Trivia Answer: Nobody submitted any guesses, so I'll leave this open and see if anybody else takes a shot at it. :)


September 28, 2247

Cassidy, Age 6

I know something's wrong when I hear my dad's footsteps pounding down the dirt path. The Amity never run. What's the hurry when nobody keeps track of time? We live our lives by the brightening and dimming of the sky, by the growth and decay of the fruit trees in the fields. We believe in taking life slowly so that we can appreciate every passing second. When somebody runs here, it's always an emergency.

"Flood!" Dad yells, tumbling through the doorway into our large cabin. "The pump's broken!"

"Again?!" Three of my older brothers leap up from the table, looking around frantically. "We've got to stop it!"

"Quick, everyone grab a pail and move!"

Javier, Rodrigo, and Luis run for the supply corner, crashing into each other and sending buckets flying everywhere. Boys. Always so clumsy. I giggle and bend down to pick up one of the smaller buckets.

"No, Cassie." My dad stops me by grabbing my upper arm. "The water's a good four feet deep now. Let the boys deal with it."

"But I've been reading up on pumps. Maybe I can help!" I decided to do some serious research on plumbing after our central pump, the one that filters all of Amity's water, broke for the sixth time this month. The machine must've been top-of-the-line when it was first built, but now it's over eighty years old and the Erudite transfer who made it died long ago. Still, I was able to find the original blueprints online, and the circuitry didn't look that complicated.

"Stay here, speckle-eyes," calls Javier good-naturedly, using the nickname he invented for me because of the light brown patch in the otherwise gray iris of my right eye. "Swimming is no activity for ladies."

"I want to help!" I say more shrilly. Why does everyone overlook me just because I'm a little girl?

Dad wrings his hands agitatedly as my two other brothers rush out the door. "Fine, fine, but stay away from the pump until we've gotten all the water out!"

"Where's Mama and Oscar?" someone asks.

"Already there. Let's go!"

By the time we get there, a bucket line's already formed between the pump room and the fields. Like usual, every Amity, young or old, has gathered here to help and to chatter. As my family members join the line, I weave to the doorway of the pump room and peer in. Silt-brown water greets my gaze, churned to a white foamy mess by the leaking water filtration machine. Chug-chug-chug! A group of adults wade near the intake pipe, working at the control panel with screwdrivers and hammers. Judging by their expert movements, they must be former Erudite. I decide to back away until the water's been scooped out—I don't even want to think about what could be producing that horrible smell.

It takes fifteen minutes for the engineers to shut off the water, and another five hours to clear out the pump room. By the time the last bucket of water sloshes onto the soggy grass outside, the trees' shadows slash thin dark lines over the ground.

"Can you please fix the water machine properly so this won't happen again?" our leader, Jerry Lloyd, asks the Erudite transfers.

Patricia, the lead engineer, shakes her head. "We can't. The construction is foreign to us. We never studied mechanisms like this in Erudite."

I'm surprised by her answer. Isn't a machine just a machine? Does it matter what style of construction it has? I know I should stay outside like my dad asked me to. After all, what good can I do if all those grown-ups were stumped? But in the end, curiosity gets the better of me. While the adults discuss what to do, I slip into the still-damp pump room and poke around. Instantly, I see what's wrong: several of the valves have become brittle with age and begun crumbling. A strange calmness washes over me as the gears in my mind whir to life. The restlessness falls away. I know exactly what I need to do.

I trace my finger along the pipes, clearing out pieces of old valve that have stopped up the filters. I take an inventory of the odds and ends lying on the floor. I think I have all the spare parts I need. Standing on tip-toe, I begin dissembling the machine. The task is trickier than I imagined; most of the tools were meant for adult-sized hands, meaning that I have to press and yank with all my might to get the parts moving as they should. Hmmm…what does this switch control? It can't have anything to do with that pressure gauge…and where's the secondary reservoir?...perhaps this pipe needs to be replaced too…where did that blue wire connect to again…this panel should hold for a while longer… Thankfully, the adults are still conversing when I finish. "Hey, I think I fixed it!"

Jerry and Patricia look at me incredulously. "Okay...that's great, Cassidy," says Jerry hesitantly. "Thank you for your help. Now please come out of there."

I smile, relieved he didn't scold me. "Let's turn the machine back on and see!"

"NO!" shouts Patricia frantically, stumbling down the stairs after me. "You'll cause another flood!"

"We can always turn it off again. How will we know it's really fixed if we don't try it?" I wonder aloud. Seeing that she's too freaked out to hear me, I spring aside and hit the "start" button. A whirring noise vibrates throughout the basement. I cross my fingers, hoping for the best. To be honest, I've never worked on something this large before, and I'm not entirely sure if I put those last screws back in the right places. Please work please work please work…

Within seconds, clear water is flowing as smoothly as silk through the plastic pipes of the pump. The Amity gasp and applaud. YES!

"Cassie, what…" mutters my mom, peering down the staircase.

"The compressor stumped me for a minute, but…" I give a quick explanation of what I did. "I hope you don't mind," I say sheepishly, turning to the former Erudite, "but, I, uh, added a housing gasket and an adaptor here to make the filter more efficient." A stunned silence greets my words. Uh oh. Did I do something wrong?

One nerve-wracking minute later, my brother Oscar finally cracks a grin. "Cassie, you're not human!"


Cassidy is the last new major character, I promise. She will actually have quite a major influence on the canon characters later, so she's not just a random OC. Please review! I love reading your comments!