Just One Friend

CHAPTER 1

The Tellers watch from windows and peepholes that are set into the stone wall beside the dirt road. I feel their eyes on me and keep my head high and back rigid, even with the weight of the metal ball I must soon throw chained to my back. I don’t glance their way but know the pale gray eyes of the tall boy keep me in view. They won’t see me wince. No matter that I am sixteen, they never believed a girl could throw a shot put this heavy the distance I did until a handful of women saw me do it at the stadium last week.

Now the ball the guards connected to me is much heavier.

The mutt trots beside me, also proudly pretending he isn’t on the verge of starvation. Possibly also hoping we can survive another day. A shudder runs through me. This day feels different, worse.

We cross the road that winds before the tiny houses shouldered against each other like garments that are too snug, leaving nowhere for children to play. More dust clogs my nostrils as we near the track. My lips are tight, but still I taste dirt.

At the gate, a woman scans my left heel.

The name of your friend? she says.

Gram. It’s the name I call my grandmother.

Go on. She lets the mutt follow me in since he often entertains the women in the stands. 

A few of those women wearing dull clothing sit scattered about on the right side of the bleachers in this area where we’ve heard games were once played called football, and much larger track events took place. I can’t imagine what a game with such a name might be like. Certainly no one could roll a heavy ball with her foot, or the device might be jarred from her heel. Then Torturers and Cleavers would make her wish she’d been suddenly ripped away like her device.

At the side of the field, girls run in pairs, their legs chained together. One girl kicks dirt up and stumbles. Both of them fall. Their legs will be bruised and painful, and they might be taken away. 

A few spectators applaud. Seeing young girls suffer helps stop their bleak days from being so mundane.

In the middle of the field, a javelin flies. Then another. The teen girls throwing them have practiced hard. Their throws are distant. The girls are rushed aside to take part in their next events, and more javelin-throwing girls hit the large dirt pits, their muscles tensing and faces intent when they prepare themselves and toss. More dust scatters.

We need shot putters, a guard says. All these guards are rough women. She grabs my arm and shoves me toward the field.

Seeming to know he can’t help me do this, the mutt sits to wait.

A guard pushes me in line behind Horid, Linx, and Fen, who just tossed the javelin a long distance. After the woman moves on, Fen whispers, Good luck, Alabama.

You, too, I dare to mumble under my breath. If they catch us talking to each other, we will be extinguished. And not in a kind, quick way. Yet lately Fen sometimes seems to be different. She’s one of the few people who speaks to me in a pleasant manner.

But she can’t be my friend. We are allowed only one. And I already have mine. 

Like me, she and a few other girls must wear pants shorter than to our ankles so the backs of our snug shoes are exposed. We are flight risks, they decided before implanting devices in us. But where could we go? I’d asked but no one replied right before they impaled the blade into my heel. Everyone knows this small area known as This Place is the only livable space remaining since the country’s destruction.

A guard unchains the metal ball from Horid’s back and sets it in her hands. The number carved in that ball tells me it’s lighter than the first one I ever tossed. But she is much younger than I was then. She hefts it in her right hand, her body tight and focused, and throws. The ball glides a few feet forward and drops. As one woman measures the distance, another one reattaches the metal ball to Horid’s back and moves her on.

I withhold the urge to clap for her. That would only hurt both of us.

They remove Linx’s ball from her body. She seems my age. Slightly taller. Extra thin. She throws the ball I threw last month, and it drops not far beyond her feet.

Let her throw again, I want to tell them, but then guards would rush both of us away.

Hefty women with stern faces pull her aside. They strap her and the metal ball together and take her off. If stories I heard are true, they may be taking her out to water and throwing her and everything attached to her in. If she’s lucky.

I want to stop them. Linx isn’t my friend, but she is a person. My instinct is to save her, yet they are too many and they have weapons.

They push her off the other side of the field. You now, someone says. She removes the ball from my back, allowing me to stand taller. She drops the ball into my hands that sink from its weight and shoves me forward.

