Thank you to Watearfair05 for the kind review! You inspired me to continue with this story, so I hope you like the update! :)

"Up!" Something gently tapped the side of my head. Groaning drowsily, I buried my face deeper into the hammock and winced at the taste of the Glade's alcohol that lingered on my tongue. "C'mon then, let's go. Rise and shine."

Newt's fingers wrapped around my ankle and gave it a pretty hard shake—hard enough to cause my foot to fall out of the hammock, and then I had to fling my arm out for balance before my entire body tumbled to the ground.

"Newt!" I screeched, earning a few curses nearby from slumbering Gladers.

"Shhhh," He whispered. "Keep it down, would ya?"

I turned to give him a death glare and he simply waved impatiently at me, unperturbed. "I will kill you," I said in a low, sleep ridden voice that made me sound a little demonic.

He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, but first you have to get up."

I childishly mocked his English accent as I clumsily untangled myself from the hammock.

Newt simply chuckled at me—apparently embodying every syllable of the term Morning Person, and cheerily told me that I was going to love breakfast this morning.

I groaned for the second time, pressing a hand to my churning stomach. "Food seems counterproductive at this point."

Newt gave a laugh and put his arm around my shoulders, but something about the way he did it seemed… off. Like there's something he's not saying. I frowned slightly as he said, "You'll be fine. You barely had anything to drink last night, you can't be that buggin' sick."

I gave him a look and said, "Oh really?"

Before he could respond, he opened the door for the Homestead. I frowned because I hadn't noticed any smoke coming out of the little chimney. Experimentally, I gave the air a little sniff, but I couldn't pick up on any scent other than the constant slight note of manure and sweat that seemed to linger in every inch of this place. There wasn't even any hint of burnt food, which you could usually count on around meal times.

As Newt led the way to the kitchen, I wrote it off and chatted with him about the party last night. It had been to celebrate… well, unofficially it was to celebrate the fact that Jack hadn't been sent out to the Maze. Gally pouted the whole night and didn't talk to many people, instead electing to glare daggers at my brother from behind his cup of Hooch.

Bizarrely enough, Newt and Jack got on unnervingly well. I don't know why it felt so weird for me to see them interacting, but… well, it was probably because Newt has mentioned to me in the past that he thought my brother reckless and when he said it he sounded annoyed, so I assumed he didn't like Jack. That was not the case. At least, not if last night was anything to go by.

It shouldn't surprise me. Jack won Newt over almost as soon as the sun fell, and all it took was a drinking contest. I'm not sure which of them lost, but let's just say I failed. Miserably. And I'm still paying for it, because my head was throbbing and everything hurt.

Of course, as much as I hate to admit it—and I'll deny it if anyone were to accuse me of it—but I was definitely jealous. And a little pissed off. It's childish, but I can't help it… Newt is mine. Jack has literally everyone else in this whole god-forsaken Glade! Well, besides Gally, but no one has Gally. The point is, most of the guys here pretty much ignore me as much as they can. I'm pretty good at telling when someone doesn't like me, and I just get vibes from the Gladers that they would rather I wasn't there at all.

My one good thing in this whole place was Newt. Inwardly, a childish part of me protested that Jack can't have him, too.

Newt led us to the kitchens. It was the first time I'd actually seen it, and I was surprised to find that breakfast wasn't ready yet. There were ingredients laid out across any open surface and most of the counters looked like they could use a pretty good scrubbing.

I recalled the tour that Newt gave me when we first arrived and how he mentioned that there were a few structures that had already been there by the time the first Gladers showed up. As I looked at the kitchen and the modern implements within it, like the counters and the wood-burning stove, I didn't have to wonder if this area was one of those places that was here before anyone else.

"Holy shuck, Newt, you're early!" Frypan teased, pulling me out of my musings. I was surprised to see him nearby, already prepping for the first meal of the day.

Newt smirked and glanced at me. "Well, I didn't want her to be late on her first day."

I stiffened. First day? I looked at Frypan again, then at the ingredients laid out on the coutners, and before I could really make the connection Frypan nodded at me and said, "You can start greasing the pans."

