In which there is a lack of bed rest and (mostly) harmless fun
notes at the end - also a question I'd love some input on!
The Glade doesn't seem to truly go through winter.
I've asked.
The temperature drops a little for a couple of months, and it gets very hot in the Gardens over what is called the Summer period, but the woods never turn brown, and there is never snow or ice. The days get shorter and longer, but not by much. It raises a lot of questions that we don't have answers to.
But though the climate seems static in some strange way, getting a common cold doesn't seem to be abnormal.
It does seem to be the Runners that bring them in, though, which might imply there's contagions left in the Maze on purpose.
Just more questions.
…
Ben gets back on his feet from the bug.
The following day he's back to Running with Minho.
I happily return to working in the Infirmary and helping with the animals up at the Bloodhouse.
Clint does errands around the Glade and I spend much of the day with Jeff, whose fever has broken, but is still technically on bed-rest. I watch him while my fingers keep busy stacking jars and weaving strange wind chimes from twine and twigs.
The following day, Jeff is getting back into the swing of things with some less strenuous tasks.
I'm laid up with the cold.
I figure Jeff's quicker recovery is due to him being exposed to it before. I also attribute my quick downward spiral to having no immunity to the bug at all.
By mid morning, my head is pounding, I can't walk in a straight line, my fingers shake just rolling bandages and it hurts to speak.
And I'm bored.
Jeff tells me, smirking, that I'm off of work and I need to rest. I'm no longer contagious – the few hours before symptoms set in are when it can catch, so now I just need to ride it out.
He feeds me Clint's concoction, and gives me a jelly-like paste that's meant to soothe my throat.
I seize the opportunity when he goes to clean out some of the empty jars, and I escape the Medi Tent.
I let myself into the animal pens at the Bloodhouse, by-passing the Butchery where I can hear Lee and Winston having a laugh. I sit myself on a bucket in the corner of the goat pen and feed left over lettuce to the rabbits through the neighbouring wire fence.
White-Foot sits next to me in the grass, his ears low over his mottled back and tiny jaw working in circles as he munches.
The three goats browse around, lipping up loose hay and scratching their horn stubs on the fence posts.
I'm not sure how long I've been sitting, coughs rattling up my throat and shivers taking over, when a shadow falls across me.
"You're meant to be on bloody bed rest."
I smile wearily, looking up.
Newt's eyebrow is raised. He mostly looks not impressed, but he looks more amused than he might have done if he were actually not impressed.
"I'm bored, Newt," I say. At least speaking is easier, even if my voice comes out a little husky. I guess the jelly worked. "Fresh air's meant to be good for you, right?"
He shakes his head, ruffling his hair with a hand even as he smiles slightly.
"Come on."
I hunker down on the bucket. "Nope. No. I cannot spend a whole day in my hammock. I'll go nuts. I'm fine here."
Newt crouches in front of me, gazes at me for a second with a strangely soft expression, and then lifts his hand.
The backs of his fingers brush across my forehead.
He feels freezing.
"You have a fever," he says.
Well, that makes more sense.
"Oh," I say. I hadn't really noticed.
He smiles softly. "Come on."
Sighing, I get up and walk with him back across the field to Homestead. Instead of sending me to the hut and my hammock, he ducks inside himself and returns with at least three blankets, then leads me into the Kitchen.
Frypan and the others clear some pans from the hearth and leave me a space by the small fire they've built. I curl up on the floor where it's warm. Stan sits nearby as he seasons tonight's broth and the others return to their jobs with their usual chatter.
I fall asleep much quicker than I expected to.
…
When I wake up, the kitchen is empty but for Fry, and there's no sunlight leaking through the gaps in the roofing.
It's dark out.
I sit up stiffly. My muscles scream at me and I stop moving.
There's a bone deep ache all through my body, I feel dried out on the inside and it's like someone's bashing a hammer around in my head.
"Hey," Frypan says quietly. "Saved you some supper. Just some broth; it'll be way easier for you to eat. And some water."
He moves from one of the work benches to sit with me.
The hearth is just ashes now.
He holds out a dish and I take it with shaking fingers, gingerly feeding myself after tipping back the tankard of water he sets down.
"Is everyone outside?" I ask.
My voice scratches.
Pain lances up my throat like something clawing at me from the inside and my eyes sting.
"Fire's being snuffed out," Frypan says. "Its turn in time. Want a hand getting back?"
I want to say no, but I don't know that I can stand properly on my own, so I nod carefully and mouth 'thanks'.
