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“AND THAT’S HOW YOU GET IT DONE!” Amy Bettencourt shouted at the top of her lungs, pumping her fists into the air. “THAT’S HOW YOU DO IT!”
The competitors around her groaned as they put down the last of their turkey legs, admitting defeat before the reigning champion.
“You guys were good,” she grinned, flashing a smile to each of her opponents. There was still turkey hanging from her teeth as she talked, and her clothes were covered in grease, juices and saliva. Her opponents were significantly cleaner, though they too had given it their all.
“You’re a beast,” Owen muttered. His elbows were on the long, filthy table, but his hands were in the air so that he wouldn’t further soil his attire.
“THAT’S HOW YOU DO IT!” Amy bellowed as she stuck her belly out, nearly howling as she pumped her fists in the air.
“Geez, calm down,” Clay groaned as he violently stood up and walked away. “Girl never shuts up.”
“It’s disgraceful!” someone shouted from the crowd. The spectators began murmuring as Amy’s face dropped in concern.
“But I...I was just celebrating a little,” she said as people in the back of the crowd began to head home.
“Celebrate at home!” a woman shouted, holding the hands of two children. “This is why no one takes us seriously. Anyone with any talent gloats too much, and then...” she quickly pressed the heads of her children against her thighs as she covered their other ears with her hands, “and then we get our ASSES kicked by Hearth and Musgrave! EVERY YEAR!”
“But I won,” Amy mumbled, “it was a competition. I don’t understand what I did wrong.”
“Just go home, Amy!” a child shouted, repeating the phrase he had heard many adults utter toward her throughout his short lifetime.
“GO HOME, AMY!” the crowd began chanting in unison. Those that had started for home returned to strengthen the chant.
Amy scanned the crowd and their angry faces, looking for support, but none pitied her. None cared. She felt the right side of her face beginning to constrict as water filled her eyes. She turned her head and ran off the stage, bumping into many of her opponents who called back in protest.
She slipped on a wet spot and fell to her knees. It hurt, but not more than the wounds to her pride. She clamored to her feet despite the grease on her pants and continued running until she reached the end of the stage. She leapt off as the crowd continued chanting, not stopping until she reached the edge of the woods behind the stage. She turned around to stick up her middle finger at them, and then she continued forward, unsure of where she was headed.
As long as it was away from people.
“All I did was eat,” she muttered once she felt safe. “What was I supposed to do? Let them win? Goodness.”
“Ew,” she heard a girl say behind her. “You’re a mess.”
“What do you want?” Amy groaned as her friend Blaze came out from behind a tree. She was a lot smaller than Amy, but she often embraced her namesake—it was one of the reasons she and Amy were such great friends.
“I could hear everyone yelling from the house,” Blaze said. “I came to make sure you were okay.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Amy said, wiping as much excess grease from her clothes as she could. It was beginning to dry.
“Please stop that,” Blaze grimaced as the residue made a plopping sound on the ground. “Just come back to the house. I have some clothes for you.”
“You’re too little.”
“Would you shut up and accept the invitation? I’ll give you some of my mom’s.”
“Won’t she miss it?”
“Nah, you know she has a spending problem. Part of the reason we barely get half of our nutrients for the day. You know she sold another piece of the land?”
“No way,” Amy said in surprise. “But...didn’t she sell an acre last week?”
“I know. It’s all to pay for her addiction. I tell her that we’re not going to have a place to put the clothes and the jewelry if she doesn’t quit, but you know how she is.”
“What’s your dad say?”
“Same old. ‘Long as she’s happy.’ Pisses me off. Musgrave thrives because it’s taking advantage of people like her. I know they hike up the prices on purpose.”
“Yeah,” Amy sighed. They were beginning to pass a few marked trees that she was familiar with, and strangely, she felt more anxious, not satisfied. Home certainly didn’t feel like home most of the time.
“You ever get tired of the place?” Amy asked.
