Grace
My name is Grace. I am from Amity. I am eight years old and I will be nine this coming harvest. I made a friend who is new to my faction. She and I like breaking the rules. But she says that this rule we broke has to be a secret from everyone. She is teaching me to read and write. It is slow work for me. I said to her I do not know what to write about. She says the easiest thing to write about is a person or a place or an object. So I should choose one of these things and I should write as much as I can about everything and nothing. I will try.
Today I ask Risa what her name means. There is a special meaning behind every name says my mother. Risa says her name is from a longer word used a long time ago but not any more. She says the old word means laughter. My mother says my name means kindness. Risa smiles a lot and she laughs just like her name means. I hope I am kind so I can be like my name too.
At the beginning of this season, just when the plants start to turn green again, I found a runt from the litter of one of our cattle dogs near the stables. The pup was thin and weak. It used to cry during thunderstorms but I held it and fed it. It has grown quickly and now responds when I call. I showed Risa its secret hiding place and we take turns sneaking food for it. It knows her voice now, too. It used to be scared of many things but now it wags its tail when it hears us. That makes me happy.
I like breaking rules with Risa. Sometimes, I'll finish my work at the greenhouse early and I will go to the kitchen to visit her. I like the food she makes and I can tell when it is her turn to make the stew for supper. She always sneaks a roll of bread for me. The bread she makes tastes good. It is fresh and light, much better than the hard bread we eat every day. But it makes me feel strange. As if I have lost something I know I will not find again.
One time I saw Risa sneak out of her bunker past the guards after curfew. The next day I asked her where she was going. She says she likes to take walks at night. It is quiet and calm and she feels closer to the stars, almost as if she can reach out and touch them. Her old faction makes everyone stay inside at night and they have never seen the moon or even the sunset. That makes me sad and then angry. I ask why people do bad things like that. She gives me a sad smile and then says people do not think they are bad, they think they are good and they do things for the good of other people. I tell her that her old faction should let people be outside at night. She smiles her sad smile again and tells me this faction should, too.
Yesterday, Risa said she was too tired to teach me to write. Her fingers are scraped and bleed easily. I asked her what happened. She says she had an accident. She did not smile, not even a sad smile. I thought about it when I was in bed, before sleep. Today, I ask her if people did bad things. She looks at me and says she does not know but I think she does know. I ask if they are the kind of people who do bad things but think they are doing good things for other people. She looks at me for a long time and then she says no. They are not.