I'm a bit afraid to speak again.
He smiles and gently helps me up, keeping the blankets wrapped around me.
Though around the same height as me, he's strong enough to support me as we shuffle from the kitchen to the hut I share with Newt and Alby.
As I walk, the shakes die down a little, and my headache turns to a more bearable throbbing.
I thank Fry again with a whisper and turn myself in for the night. It's as I am throwing the blankets back into my hammock that I realise one isn't mine.
It's an unfamiliar dark red weave with fraying edges.
Turning it over in my hands, I tip toe around my partition and peer past Newt's.
He's laying front down in his hammock, blankets tangled around him, and clearly shirtless. His machete back harness is hung up on the post supporting the hammock, alongside his usual once-white hooded shirt.
Not much moonlight gets through the well-made walls, but there's just enough to cast a dim glow across his relaxed shoulders.
Biting hard on my lip, I lay the red blanket across him and head back to my own bed, crashing back into sleep with no small amount of relief.
I hate being sick.
…
The bug seems to be on its way out the following day.
I'm still shaky, still with a headache and the coughing is more persistent, but I can talk without feeling like there's a knife down my throat, the fever has broken and I don't feel like I'll break or burst into tears every time I move.
I refuse to sleep another day away, and it seems Jack managed to contract it while I was suffering yesterday, so he's shut away in the Medi Tent.
Instead, I spend the day with Newt.
It's not the worst turn of events.
I walk around the Glade with him, often sitting off to a side as he catches up with the Keepers and pitches in where needed.
We spend half the morning with Zart. Newt helps him fix up a wheelbarrow and I pick blackberries, as it's deemed light enough work. Most of the Track-Hoes are out in the growing crop field, carefully tending the corn planted back in my first weeks.
We move on to the Bloodhouse where Dan, Lee and Newt fix up one of the pens. Alby gets called in to help with that one. Meanwhile, I milk Pepper and clean the knives in the Butchery.
Alby and Newt take a walk before lunch, so I sit with Tim by the Hammock hut, helping to string out the laundry. The strings running from the beams of the hut across to a storage unit are tight elastic, and each time Tim pegs a shirt to them with a split chip of wood, they snap back into the sky. The billow of air it makes is actually quite relaxing.
I don't really have an appetite back, so I eat an apple as I sit with Dan and Winston for lunch and then I'm back to tagging along with Newt as he gives the Bricknicks a hand fixing up the Council Hall's leaky roof.
Just being told what our next stop is reminds me of the day when it rained, and what Newt told me about the first year in the Glade. It's a strange memory; something sad and cold but also warm for very different reasons.
I can somehow tell Newt feels similarly about it with the glance he gives me as we step inside.
I sit on the steps for at least two hours, trimming the occasional branch with Newt's machete and passing them up to the boys.
Whenever I offer to help more, I'm told to sit down as I'm still technically on bed rest.
I don't do bed rest well.
But it's probably better that I'm not allowed to help. I'd most likely bring the roof down instead.
When the roof is woven so densely you can barely see the failing light through it, we pack up for the day. The Bricknicks gather their things and head off, leaving Newt and I to make for Homestead.
…
"How're you feeling?" Newt asks as we walk across the field.
I'm trying to hide the shakes in my legs as we go. All day I've felt a little wobbly and off balance, but I'd take this over not being able to talk without pain yesterday. "Better," I say, and it isn't a lie.
Newt looks at me a moment longer and I'm sure he can probably tell I'm tired and walking over the grass like its jelly, but he doesn't say anything.
I'm coughing again and sharp pangs tear through my chest with each one by the time we duck into the Mess Hall.
It's too early to be eating, but the other teams have packed up, too, and they're gathered around the tables getting ready for some field games before supper. Frankie's jumping up and down holding a large ball made from tightly interwoven straw stems and Justin stands a few tables down from him with a wooden baseball bat and a much more solid looking ball that could only have been sent up in the box; it's not made of anything natural that I can tell.
The boys weave their way around, deciding on the game they want to play.
"Feeling better, Evie?" Lee asks me, swerving around a table when he notices Newt and I have arrived.
I try my best to nod, eyes streaming and coughs wringing my throat.
Lee gives me a look of absolute sympathy and I feel Newt giving me another slightly concerned glance even though neither of them says anything.
"I'm better," I say again, when I can breathe. My voice is rough to my own ears. "Just…not quite there yet."