“Eh, mom and dad can be annoying sometimes,” Blaze replied, “but they’re not all bad. At least we had a lot of land to start out with, you know?” she laughed despite the situation. “Worse comes to worse, I’ll move out. I’m going to be eighteen soon, you know.”
“And you still look like a toddler.”
“A hygienic one,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “So, I have a few things going for me.”
“I wasn’t asking about your place,” Amy said, reigning in the conversation. “I was talking about Comida. You like our community?”
“As opposed to what? The others? Yeah, it’s pretty good. In Hearth, I’d have to fight in some manner. Don’t get me wrong, I love fighting, but there’s no downtime. They act like the world is going to end tomorrow when the three communities have been standing for generations.”
“Musgrave wouldn’t be bad,” Amy chuckled. “The food!”
“You’re always thinking about food,” Blaze laughed. “I’d say you’re where you belong.”
“Nah,” Amy replied. “I hate this place.”
“So where would you live? If you had the choice?”
“Me?” Amy asked in surprise. “Well, none of them.”
“What foolishness are you talking about now?”
“I would live in the outside world.”
“Yeah, right,” Blaze laughed as they continued forward amongst the trees. “You would die in a day.”
“Not true,” Amy scowled. “Actually, I’ve been thinking of leaving for a while now.”
Blaze spun around to face her friend. She studied Amy’s face with an unimpressed look, but after a few seconds it began to soften. The steel gaze in Amy’s eyes wouldn’t break.
Leaving the three communities had certainly been on her mind for a long time.
“Few people leave,” Blaze said, falling into persuasion mode. “You know that.”
“So?”
“There have been impromptu explorations in the past. No one comes back. We lose all contact, and they’re never discovered.”
“Maybe they all found something greater than what’s here. Greater than having to be labeled and placed into boxes. No one wants to admit it, but things aren’t perfect. All the tension between the communities...it’s getting bad.”
“Not that bad,” Blaze said. “Yeah, travel between the three is getting rarer nowadays, but the trade routes are still strong. I would know, remember? My parents own one of the biggest plantations in Comida. We’re always trading with the elite of Musgrave.”
“While we eat the scraps.”
“Yeah, but we also enjoy their medicine and the fruits of their new discoveries. You were sick last year. If it wasn’t for the Musgrave, you could have died. You were throwing up all over the place. Now that I think of it, your shirt kind of looks like it did back then. Oh...I can’t look at you now.”
“I wouldn’t belong in Musgrave,” Amy huffed. “I hate Comida as much as the people hate me. I try to fit in...I try to follow the program, but I like winning, and...whatever, listen. All I’m saying is that I’ve been thinking about this a lot. Where do I fit in? What am I going to do in a couple years when we’re done with schooling? You have a spot to fill. I don’t. I have guardians, not parents, and they could care less about what happens to me. No one’s found my parents since they’ve disappeared. Maybe they left the communities too. Maybe what I feel deep inside of me was passed along by them. That sense of adventure. Of greater things.”
“They couldn’t find them,” Blaze sighed. “But that doesn’t mean they’re out there exploring. Why wouldn’t they take you along?”
“Because it could be dangerous. They wanted me to be safe until I was old enough to decide for myself what to do.”
“Stop being silly,” Blaze said. “You’re really starting to scare me now. Amy, I know you don’t like to change your mind on things, but you’ve got to with this one. You can’t go out there. You’ll seriously die.”
“There’s an expedition!” Amy blurted out, catching Blaze off guard. “I’m serious. I read about it in the paper. Landon...you know, the Landon? He’s going out to explore the outside world, and he’s inviting others to join him. Anyone can go, and I’m thinking of signing up.”
“That can’t be true. Who would sanction such a thing? It’s never been done.”
“I heard it was Ferris Muttly.”
“What’s his stake in all this?” Blaze demanded.
“Maybe he’s seen all there is here, and he knows there’s wonders to discover out there.”
“If anyone wants to explore the outside world, and especially if they want to take others with them, they have to go through Musgrave for approval, and they would never sign off on it, even if it is the great Ferris. They send their own small teams out once in a great while, but again, those teams never come back.”
