(A/N:I'm only now realising how much I totally fail at writing romance. I guess that's representing my life... I guess that's the downside of the whole 'Sweet sixteen and never been kissed' thing... Sorry I didn't post for a couple of days, I was trying to get the interactions right between characters and it took ages!
Chapter Thirteen:
Day Two Hundred and Twenty-Five, Day One of the Ninth Month.
When the box came up today, I was busy in my garden. With six, soon to be seven, people in the Glade, tending my garden is a full-time job. I'm sure I've mentioned before, but boys eat an awful lot of food. Will has been mentioning the work load too, but he sometimes gets Sam to help. The big guy isn't afraid of blood.
So far, no one has been any good in the gardens. Nick was alright, but he's busy enough already, what with the running and helping with building. And Nick just isn't that great at gardening, anyway.
The building, by the way, is going great. The forest is slowly getting smaller, but I've been doing some work in it too, raising seedling trees to replant whenever they take a tree out, and also encouraging the chopped trees to coppice and grow again.
So anyway, when the box came up, I was busy. Have you ever grown enough food to feed an increasing number of hungry, hard-working teen boys?
The greenie came up as usual, and Nick gave the usual 'hey there, yeah we know you can't remember anything, we can't either, welcome to your new life greenie' speech. I didn't really pay attention to them, opting to continue planting my seedling pumpkins. I've been really tired lately, and I guess it's been affecting my interest in the happenings of the glade. I'd meet him either on the Tour or when we ate dinner, whichever came first. After all, he'd be the new boy for a whole month, there was ages to meet him.
We'd probably live our whole lives here, the way things were going.
I guess the strange life of the Glade was beginning to creep up on me. For so long, I've been the only reason everyone wasn't going insane. Now that they are coping, I'm getting so much time to think about this life.
The thing about gardening is it gives you a lot of time to think while your hands are busy. I'm slowly falling into the same trap I've been helping the boys with. For them, I've been keeping them too busy to think. But I've always found gardening to help me think, not stop me.
What is the point of this, anyway? Will we stay here forever? Will we die of old age in this place? If there's only one girl, me, then there won't be much of a second generation. Or maybe they'll keep sending boys here until we all die of starvation because we can't support ourselves any more.
The eight boys, including the greenie, make their way over to the slicing shed. From the slightly pale look on the greenie's already pale face when they come back out, and the amused looks on the other Gladers', I'm guessing slicing is just not his thing.
They walk towards me in the gardens, and I get my first good look at the greenbean. He's taller than me, but he has the same shade of pale skin. He's got a short covering of fair hair, curly but still orderly, and his eyes are a surprisingly dark brown. When I hear him asking questions of the other Gladers, there's something different about his voice, a different accent perhaps?
Alby decides to introduce me. "This is the only girl, and with Nick, who you've already met, they've been here the longest, and they're the King and Queen of the Glade."
Nick and I look at each other's faces for a moment, then we snort with laughter, causing me to actually lose my balance.
"Yeah right!" Nick exclaims when he has enough breath again. "Yeah, right!"
I try and recover my self. "He is not my type."
Nick laughs harder. "And she sure isn't mine! Something to do with her being a shucking girl!"
The look on Alby's face is priceless. I've log suspected that Nick and Alby like each other, and the way Alby looks like he's been hit in the face with a wooden board seems to be confirming that suspicion.
Still laughing softly, I stand up and brush some of the damp soil off my hands, with little success. "You any good at gardening, Greenie-beanie?"
He frowns slightly, a crease between his eyebrows, and his smile fades. "I don't exactly know..." The words sound different to normal, the vowel lengths and rhythm closer to mine than the other boys, but still far different to either.
I smile, hoping to bring his joyful expression back out. "Pity. I need a helper around here."
He smiles a bit, and holds out his hand to shake. I just look at it, then down at my own, blackened by the soil sticking to it. He laughs slightly. "Yeah, that's probably not the best idea..."
He talks in the sort of voice I can't help but to pay attention to. It's smart, but also mysterious, like somehow there's a secret hidden beneath every word. I feel an anger towards the people below, who sent a teen like this to a place like this.
Turning away so that the others won't catch my angry expression, and then noticing that Frypan has vanished, I look to the sky, trying to gauge the time of day. He's probably cooking, so I'd better take some vegetables to him. Thankfully I've gotten into the habit of harvesting almost everything needed for dinner during the day, so that it doesn't take very long to collect food for Frypan. He gets a little cranky if I don't deliver the food on time.
Gathering up my harvested veggies and picking some corn, I nod to the boys, the greenie with a slightly confused look on his face, and take it to Frypan. He collected the potatoes earlier in the day, and he's got them roasting already, because they take longer. But the corn can be fried, and it's best when you pick it only seconds before frying it, so I leave that until last. The sweetness of corn fades very rapidly once harvested.
Will has clearly already delivered his share of the produce, because the rich smell of frying beef sneaks through the air, making my stomach rumble. Frypan berates me for being late, but I barely listen. The hairy boy seems to always be complaining, whether it be the veggies coming late, or the smoke blowing in the wrong direction, or not having a fridge to store food in, or not having pigs for bacon.
Even in a perfect world, I bet Siggy could find something to complain about. Probably how boring it all was.
As the scent of food permeates the Glade, I can hear the boys coming over. They always know when it's dinner time, without fail. The boys are laughing, teasing the greenie about something, and he's got a wide, joyful smile on his face, and seems to be laughing back.
From what I can hear, it's something about Sam being unable to understand a word the greenie says. It's not surprising, as Sam has trouble with anyone's accent, but the boys seem to be having a great time over it.
As we're all sitting around the campfire, the greenie looks over the fire to me. He has a small, slightly crooked grin on his face, making his dark eyes even darker in the flickering light. "Name's Newt, and I never did get yours?"
I can see the reddish firelight glinting off my own red-gold hair, obscuring my vision slightly as I smile back. "Ash."