It was a silent drive home, which was a first. Usually Dad was rattling off about how his day was, whom he had to deal with, or commenting on Jeff Kang's leadership of Candor. He kept his eyes focused on the road ahead of him and I stared around at the surroundings as we passed the factionless slums. One of them ambled past our car and leered at me with a toothy smile.
I avoided locking eyes with the figure as we zipped past the slums and neared the Candor faction area. The factionless were the rejects in society – either they failed their aptitude test or flunked out of the initiation of their chosen faction. With the exception of Abnegation and maybe Amity, the other factions saw them as a nuisance and an embarrassment to our society.
Dad parked in the garage and slapped me on the leg. "Go on in Bud – I'm sure your mom's waiting for us in there," he said with a light smile.
I nodded and returned the smile as I lowered my head and stepped out of the car, slamming the door shut behind me. I bit my lip and rubbed my stinging thigh, which was really feeling the pain of that slap that Dad issued. I headed in through the front door of our house, white with a black roof, and removed my shoes at the door, per Mom's rule.
Mom stuck her head out from the kitchen and smiled as she locked eyes with me. "Welcome home Albert," she said. "Dinner's just about ready – why don't you hang up your clothes and change? I made your favorite – thought it would the perfect meal, you know?"
"Thanks Mom, it smells good," I said before I headed upstairs. I shut the door to my room behind me with a sigh. At least my voice didn't shake or give me away – she could always tell when I was hiding the truth. Sometimes I wished that she would let it go whenever I wasn't okay but that's against the nature of being Candor – we are considered the faction who is the most trustworthy and honest.
My button down and pants were hung up on hangers neatly without any wrinkles. I pushed my head through the neck hole of a plain black t-shirt and I zipped my black jeans up. Before I headed downstairs, I caught a look at myself in the mirror. I hadn't realized that I had grabbed two black items to put on for dinner – normally I wear something white and something black together to represent which faction I'm from. But right now, I looked more like one of the kids from Dauntless, who wore black on a regular basis. Except their clothes were tight and body conscious versus the straight, looser fitting clothes I was wearing.
"Dinner is ready!" Mom called up.
Nope, no time to change, I thought as I headed downstairs and walked into the kitchen.
Mom was putting the serving tray with the steaming pot roast in the center of the dinner table. She turned and grabbed the bowls of salad, fingerling potatoes, and bread to put on the table. Dad was pouring himself a brandy for dinner, which earned him a look of disapproval from Mom. However, Dad ignored it and carried it over to the table.
"Take a seat Albert," Mom said. "You can go ahead and serve yourself first." She glanced up from washing her hands and studied me. "Looks like someone was channeling the Dauntless for dinner time," she said as she gestured to my outfit.
Dad replaced the cap on the brandy bottle and glanced at me before coughing.
I shrugged my shoulders as I headed over to the table. "Guess it was a subconscious decision tonight," I said as pulled my chair out. I sat down in between them and Mom handed me the carving knife. I tried to avoid wincing as I took it from her and began cutting the roast in the middle. The carving knife was starting to remind me of the long knife in the basket that I could have chosen in the aptitude test. I cut away a few slices for myself before passing the carving knife to my dad. I added a fistful of potatoes and a small scoop of salad to my plate. Once Mom finished taking her roast from the tray, she set the knife down and Dad began to hand her the bowl of the potatoes.
"Oh not tonight hon," Mom said to him as she held her hand up. She instead picked up the salad bowl and spooned out a generous serving for herself. She was nervous and anxious tonight; otherwise she would have never turned down the potatoes in the first place.
Dad nodded to show he understood and put the potatoes down. He looked over at me and rumpled my hair. "So Bud, how was today? How did the test go?"
I began cutting my roast into small squares and I stabbed two of them with my fork. "Okay I guess," I said. "I really didn't know what to expect going in but it was interesting to say the least." I started putting food in my mouth to avoid talking about the subject any further, hoping that I wasn't giving myself away.
Dad leaned back in his chair and sighed as he stared off into the distance with a thoughtful look on his face. "I remember my aptitude test pretty well," he said. "The guy who tested me was like a fact-spieling robot – couldn't get him to shut up about the serum's properties that he was going to inject me with. I think someone had to tell him to just start the test already. Typical Erudite though."
Mom's ears turned pink as she remembered her testing day. "…wanted to kill Mother for putting ribbons in my hair that day," she said. "When I got to the testing room, turns out I had a young Dauntless testing me. He had a really nice-looking back and I think his bicep had a tattoo of a, oh gosh, some fictitious woman creature…wait! A siren! Yes that was it." She smiled at the memory of the guy and continued to ramble on about the dark eyes and short hair he had as I shoveled potatoes into my mouth.