"What?" I looked to Newt. "Am I gonna be a Cook?"

Newt looked prepared for a fight from me, but Frypan butted in with a loud snort. "You didn't tell her yet?"

I looked back at Frypan, annoyance dominating the deep feeling of rejection that clenched my stomach uneasily. Newt looked slightly regretful as he put his hands out and tried to signal me to calm down. "It's not a big deal," He told me, and I tried to keep my emotions from crossing my face because Frypan observed our interaction carefully. "Just try it out today. If you hate it, we'll try something else."

Leaning in to lower my voice, I kept one eye on Frypan as I murmured, "But I thought I was going to be a Track-Hoe… that's what I… I mean…"

Newt scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "The Track-Hoes think you might be better suited for a different job."

"I don't understand." I shook my head at him. "I thought we did fine?"

"We did," Newt tried to reassure me. He hesitated, his head tilting. "Well, I did. I mean… you did… Jill, come on," He finally broke his already thin cloud of optimism. "Your watermelon garden looked bloody jacked."

The tips of my ears were hot with embarrassment as I risked a quick glance over at Frypan, who was doing his best to pretend he wasn't listening and wasn't amused.

I shook my head, desperately wishing this conversation was finished because I didn't want to talk about how much I sucked and how I was rejected from yet another duty. As I turned away to go grab a pan, Newt sighed loudly behind me.

"Jill, don't take it too hard… it'll be fine. Sometimes Gladers have to try out every buggin' duty before they find one, and even then it's just the one they suck at the least." He paused. "Just look at Ben," He joked. "He's the slowest Runner around, but he sucked too much at all the other jobs." Frypan was quietly cracking up behind us, and I felt a minutely less tense at this news. "It took me months before I started doing what I do."

I snorted without looking up because no one does what he does. He's literally the only one. But I wasn't upset with him, I was upset with myself, and with the fact that no one else in this Glade seems to have the decency to even pretend to put up with me. And they don't even care enough to tell me to my face. But none of that is Newt's fault, and I knew that, so I sighed and shrugged a shoulder. "I get it," I said, even though I didn't. "I think I can handle greasing some pans."

"Jill…" Newt knew I was trying to save face in front of Frypan. He looked at Frypan, who was raising his eyebrows at Newt but otherwise offered nothing to the conversation, and Newt sighed. "I have some stuff to do today with Alby, so you're on your own."

Great. I was pretty sure my bad attitude might have pissed him off. My jaw clenched and I smacked the grease down into the pan a with more force than necessary, so some of the white lard came back up and splattered my face. My mouth and chin tensed in disgust and Newt and Frypan cackled loudly at me, and I was fighting back my own grin as I pathetically wiped the nasty fat off my upper lip.

Newt came to pat my shoulder jovially, a glint of something that might have been affection in his eyes as he laughed at me. "You'll be fine, Jill. You're off to a great start!"

He snickered when I smacked his stomach, and even Frypan was grinning at our banter at this point. Frypan shook his head as Newt left, which left the two of us alone in the kitchen.

I wanted to ask about his name, but he wasn't even paying attention to me as he worked to crack eggs into a giant bowl, and threw miscellaneous vegetables and herbs into the mixture with a face that visibly expressed Eh, good enough.

So I put my head down and totally coated the inside of all six pans he'd set out in grease. In my head, my imagination ran wild. I wondered how the decision had been made for me to be with Frypan today. Who suggested it? Did Newt approach Frypan? Or vice versa? Did the Track-Hoes suggest it? Or did they simply say they wanted me out, without caring where it was I was thrown to? Or did I have it totally wrong, and did they all actually care?

I snorted at that last thought, and Frypan paused to look at me. When I gestured that the pans were finished, he put his things down and came over to inspect them. I was already feeling annoyed, so when he did this my temper spiked because what, I can't even be trusted to grease a few pans correctly?

