Can't help it, it's my schooling," she says.
"Yeah, really. What do the Reckless do for schooling? Like fight each other? Learn how to get tattoos?" I ask.
"They teach us how to fight, yes. Get tattoos? No. But they do teach an art class for designing tattoos," he says, before Jess could answer for him, "What does the environmentalists do?"
"Well, we learn about how to conserve energy, and why we shouldn't use electricity, and we come up with ways to save the environment," I say while looking up at the ceiling, "What time is it?"
"We have about ten minutes to get to our classes," Jess says.
"We'll never make it back in time!" I say.
"I know a way out. It'll lead us to the middle of the board walk and we can get in from there," Clint says, "It's how I get in and out everyday. But, we'll have to time it out so that it doesn't look suspicious. So, Jess, is it? Yeah? Okay Jess, you go first, then we'll wait about five minutes, then Jackie will go, and then about five minutes, I will go. I can be late for class, they don't really care," he says.
There is a trap door in the center that leads upward into the boardwalk. It only took us about thirty seconds to get there and it's just a ladder up.
Before Jess started to climb, Clint gave us one last piece of advice, "When you get up there, do as you would normally do. And open the door really fast and get out. Nobody really pays attention, but just in case."
She starts to climb up. It's almost natural for her, she could be in the Reckless, but she cares too much about her life.
"Alright, you ready?" he asks. I look up, and it looks a lot bigger when you're right underneath it.
"I guess so," I say, and he gives me a boost up.
"You have 5 minutes to get there, and remember, act like you're supposed to be there."
"Thank you, for showing us the way out," I say, and climb up to the top.
It's about 10 ladder steps, that are about 2 feet apart. My arm reaches the lever that opens the door. Before I open it, I put my forearm up against it to make sure no one was walking over it.
Once I feel no vibrations, I quickly open up the latch and jump out. Clint was right, no one pays attention. I look around, and no one even looks at me except for Jess, who is almost into her building.
I walk slowly to our building, it doesn't bug our teachers if we're late because we have no way of telling the time. But, the government does ring a bell when it is time to be there, and if there is still anyone there five minutes after, they question them.
I open the door to our house, right as it rings. I look back, Clint never came back up. I run upstairs and sit down on the floor, we don't have any chairs, or books, or chalkboards, or pretty much anything that you could use for teaching.
"Alright class, we should start," the teacher, Mrs. Pepper, says. She has a very annoying, high pitched, nasally, raspy voice that makes her sound like she's from the early to mid 90's, "So, I've noticed that a lot of you have been using electronics from the different Juntas, and it's not okay. You're beginning to get to the point where you want to see what the other Juntas are like, but you don't have to do what they do, just observe it," she says, most of my class is 16 and 17 year olds, we're like the high school. Kids don't start classes until they are 6.
She starts talking again, "And, the government has been noticing that kids your age are beginning to form relationships with people from other Juntas. Now, it's okay to be friends with them, but you MAY NOT date them. So the government decided that you may not socialize with people from the other gender unless they are in your Junta," I then look around and kids looked shocked that they couldn't do that, it pretty much gave away who was dating someone. "We came to the conclusion that it would be betrayal of your Junta."
Really? Betrayal? That's so stupid, I think to myself.
"Jackie, why don't you tell us about your job today? I would like to hear how it went."
"Well, I think that it went quite well. The Reckless house was very littered, and it was quite gross. I really hope that I got all of it, though. There was so much of it, it filled up two whole bags by itself!" I answer.
The kids that have never done the litter control jobs all look amazed. They've never heard of anything so absurd. But, that would be because our house doesn't litter.
"And what did you do after you were done? You must not have had a lot of time, you were almost late for class," she asks.
"I my friend and I were sitting on the edge of the board walk, like usual."
"Really? Then why were you almost late?" she asked.
"I lost track of time," I reply. "No, literally, I lost track of time, I can't find my watch."
"Well, that's not good, how did you know what time it was?"
"I didn't. What aren't you getting here? I lost my watch and didn't know what time it was so-"
"Now, now, no need to get angry," she yells back at me.
"I have every right to be angry!" I yell back and stand up, "You can't just assume that I was doing something wrong just because I was almost late! A lot of kids were late, why do I make such a difference?"
"Jackie I think you need to go upstairs," she says and stares at me, "You are disrupting the peace of this class."
"Peace? What Peace? As far as I'm concerned, this class has not been peaceful! You started out by saying that most of us can't talk to our best friends, and then you go on, on how it'd be betrayal. You know what? We're just kids. We're going to want to meet new people, it's in our nature! I really don't think you have any right to say tha-"
"Jackie! I said go upstairs!"
"Don't interrupt me!" I scream, "You know I'm really starting to hate this Junta, and your voice."
I storm outside. I don't know where I'm headed, but I need to get out of here. I need to get out of this Junta system, it's not the way I want to spend my life.
"Hey come back here right now! You aren't supposed to be out beyond the boardwalk," one of the guards yell to me.
"Oh yeah? Watch me." Before I step off the wood platform, I turn around, so that he could see my face as a step off.
Out of one of his pockets he pulls out a tranquilizer gun. "Are you really going to step off that ledge?"
"I don't care if you shoot me, you know that, right? If I would care, would I do this?" I spin as I jump off the edge, and start sprinting. I've never felt so alive.
That is, until, I feel a sharp pain in the middle of my back. He shot me. Yet, I keep running. I feel the adrenaline shoot through my veins, and I find some sort of will to keep running. I hear the guard yell something, and I feel another sharp pain, but this time it was sharper. I look down at my leg, and it's gushing blood. I don't think that I can run anymore.
I fall. As soon as my head it's the ground, the last thing I see is the guards running towards me.