I heft the ball, its weight much more than I expected. It feels almost too heavy for a girl to hold, much less throw any distance. Recalling the anguish on Linx’s face when they led her off, I gain energy. Like I am gaining power to stop all of them. I twist backward and swing forward and shove the ball with all the strength I can muster. It thumps on the dirt yards away.

Two guards near me gasp. A person in the stands claps, drawing my attention. The bored women sitting there wear plain clothes, but not this one. With broad shoulders in her fine yellow dress and bright red hair piled high, she stands out from all the others and watches with what seems more concentration than most. My hair reveals a reddish tint when I’m in the sun, but no shadows would ever tame the flaming shade of hers.

That’s the Chooser. She’s picked you for her son, Fen whispers, passing near and nudging her chin toward the woman.

I know the Chooser decides who a girl will mate with when the time comes, but I don’t know her son and don’t have time to consider my feelings about Fen’s words. My right arm aches and my shoulder burns. It takes two women to hold the ball up and again strap it to me. The one gripping my arm leads me to line up for my next event. I glance toward the opposite side of the field. No Linx, and none of the armed people who took her.

We girls are here to distract bored women, and today Linx didn’t. Those of us with enough strength or speed perform for them at the stadium. Other teens and young children work in fields or the few factories. My grandmother said that at one time, people were paid great sums for doing what we girls do—entertain others. How foolish does she think I am? She has created much better stories than that.

I almost smile while I walk across the field to my next event, considering one of the best tales of all those she ever told me. She said people performed on a screen and became rich idols for the masses. That concept is so foreign I’m certain Gram never believed it but insists she heard it once. Passing on stories you are not to believe is one purpose for keeping the elders. 

They provide the entertainment for younger folks, those of us fortunate enough to have one of them. It’s said that at one time each person had two or more of those elders, but that’s only rumor, like all the stories shared in whispers between you and your friend. The elders also prepare meals with the little food your household receives, and when they get too weak, they are led away.

But Gram is all I have. I am attached to her, like the ball chained to my back. Even much more so.

Some elders amuse other people, I’m told. And when they can no longer perform, they are done away with. People need more entertainment. That’s what keeps their lives from seeming so dull, Gram said. Why? I’ve asked more than once since I can’t imagine the leaders destroying her, and I certainly never want that to happen.

Because if not, the masses might find their own ways to entertain themselves, she’d whispered even when we were alone in our dwelling. And they might partner together and make their own decisions. But that was only a rumor I once heard, so eat your stew and be grateful and don’t even think of such questions again.

The stew was mush like most of our single daily meals. I felt especially close to my grandmother but could not stop my mind from questioning What if?

A field leader shoves me to line up at the farthest end of the track. Once she removes the ball from my back, I lift my head higher to stretch my neck and back muscles. As I do, I chance a glimpse at the smattering of women in the stands. The Chooser’s eyes are trained on me.

I turn mine away and share a glance with the mutt who sits waiting since he knows where I stand before the race. His scraggly brown fur blends with the dirt.

I don’t look at the other girls. I’ve run for years with some of them. If we watch each other too closely, someone will notice and take us. Everyone here has a friend, I assume, and they don’t want another. Having more than one means death. After first being tortured. We have been told that This Place, where we live, is the only area remaining that can sustain life since all the warfare. The rulers decreed that because of limited resources and space, each person is allowed to have only one friend.

I believe things should be otherwise. Voicing my opinion in public would cause my unhurried death.

Women finish setting hurdles into place across the front of the bleachers on the larger side, which has never been filled. No one ever goes on the deserted opposite side where dilapidated bleachers resemble sticks waiting to build a large fire.

We girls on the field were chosen to entertain a few women who have finished with their chores at home. Those who aren’t too tired can come out here, feel air that isn’t as stale as inside their dwellings, and sit awhile. If they so chose, they can even clap. Few ever do. We understand. Coming to the stadium is the only thing the women can do outside their houses. Getting to sit here does not mean they need to watch us.

We will do the same thing one day when we’re slightly older and told it is time. They will tell us when it is time to partner with someone they decide we are to live with until one of us dies. We hope not by their hands. We’ll mate together until we have a child. And if by chance we give birth to another one.... No one speaks of what happens. I hope I will never bring even one child into this terrible world.

