Jonas stepped out of the lunch line holding his tray and scanned the cafeteria.
"Jonas! Over here!" Charity waved to him.
Jonas smiled and headed for the table. Charity introduced him to her friends. Katie was there, as well as two girls named Jackie and Megan, and there were three boys—Josh, Kris and Sean. When Jonas sat down, the table was full.
"Did you hear Christy's going out with Jason Kendig?"
Going out? Jonas thought. What does that mean?
"Ohmigod, they're so wrong for each other," Megan added.
"I know," Jackie said, rolling her eyes. "Totally."
Jonas had no idea what they were talking about. He suddenly felt very alone. He stared down sightlessly at his plate. He had once told Lily, "I feel sorry for anyone who's someplace where they feel slow and stupid." He shook his head. Feeling sorry for yourself isn't going to help anything, he told himself.
"So Jonas, where you from?" Kris asked.
"Borneo," Katie answered and they al laughed, Jonas included.
"Where is Borneo, anyway?" Charity said.
"Asia," Jonas and Sean answered at the same time. They both laughed.
Well, maybe not so slow and stupid after all, Jonas thought with a grin, digging into his macaroni.

"I just realized something," Jonas said. He and Charity were sitting at the kitchen table eating a snack.
"Whuff?" Charity said, her mouth full of peanut butter.
"I never found out your middle name," he said teasingly.
"Oh." She swallowed. "Do you really want to know?"
"Yes."
"Rosemary."
Jonas dropped his PBJ. "Pardon?"
"Rosemary," Charity repeated, seemingly oblivious of his reaction. "It's an herb. The name is kind of a joke. Mom's a bit of an English nerd."
Jonas managed to find his voice. "What's the joke?"
"Well, Charity means 'love'. There's a famous quote from the play 'Hamlet' that goes, 'There's Rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember.' So Mom was kind of making a play on words."
"Rosemary's for remembrance?"
"Yeah. Different herbs and flowers used to be symbols for thing. Hey, are you okay? Got some peanut butter stuck to the roof of your mouth or something?"
"I'm fine." His head was spinning. "I think I'm going to go do my homework." He left his plate on the table and almost fled the room. Charity stared after him and shrugged.

Jonas discovered that he enjoyed his new school. It was a little slow for him, particularly in math, but h loved his art and music classes, and now that he had friends to 'hang out with', as he was soon calling it, even the boring classes were bearable. Rather than bothering him, as he thought it would, the relative disorder of the classrooms amused him. He found it funny how free the students felt to disrupt the class. But he never joined in. His teachers had mixed feelings about him. He had great grades and always answered correctly when they called on him; he paid attention and was always very polite and respectful. He even sat up straight and used proper English most of the time. But he occasionally displayed a strange naivete about the world, which he seemed at pains to conceal, and he hardly ever raised his hand, especially in math class.
His new circle of friends treated his lack of practical knowledge as a joke, and Jonas quickly went along with this, assuming an exaggeratedly stupid face and tone of voice when he asked questions, like, 'What's a cell phone?' or 'Who's Mickey Mouse?' It worked; they would laugh, but they would answer in simple terms, all part of the joke. They never knew they were actually teaching him thing she didn't already know. Friday night, Jonas went to sleep with a smile on his face.

Fiona sat on the bench by the empty playground, kicking at the tanbark. She heard a noise behind her, and turned her head. Asher walked glumly up and sat down beside her.
"How could he?" Asher said dully. "He knew what would happen if he left, the agony it would put everyone through. And he did it anyway." Fiona said nothing. "Aren't you angry? Don't you wonder how he could have subjected us to this?"
"No," Fiona said quietly, "I wonder how he could have borne the burden of all these memories with only the Giver to share them. And I wonder if our receiving the memories means he's Elsewhere, or he died."
There was a sudden change in the atmosphere. Even Jonas, standing behind them, could feel it.
"Here it comes," Asher said, and no sooner had he spoken than the memory hit, and Jonas saw it with them, and saw them, too. He saw them smile as the sled ran down the hills, saw their expressions turn to apprehension and then fear as the sled skittered sideways, heard them scream with him as they experienced the broken leg and the loneliness of pain. And screaming, he woke.
Someone was shaking his shoulder. "Jonas, wake up!" a female voice said.
"Fiona?" Jonas gasped.
There was movement, and Charity flicked on the lamp next to the bed. Jonas blinked in the sudden light. "Charity," he said, waking up more fully.
"Yes, Charity," she said. "Who's Fiona?"
Jonas rubbed at his eyes. "One of my friends from the community. Very gentle, brilliant red hair—not that anybody there was able to appreciate it." He laughed hoarsely.
"so that's why you asked about the name Fiona," Charity said, the light dawning. "Who's Asher?"
"He was my best friend."
There was a pause. "And who was Rosemary?" Jonas caught his breath. "I know you were shocked by my middle name the other day. You can't hide your emotions that well, you know."
"She was the Giver's daughter. She was the reason we knew that memories would rebound on the Community. he was chosen as Receiver ten years ago, and after five months, she committed suicide. It was forbidden that anyone should ever use the name again."
"'Rosemary for remembrance'," Charity said. "And Zachary, too."
Jonas blinked sleepily. "I'm fine now. I think I'll go back to sleep."
"Alright." Charity flicked off the lamp again. "Sweet dreams."