Frypan picked one up and frowned at something in the corner. "What's that?" He asked, pointing at an edge. I leaned down and squinted. It looked fine to me. At least, it did… until Frypan reached down to swipe at the grease and rolled it between his fingers. It was red for some reason. Where everything else was thin coat of an off white grease, that one corner of the pan was tainted slightly red.

Then, I thought I might actually throw up, because Frypan touched his tongue with the red-greased finger. His face scrunched up and he smacked his lips at me, shaking his head. "That's blood!" He accused, and I bristled.

"What?" I snatched the pan from his hand to inspect the corner closely. Sure enough, I'd somehow gotten blood into the corner of the pan while I was greasing it, and Frypan just licked it.

I felt my stomach roll with nausea and I turned to Frypan miserably. "I have no idea how that… where it even came from!"

Frypan picked up my hand and exclaimed at the blisters he found there. Inwardly, I cursed, because I hadn't even considered them when I started. Of course that would be an issue. "What the shuck, greenie!?" He cried. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"I—I don't know," I sputtered as I pulled my hand out of his tight grasp. "I forgot! I'm sorry!"

"Well it's a good thing I caught it when I did!" He told me, as he picked up the pan and carried it over to a basin of slightly murky water. Frypan pulled out a rag from inside the basin and wrung it out, dipping down into the pan to clean out the infected edge.

With a somewhat exasperated tone, he told me to cover my hands with bandages while he checked the rest of the pans.

I grumbled to myself as I trudged over to find something that I could cover my blisters with. There were some rags folded up in the corner beside where the clean dishes were stacked, so I grabbed two and folded them into long narrow strips, just wide enough to cover my wounds. After I tied them around my hands I made my way back over to Frypan and asked him what he wanted me to do next.

He looked somewhat annoyed as he side-eyed me, glancing at my bandages from the corner of his eyes. Frypan sighed quietly, stirring the pan of ham that he'd begun to cook as I was taking care of my hands. "Just wait until the eggs are done in the oven. You can dish them out."

Great. So basically, I can't actually help cook. "Don't the Gladers usually dish their own food?"

Frypan sent me a dirty look, but then quickly looked back to the pan of frying ham. "It's fine," He said. "You can dish it this morning."

I suppressed a frustrated sigh.

The Gladers were more than a little resistant to letting me get their food for them. They were pretty confused, and most of them were still visibly groggy with sleep due to the fact that they'd just woken up. It was a pretty unpleasant reminder of exactly how early Gally had risen me from the dead this morning. By the time breakfast was ready, the sun was just finished rising, and since the sun was their natural alarm clock, so were most of the boys. Ordinarily I would just now be climbing out of my hammock.

At first I had to explain to the boys why I was supposed to dish their food to them this morning. They looked at me like I was crazy, but let me dish out their morning meal of egg-casserole to them. I didn't bother to give them their ham—I just concentrated on the pan of eggs and let them handle that part. After the first six or so groups passed through, word must have spread through the tables, because I no longer had to explain myself as I dished the food out.

Luckily, I never spilled any food. That just would have been the cherry on top of this klunk sundae. Interestingly enough, my job put me in the prime-position to hear all the latest gossip.

Blame it on my dangerously low self-esteem, but I had anticipated quite a lot of klunk to be said about me. Instead, I was largely ignored. Nothing was said about me past a few strange looks when I plopped a healthy serving of eggs onto their plates. In a way that offensive in its own rite. It said that I wasn't even worth mentioning to them; that I was so low on the totem pole that I didn't even rate high enough to be worthy of breakfast gossip. Mostly, though, the Gladers were talking about Jack and Gally; how today was the first day they had to work together, and what they all thought would happen, whether there would be a fight or not and if it would happen before lunch.

I was surprised to learn that most of the Gladers were rooting for Jack, despite his apparent disregard for the rules. I heard quite a few say they hoped Jack kicked Gally's ass, which was somewhat surprising, but it was probably because Gally was so widely hated. Because of what Jack had done by running into the Maze, I was expecting the Gladers to feel fairly uneasy about the fact that he hadn't been thrown out. This couldn't be less true.