Go! the starter says.

We girls start about the same time, but my mind has been elsewhere, so it takes a second to notice I must run. More than hearing the starter, I see the other four girls darting ahead.

The moment I take off, voices in the stands rise with delight. Within minutes, women cheer. They are not thrilled with me or other girls. It’s the mutt. He’s waited at my spot and watched me and takes off when I do. He is the one the women waited for. For many of them, he’s their only spot of joy for the week.

My lungs work hard and my legs pump. I pound the ground as fast as I can and jump over each hurdle just like the other girls.

Excitement builds in the sounds from the women in the stands as the mutt runs alongside me, keeping me in his sight. He reaches each hurdle when I do and tries to jump it at my side, but he’s tiny compared to the height of the hurdles. He can’t possibly succeed but tries. He only wants to keep up with me. And so the people watching go wild. They have never seen another dog do anything out of the ordinary, so he pleases them.

He pleases me too, seeming to care about me. Or maybe he’s satisfied that I give him something to do besides just being a mutt.

The other girls and I stretch our legs forward and leap, trying to make sure we don’t touch the hurdles. Trying to win. That’s the major rule our here.

Win! Win! some women chant as we near the finish line. They’re yelling for the mutt.

He glances at me, mouth open, and tongue hanging to one side as he gasps for air. The edge of his mouth turns up, like he’s smiling, happy to be running beside me again. It’s as though he believes he might help me gain points which will decide how much food we receive for the week. They might tuck in extra scraps for him.

He and I take the lead right before the second-to-last hurdle. I stretch my long legs over the metal bar, and he leaps halfway up to it, hits the ground and keeps running beside me, watching me to keep up.

My heart is pumping like my legs, but it’s not enough to stay ahead.

The corner of my eye lets me see Lamoine in the first lane nudging onward, one foot stretched ahead of mine. I push myself and lean forward to gain momentum to overcome her, but she nears the final hurdle right before me.

We runners gasp. Instead of clearing the hurdle, she kicks it over and falls.

My toe bumps the downed hurdle. Pain slices up my ankle as the mutt runs into my heel, his claws like sharp javelins striking it. Momentum keeps me going to reach the end. I do and then turn. They are leading Lamoine away.

Her face is lowered. She knows her fate. We all do—or imagine it. This is the last time we will see her. She is a girl, a runner like me. But the next time we race, another girl will run where she normally did. I once heard Lamoine’s name when someone set her in place before we began a race. I won’t ever hear her name again.

Something inside tugs, making me want to rush after them and yank her away from them to save her life. But I don’t even know her, and they would use the lasers strapped to their arms to kill me the second I tried. I watched that happen to a girl. It was horrible.

You won, a woman chaining the shot put to me says without emotion.

I lower my head. I know I reached the line right after Lamoine would have. So did the mutt.

Good job, the woman with chains tells him. He pays no attention to her, keeping his eyes trained on me. He wags his tail so hard it makes the rear half of his body bend back and forth, and the woman with chains grins at him.

The weight she attaches to me makes my frame sag. Tightening my muscles, I straighten my back while I am guided from the field. I didn’t mess up badly on either of my events, so I am free to survive another day.

Sadness touches me. Two girls who entered this stadium as teenagers today won’t get to become women. I shove the emotion away. Emotions can destroy you, Gram has told me ever since I was small. Just do what you are told is how we can survive.

Somewhere in back of my mind, the question resurfaces while I’m led back through the road. Why can’t I live as I choose? Suppose I want a second friend?

That kind of thought can destroy me if it’s known. I dread ever having to face the Torturer. Or the Cleaver who separates body parts. Or the Destroyer, who then mercifully does you in.

I walk, feeling my toes squeeze together. Probably because I want to keep them.

The Tellers keep me in sight while I’m led along the dusty road back toward my quarters. The motion of one catches my attention. I turn my head ever so slightly to see part of his face through the large peephole. He’s younger than the rest. Maybe as young as I am. The interest in his gray eyes seems much different, as though he is seeing me, not just looking to