"Not going to join in, then?" he asks. He nods back to the two forming groups of Gladers; one for football, or hand ball, and the other for cricket or baseball or whatever version of rounders Zart has thought up today.
"No," Newt says, before I can reply. Not that I'd have had a different answer. "You're going to sit and watch."
"And miss out on all the fun?" I croak back, just to see his reaction.
Me running right now would probably result in disaster and we both know it.
Newt gives me a withering look and places both hands on my shoulders to steer me back to the doorway. Thankfully he no longer feels ice cold. In fact, he emanates a comforting kind of warmth.
"Yes," he says firmly.
Lee chuckles as I'm ushered away and I call back to him, my voice cracked, "Have fun."
I end up sitting myself by the fire pit, still full of ashes from yesterday, as the boys pour out of Mess Hall and start to arrange themselves on the field. I've never really joined in with their games before. Some of the boys explained some of them to me, using rules I'd never heard of, but other than throwing back a ball that's gone a bit wide, I've not really thought to get involved.
Sitting here now, as another cough races up from my chest, I decide I'm going to have a go as soon as I'm free of this bug.
They laugh and dart about; the two balls sailing through the air and more often than not, crossing from their own sections of the field into the other game. The sky starts to darken around us as they play, and they start missing the catches more. Jack gets thumped in the stomach by the football. The tiny cricket ball nearly takes out Dan's arm when he jumps to catch it. Zart nearly cripples Eric with the bat.
Stan and Tim both start to build the fire in the pit beside me and the evening passes in a warm haze of flickering light, vegetable broth and laughter.
…
The next morning, I'm thrilled to find that the shaky feeling has practically disappeared with a good night's sleep. And breathing in the fire until the sky was black and the moon high has eased my chest, too.
The coughing is far easier to bear and I only feel my balance waver once on my way to the shower block.
It feels kind of like scrubbing away the rest of the bug as I use the harsh sponge and stand under the lukewarm pump. I wring out my hair and pull on my washed clothes before joining the others for breakfast.
Jeff tells me I can return to work, but to stick to chores in the Medi Tent and not go wandering all over the Glade, patching the boys up. So I set about checking the stocks, cleaning bandages and making sure none of the poultices have gone off.
A part of me misses volleying between all the teams, helping with the odds and ends, like I did with Newt the day before. But I'm even happier that I've been deemed well enough that I can be left alone to get on with my usual tasks.
Not that the message seems to have gotten around.
Frankie stops in mid morning saying he has an awful splinter, but I can't find one. Not ten minutes after I get rid of him, Zart drops by with a tiny carrot, saying he just dug it up and it was too small for the Kitchens, so I should give it to White-Foot.
I send him off, too, and by lunch time, Jack has turned up saying he bruised his arm with a trowel, followed shortly by Henry who tells me – perfectly straight-faced – that he fell on his neck.
I mean…how?
When Dan turns up, I don't even ask him what's wrong before saying, "Unless you're dying, you can go back to work, too. I'm fine."
And he smiles at me like its Christmas and turns right back around and leaves.
The only legitimate visitor I have all day is Stan, who says Clint sent him for a jar of his concoction.
Not that he's any help.
When I tell him about the endless line of concerned brothers, he just laughs.
…
Two days later and I feel like I never caught the bug. It took the better part of three full days to make it out of my system and my only hope is that should I still be here long enough to catch it again, it'll go faster, like it did for Jeff.
When everyone packs up that evening, I go to join the boys in the field.
It's about time I had a go at one of these games.
"It's easy," Zart says, handing me the cricket ball. "This one is called Squares. Someone throws you the ball, you hit it. You have to throw the bat behind you, run for the first marker, high five the marker-guard and then jog backwards for the second marker. You have to fist bump him and moonwalk to marker three. You have to play rock, paper scissors with him and if you win, you hop to the fourth marker. If you lose, you switch places and he has to hop on. If you get to the fourth marker before the pitcher has the ball back and rolls it across your path, you're home free. If you don't make it, you're out and you have to stand on the square where you got caught until your whole team has had their turn."
My mind spins.
"Easy?" I ask weakly.
Zart beams, swinging the wooden bat up onto his shoulder. "Kidding," he says. "Just try to run around the markers and back to base before the ball is back with the pitcher."
"Awwww!" Lee complains behind me, and I turn around. He's smiling so hard that I think his face must hurt. "But those rules sound more fun."