When Jack finally came to breakfast, he was dripping with perspiration. I told him to stay back from the food and that I would bring him his plate, but he said he didn't want it. He elected to grab an apple and two slices of fried ham instead, and when I asked him why he was so sweaty, I found out that he had gone for a run this morning.

The Gladers loved that. I heard a lot of them making wagers about how long it would take before Jack was officially made a Runner—especially when he took his breakfast to eat by Minho and Ben. I thought of what Newt said about Ben this morning and watched the way Jack teased him, and how loudly Minho laughed at him.

I sighed and plopped another helping of eggs onto a Glader's plate.

"Well," Newt said from behind me, though the way he said it sounded more like wow. I turned to see he and Alby approaching me from the Homestead. "I had heard it, but I couldn't quite believe it until I saw it with my own eyes."

Alby spoke while Newt patted my shoulder patronizingly. "I've never seen Frypan give someone such a menial job before," Alby snorted with a genuine grin.

I wanted to make a smart comment about how apparently well suited I was for this job that required literally no skill at all, but I was feeling a little too sensitive for such a self-deprecating joke, and besides that, Alby was the most important person in the Glade. It would be pretty bold to make such a joke to him.

So I gave an insincere snort and put my head down. "Aw, that's okay, Jilly," Newt teased me. "There's always lunch!"

I elbowed his side and he laughed and shrank away. Alby rolled his eyes with a grudging smile and asked for a plate of food, declaring that he was starving. When his plate was in hand, he hesitated and looked up at me, asking who had prepared it like he was afraid I had been the one who cooked it.

At my incredulous expression, Alby immediately waved me off. "I was joking," He told me. "I'm sorry, that was a really bad joke."

"Ignore him," Newt cheekily dismissed Alby with a wave of his hand. "He's bad with people."

"Hey!" Alby exclaimed, the most cheery I'd ever seen him behave. I let out an unsure laugh and looked down, tucking some hair behind my ear. I wanted to say something, to add to the conversation, but today was just not my day because I couldn't think of anything. After an awkward pause Alby politely took his leave and went to sit beside Minho.

I sighed and looked at Newt with an unguarded expression, conveying all the emotions I'd been bottling since the first mistake I'd made in the kitchen this morning. Newt laughed at my face and I cracked a smile as well, shaking my head.

"I hate this," I lowly told him. "I can't even smear grease on a pan without shucking it up! I don't think I'm ever going to find something I'm good at!"

Newt gave my shoulder a light shove. "Don't be so melodramatic, Jill. It's just going to take you some time. This isn't coming as easy to you as it did the other Gladers, and maybe that's not a bad thing."

I noticed the way Newt said that—like he knew exactly how I felt, and like he could relate more than he was letting on. My mind wandered back to that time he told me of his brief stint as a Runner. I looked down and nodded.

Lowering my voice, I said, "It just… I know that none of these jobs I've tried so far are what I'm supposed to be doing, you know? I feel like… like I'm just wasting my time."

Newt didn't say anything. He poked at the food on his plate and stayed quiet as I continued.

"But none of this feels right. This is all wrong." Suddenly, I was angry. "This whole shucking thing is wrong, and it feels like I'm the only one who can see it!"

Newt suddenly reached over to dump his food into the trash, apparently not hungry anymore. "You're not the only one Jill."

I looked at him, studied how his head was bent and he wouldn't look at me. His shaggy blonde hair was sort of messy, and he looked like he could use a shower, and a brush. I wanted to reach out and grab his arm to make him look at me—because if he wouldn't tell me what he meant, maybe I could see what he was thinking. But I didn't. I stood back, safely behind the table that was between us, restlessly wringing the wooden spoon in my hand.

A Glader came up to dump his food and Newt came out of his thoughts with a breath like he'd been holding it. He sighed and looked away from the Glader. His face was back to its old expression, if a little more tired than before. "If you don't like being a Cook then you can switch jobs again tomorrow. Maybe you could try being a Bricknick with your brother."

I made a face, cringing at the prospect. "Can't I just stick with you?"

