I admired the way Grace always tried to look at things in a positive light, especially after what happened to Monica.After going through something like that, I thought Grace would be more negative than positive. That wasn’t the case. When you went through the hardships that we did, we had to step outside of the box and consider ourselves lucky. We could have been on earth, rotting away. Instead, we were down here, eating and living our lives.
“It’s not just that.” I tucked my fiery, auburn hair behind my ears. “I’m just distressed about this stupid council meeting.”
Grace shrugged. “I’m wouldn’t overexert myself by worrying about it. The council knows what they’re doing.”
“We put too much of our faith in the council. What if it’s something bad?”
Grace stole a glance around the room. “Shh,Georgie! Don’t say that!”
I leaned into her ear. “What? You don’t think it’s odd that this is the first time in two and a half years that the families have actually been invited to a meeting?”
“Georgie’s got a point, Grace,” Colin spoke up.My eyes flashed over to his. He crooked me a smile and winked.
I shook my head and faced Grace.“Seriously, Grace. I have this terrible, feeling in my gut.”
Grace raised her hand. “I don’t want hear about it anymore. Can’t we just talk about something else?”
At the same time I opened my mouth, people started coming around with bowls of food. Three ceramic bowls were set down on our table. Each person took one helping and passed the bowl down. We never allowed seconds. We also weren’t allowed to waste any. We had to consume every piece of food that was on our plate.
In the beginning, after starving on and off for three months straight, inhaling all of the food was a challenge. When you starve for that long, your stomach shrinks to the size of a peanut. Now, after eating well for the last couple years, it was hard not to ask for seconds.
For dinner, we were served scrambled eggs, cooked carrots, and a piece of flat bread. Every day it varied. Like I said earlier, each family in the colony had something to provide. When we ate, three times a day, each family donated part of their food so that we could actually have a full course meal.
My mother was a botanist and my father was an electrician. Together they concocted this genius idea before the colony was built, that with artificial lighting, and soil deep beneath the earth’s surface, plants could be grown and survive. So my family provided all of the vegetables.
We grew carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers and potatoes. Sometimes, when the crops were harvested, we’d get a bad batch. For example, the carrots rotting before we picked them from the soil. Potatoes not being any bigger than a pebble. But most of those mishaps were in the first few months of The Great Famine.
The Baker family used to own a chicken coop so they provided all of the eggs. They managed to save several chickens from the coupe after the apocalypse. So we always had fresh eggs. Grace’s father, Ed Vickers, was a baker. He provided the flat bread. Grace’s mother May was a doctor, and she ran our infirmary. Colin’s family used to own a ceramic’s shop in what was once Omaha. Without them, we’d be eating off of the table with our hands.
Each time I took a bite of the food on my plate, it felt like a gift. When I finished, I thought about licking my plateand cleaning up all of the crumbs. That’s how valuable food was anymore. Even crumbs were worth a person’s weight in gold.
After dinner Grace appeared next to me and laced her arm through mine. “What are you going to do now?”
I shrugged. “Probably just go back to my room.”
“Or…” she grinned.
I shook my head. “No way.” I knew exactly what she
wanted. Grace had this crazy obsession with checkers. Anytime we had free time that’s always what she wanted to do. I didn’t like playing with her. Mainly because she beat
me every time.
“Come on,” she whined. “Do you honestly think you’ll have more fun sitting in your room alone?”
I grumbled in defeat. “Alright.” She had a point. There were too many things on my mind for me to sit alone in my room and dwell on them. “Maybe I’ll actually beat you this time.”
“Ha.” Grace laughed. “I doubt that.”
* * * *
An hour later we were on our third game. Grace picked up her black piece and jumped over my red one. “King me.”
I moaned. “Don’t you ever get tired of winning?”
She pondered the question for a second. “Uh. No.”
I turned my gaze to the open doorway as Colin walked passed us. Grace looked over her shoulder, then turned back to me smiling. “Somebody has a crush,” she teased.