Zart hesitates, shoots looks between the two of us – Lee's hopeful expression and mine, which I figure must be either horrified or very, very confused – and then he laughs.
"You're right," he says. Then he turns to the crowd of boys not far from us, some of whom are setting out flat rocks in a square formation to mark the game field. "Oi! Gladers! New rules!"
Everyone seems to groan.
One voice can be heard saying, "Here we go. I still have a lump on my head from the last time we tried new rules..."
Zart, totally unaffected by the reaction, marches into the group, already laying out the mess of instructions he reeled off to me.
Lee nudges me, his beaming smile ever brighter. And though I can barely remember half of what we're doing, I feel myself smiling anyway.
"This is going to go bad, isn't it?"
"Very," Lee agrees promptly.
And it does.
The first time Eric throws the bat behind him, it hits Frankie. Frankie can't work out how to jog backwards, so he gets caught out, and just moments later Stan topples into him on his turn. Neither Zart nor Justin can moonwalk, so they end up doing a weird crab-like shuffle to the third marker and only one of them makes it. There's a pile up of at least four boys on the last leg of the course where they all lost balance trying to hop as fast as they could and it makes it very difficult for the last members of the team to get around, trying to avoid everyone who has to remain where they got caught out.
Alby joins in, but is too dignified to run backwards, moonwalk or hop. But he hits the ball so far that he makes it all the way around just walking anyway.
My go is about as good as can be expected.
I'm amazed when I manage to even hit the ball on my second attempt and I'm caught out with the game of rock, paper, scissors. I switch and stay with the flat marker rock while Billy tries to hop past the crowd of static boys, all on one leg.
Things don't progress much better when we switch teams, though it's far easier to field the ball and lob it back than it is to moonwalk.
Frypan, Clint, Newt and Minho all sit out. I can see them moving around the fire pit, preparing it as the sky darkens, but they all keep an eye on the game, with Fry laughing outright whenever one of his Cooks is caught out.
Finally, it's time to pack in.
We move the rocks to the base of the Lookout Tree and Zart carries the bat and ball towards Homestead.
"So, what's tomorrow?" Dan asks. "Going to reinvent Drop ball so we all have to play sitting down?"
"Don't give him ideas," Lee mutters, elbowing his team mate.
And I can't help feeling my spirits lift, as I follow the others into the Mess Hall and sink onto a bench with Fypan, Minho and Newt.
"Have fun?" Frypan asks, handing me a dish and smirking like watching was a far more rewarding activity.
And yeah, I did, but- "You're all mad," I say, shaking my head and picking up a spoon.
INFO
1. The scene at the end of the field games. I feel like I want to explain this a bit. As a more character driven story - at least until later - while many elements of it are me trying to subtly guide an underlying plot, the games shown here are very much rooted in the character side. They don't matter in the grand scheme of the story or plot, but they're important to the characters as people, and that's what this story is all about. Ben getting sick allowed Eva to go into the Maze, and Eva falling sick allowed you to glimpse how the boys have come to worry about her (unnecessarily, if you ask her), but showing you the games doesn't really allow for anything. Its simply a part of Glader life; they create their own games and find ways to have fun when the day comes to a close, because it lets them forget for a bit just how they're living. So the sickness may have been a plot device, but the scene around the games is for world building and the characters themselves. I hope that makes some small bit of sense. I have an odd mind.
2. Following on from that; the games invented here are a heavy dose of my creation. Based on rounders or baseball type games, but my insanity came up with the specifics. As to the occurence of the games themselves, I can't say for the books, and in the movie I didn't see any, so I can't be sure, but I may have introduced that concept, too. It feels like if they formed enough of a community to have functioning jobs and teams, then they can have (semi) functioning sporting events.
FINALLY - I'd love your thoughts! - I'm sort of writing in my head various parts of this story, but told through they eyes of the other characters (sort of a collection of companion pieces). IE, Eva's arrival from Gally's POV, her and Newt's silent period from his eyes, maybe the conversation between Newt and Minho about Eva running?
Would anyone be interested in reading any of these moments? Some would be familar, told in another perspective, others may be moments between other characters that I've hinted at, but not shown - so the conversations would be new. If you are interested, let me know! And if you have any bits you'd really like to read, tell me them, too!
Right, I'm done :)
Chapter 8 - Teaser
"Well…it could have been worse, right?" I ask. I'm not sure if I believe it, though. Something just seems…off.
(I know that this is delightfully vague).
-To be posted at the end of the week-