Newt gave me a boyish grin that caught me off guard. My heart skipped a beat and I felt my face heat up as he admitted, "As much as I would prefer that, no." Then, in a moment of sincerity, Newt said, "Jill, you've got to find something that you can do for you. Your time in this place will feel like an eternity if you can't figure out something that gives you a purpose."

I wonder what Alby would say if he heard Newt say that. I also wondered why he seemed to save these rare moments of genuine wisdom for me, while for everyone else he was sarcastic and somewhat nosey. Then I mildly wondered if that's what gave him purpose.

Our conversation was cut short when Frypan came back through and told me to bring in the empty pans to wash.

The rest of the day passed without incident. I got through lunch and dinner without ruining something, but that may have something to do with the small, absurdly easy tasks that I was given, too. I knew that I would never try to be a Cook again—even if I had to be a Slopper.

My evening was spent lending an ear to Jack, so he could vent to me about his absolutely 'horrible' day he was forced to spend with Gally. He's now convinced that Gally has set out to make him fail, (show of hands for who's shocked?) citing the impossible tasks that Gally put him in charge of. Like fixing things with nothing but a hammer, and if Jack tried to point out that it was impossible to fix—say, a hole in a wall where the sticks were coming apart without at least something to secure the sticks, Gally would respond by telling him that if he was going to complain about such a simple job then he could tell Alby himself that he wanted a different duty.

So while Jack came up with inventive ways to fix things using only a hammer, the Gladers were naturally impressed with his perseverance.

Me, on the other hand… I became known as the grub-greenie for a day. In fact, some Gladers even started calling me by my new nickname! Grubbie. Isn't it cute?

I'm still not convinced that Newt wasn't the one who coined the name, but either way he thought it was hilarious. Jack was sympathetic about the nickname, but when I complained that no one seemed to like me, he acted like I wasn't trying hard enough, which really pissed me off. I couldn't imagine myself working with Jack, so I decided maybe I would bite the bullet and confront the keeper of the Track-Hoes myself.

I was well aware of Zart's nickname that the Gladers called him. Zart the Fart. As such, I mentally prepared myself for any offensive odors, but when I approached him that evening lounging against a log in the grass, I didn't notice any stink at all.

"Excuse me…" I nervously stood a respectable distance away, and Zart looked up at me with tired eyes.

"Oh, hey Jill." At least he didn't call me Grubbie. Apparently he can sympathize with me there. "Your name is Jill, right?"

I winced. "Yeah, um… I was just wondering why you asked me to be moved into a different job? It was my first time gardening, there has to be some sort of a learning curve, right?"

Zart looked surprised at my direct confrontation. He raised his eyebrows at me. "It's not the quality of your work that I was worried about. You left half-way through finishing the watermelon garden, and even after you were done in the meeting I still had to send Stan after you so you could finish your job. I just thought you didn't like it."

"No," I quickly shook my head. "I did like it! I mean, I do—It's just—" I broke off and looked away. "I mean, I thought my brother was going to be sent out, you know?"

Zart's face changed from tired and resolved to tired and understanding. "Oh, yeah, I get that. Okay. Well, you can help me tomorrow, if you want. I just thought you kept leaving because you hated the work. Most Gladers don't like it."

I gave him a huge grin and sighed, inwardly laughing at how much I had misunderstood why they'd recommended I take a different job. "So I'll be there tomorrow, then."

Zart shrugged his shoulder. "Sounds good. But you can be the one to tell Alby." He turned away, going back to whatever he was doing to the grass in front of his legs.

I took my silent dismissal, some of the stress that I'd felt from the day melting away just a bit. I didn't know if being a Track-Hoe would give me purpose per se, but it was something that I felt like I could learn to enjoy doing.

And with that, there was another day down, and I felt closer to finding my role in the Glade.

"Hey, Grubbie," A Glader hollered as I made my way to the Homestead. He waved his hand at me. "Tell Frypan to lay off the grease next time! There was too much at breakfast, it's still making me sick."

I sighed and rubbed my face.