“Or they do come back, and Musgrave keeps all the spoils, ever think of that?”
“It’s crossed my mind,” Blaze said. “But why would they do that? If anyone ever found out, there would be chaos. Robert Willow would want us to go to war.”
“We’d lose,” Amy said. “Us versus Musgrave and Hearth?”
“Who said Hearth would join Musgrave?”
“Idiot, citizens from Hearth would lick Musgrave’s ass if they asked them to. That’s where they get all their armor and weapons from.”
“Not the bulk. The bulk of the armory is found in Hearth.”
“Only the crappy stuff. The real heavy hitters are in Musgrave. Trust me.”
“You’re guessing. You don’t know.”
“It’s called common sense.”
“Still, even if they joined forces, I think we’d have a shot. We’re the most populated.”
“Quality over quantity.”
“Whatever, you’re arguing for the fun of it now. You know that Willow is the best strategist in existence. He’s the one that got Ward number two armed, you know?”
“What?” Amy said in shock. “Musgrave allowed that? Really? Ward two has weapons now?”
“I know! No one in Comida is supposed to have weapons, but we’re getting them. They’re not all...legal so keep your big mouth shut, but it’s true. I’ve even seen a sword at the Harrison’s.”
“The Harrison family has swords. The freaking Harrison family has freaking weapons?!” Amy said while she jumped up and down. “When do I get one?”
“You’re never going to get one, idiot,” Blaze said. “Calm down. Willow knows that each family of each Ward must be vetted first. Only the most trusted are given weapons. It’s all a precaution, but rest assured, if Musgrave oversteps their bounds, we’ll all be taking up arms.”
“Has it really come to that?” Amy said. “I know things were bad, but wow...you think there will be war?”
“No time soon,” Blaze chuckled. “Any kind of war will influence all three communities, so no one wants to be the one to start it. Still, it’s best to be prepared.”
“But if Musgrave finds out that—”
“We have the right to defend ourselves.”
“No one’s saying that. I’m just shocked that Willow’s taking those risks. He seems like a level-headed dude.”
“That’s why everyone loves him. He looks out for us.”
“Yeah,” she said, raising her head. The end of the forest was near as they could see the rooves of the houses. Smoke from chimneys was rising into the air, and a flute could be heard in the distance. It was probably little Bobby Ein, tooting away at his favorite toy.
“So...this expedition,” Blaze said, “it’s real?”
“Yep,” Amy said. “Sanctioned or not, no one’s going to say no to Landon.”
“True,” Blaze replied. “I just...you’re really going?”
“I might as well. There’s nothing for me here.”
“You know I’m going to miss you. When are you leaving?”
“A few days, I think. I haven’t exactly signed up yet, but I think after I get cleaned up, I’ll try to find Landon. Thinking about meeting him in person is making me nervous.”
“I would be too,” Blaze chuckled. “I’d be crapping my pants.”
“Have Robert Willow get you some heavy-duty ones from Musgrave,” Amy laughed. “I’m sure they don’t even have to use the bathroom.”
“Ugh! Like they just crap in a receptacle in their pants?”
“Or they don’t poop at all.”
“Or all the time. They walk like their butts are permanently clenched.”
The two girls laughed until they started to cry. Stumbling forward they continued home, laughing over the images that came to mind until Amy tripped over something on the forest floor.
“Damn it,” Amy laughed at herself. “I’m so clumsy.” She had fallen on her belly, but she hadn’t gotten hurt. “What was that, a log?”
“No,” Blaze said softly. “Amy, get up.”
“What is it?” Amy asked, still snickering a little.
“I...” Blaze covered her mouth as her hand trembled. “What happened to him?”
Amy stopped laughing as she realized that there was a body at her feet, covered up with leaves and branches. A shiver went down her spine and her stomach began to churn as she began to identify it. She moved her hands cautiously, removing one section of debris from the corpse little by little. There was blood coming from the crown of his head where he had been bludgeoned, but his face was clean. She felt her chest tighten.
It was Robert Willow.