"Dinner's great Mum," I said through a mouthful of potatoes.
Mom gave me a disapproving look and I shot her a big smile as I cut more roast. She hated it when I talked with my mouth full, yet she had a hard time saying anything bad about it if a compliment was tied into it.
"Roast is wonderful tonight hon," Dad added as he raised his glass of brandy. "Another delicious success!"
Mom's face softened and she beamed at the compliments. She placed her napkin on the table and rose to clear her plate. Dad handed her his plate and I continued to eat.
"Hope you'll save room for dessert," Mom said to me as she began washing the dishes. "Made ice cream with fresh berries from the Amity farms."
I put down my fork and smiled at the mention of ice cream. Candor is known for their ice cream and Mom had gotten her recipe down to a science – pretty much any flavor she made was good.
Mom cleared my plate and she pried the brandy glass from Dad's hand before placing both in the sink. Dad rolled his eyes before standing up to retrieve the evening newspaper from the front hall table. Mom placed a small dish of purple-pink ice cream in front of me and placed the small spoon on my napkin. I thanked her as I picked up the spoon and started digging in.
"Can't stand that woman," Dad groused as he opened the paper to see the face of Johanna Reyes, the representative of Amity, on the front page.
I wiped my mouth with my napkin and skimmed the beginning of the article, which was talking about Amity's stance on the recent writings published by the Erudite. Amity values peace and it wouldn't surprise me if they took a neutral stance on the situation between Abnegation and Erudite.
"Are we talking about Johanna?" Mom asked as she dried her hands. She put away the remaining ice cream and joined Dad, reading the article over his shoulder. She had to stand slightly on tiptoe to read, since my dad is quite tall, even when sitting.
"Unfortunately," Dad muttered as he flipped to the next page. "You would not believe what it is like dealing with her. Dean met with her a few days ago to discuss the current state of produce production in Amity and lo and behold – that woman was smiling and talking in a daze!"
Mom tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and sighed. "She was in my science class before the Choosing Ceremony," she recalled. "Back then, she wore blue and those silly glasses and had her hand up in the air all the time. I think her face was normal before the incident but it was such a long time ago."
"Probably danced into a machine and damaged her face," Dad said as he folded the paper and set it on the table.
I spooned the last bit of ice cream into my mouth and set my spoon down. I pushed my chair back and excused myself to my room.
"Are you sure you don't want more?" Mom asked.
"Deanne, let him be," Dad said. "Besides, we've got a big day tomorrow, don't we Bud?"
I nodded and I said good night before heading upstairs at a regular pace – running would have seemed too suspicious.
Can't go to Amity, I thought as I brushed my teeth. After hearing Dad's tirade, it was obvious that I'd be dead to him if a drop of my blood ended up in the bowl of dirt for Amity.
I shuffled into my room and shut the door behind me. I threw back the covers on my bed and crawled in, turning off the lamp beside me. Abnegation was out too – I was too curious to ever join a faction that refused to divulge answers to satisfy my curiosity. The fact that the Erudite were out to undermine their value of selflessness was enough to make me say no to both factions – Abnegation for being under fire and Erudite for instigating.
I could stay where I was. Candor was familiar and it was pretty easy for me to tell the truth. Besides, Peter and his cronies would probably ditch honesty for something else, which would make initiation easier to deal with. Then I remembered the truth serum. It is a Candor creation that is used to obtain the truth from anyone, from a new initiate to an arrested criminal. It's really easy to spill your secrets to everyone while under it – everything and anything can come out. I'd never been under its influence before but I had seen it used on a teacher who was an Amity turned Erudite when I was younger. The secrets ranged from fear of her new faction to shame for pulling out all the stops to being the top initiate of her class.
And then there was Dauntless, the brave, train-jumping adrenaline junkies whom my parents admired for most of their lives. Granted I wasn't born with a strong desire to climb something high or an eagerness to learn how to hold a gun but I was starting to question whether it was even right for me to stay in Candor.
I looked up at the ceiling and squinted as I stared at the cracks above. Choosing the cheese was probably Amity or Abnegation, telling the angry woman about the book was textbook Candor, but the park was different. I could have stayed out of the argument but instead, I stepped in to try to break it up. Could that have been considered Dauntless? Maybe, save for my reaction to the one guy who was about to punch me in the face. And I had confidently told the woman about the book without flinching, so maybe…
It was only two plausible answers that I was going on, but it seemed possible to join Dauntless. I may have told the truth to the woman but I did it without backing down and I stood up for the other people in park, even though I was likely to lose the argument. Most of the Dauntless I've seen guard the fences and act as protective forces.
I stifled a yawn and I rolled over on my side. It was settled – I knew what I was going to choose.
