Grace’s eyes sparkled as she picked up one of her pieces. “One. Two. Three. Four!” She made her move, swiped all of my pieces off of the board and snapped her fingers. “I win!”
“Darn it,” I whined with a bit of anguish in my voice, trying to sound believable.
“Maybe next time, eh, Georgie,” Grace teased.
“That’s what you say every time.”
On my way to my room, Frankie met up with me in the hall. “Where were you?” She looked around the hall warily.
“Getting my ass kicked in checkers by Grace.”
“Don’t swear,” she said.
“Sorry,” I corrected myself. “Getting my “butt” kicked in checkers.”
Frankie stopped mid-step in the middle of the hallway and grabbed me by the arm. I watched her intensely as she stifled a look around the hall. She seemed worried. Frankie was rarely ever like that so I was instantly concerned. “Is there something wrong?” I patted her shoulder gently and she faced me.
“Come with me,” she demanded and drug me down the hall to our room. “Someone has been in my things.”
“What?”
Inside, I flopped backward on my cot when it dawned on me that she found the kiss that I’d put in her drawer.
Propping myself up with my elbow, I kept my eyes on her as she rooted through her drawer. Then, Frankie removed the kiss and brought it over to over to me. “It’s chocolate,” she said. “I don’t know how it got in my drawer because it wasn’t in there yesterday.”
“Chocolate,” I said in a hushed voice. Then, I peered around the room cautiously, playing along. “If I were you, I’d eat it before anybody can catch you with it.”
Frankie focused on the shiny silver wrapping. “It would be terrible if I let it go to waste. I didn’t even think chocolate existed anymore.”
“You shouldn’t waste it,” I told her. “Do you know how many people down here would fight you for that piece of candy?”
She closed her fingers around the kiss and looked at me solemnly. “You’re not going to tell anybody are you?”
I pretended to zip my lips. “You have my word. I won’t utter a peep.”
The crinkling sound of the wrapper filled the quiet room and Frankie marveled at the chocolate in her hand. She held it out to me. “Do you want to share it?”
The gesture made me beam, a gleeful feeling writhed in my veins. Even though she had a big mouth, Frankie really was the kindest, most generous little girl, and she had a bigger heart than most adults.
I shook my head. “You enjoy it. Maybe one day, I’ll find my own chocolate kiss.”
“Are you sure, Georgie? Isn’t it rude if I eat it in front of you and don’t offer you any?”
“No. Besides, I don’t want any.”
Slowly, Frankie rested the chocolate against her lips. She moved her mouth, shot her tongue out and pushed the kiss back. It rested against her tongue and I smiled as tears formed in her eyes. “This was one of the best days of my new life,” she said through her mouthful.
She chewed the chocolate and brushed her tongue against her lips for a second time as I lifted my arms and she buried her head in my shoulder. Never in a million years did I think that one, single, solitary piece of chocolate could have that much of a lasting effect on a twelve year old. In the times that we were living in, it was those simple things like a piece of chocolate that could make your entire year or as Frankie said, “one of the best days of my new life.” And I was more than thrilled to be the one that gave her one of those days.
That night, I agreed to let Frankie sleep with me and after an hour of her kicking me, rolling over, elbowing me in the gut, and shouting I knew that I’d made a mistake in allowing it.
“Ouch!” I yelped as she kicked me in the shin for the fourth time. Finally, I’d had enough of sharing a cot with her and moved from mine over to hers.
Lying in Frankie’s bed, I rolled over onto my side and shut my eyes. I moved the pillow, adjusting it beneath my head. When I was comfortable, I snuggled under the blanket as a gust of wind whipped through my hair.
The wind continued blowing and I picked up my head as the cool breeze washed over my face. When you didn’t have the wind anymore, you forgot how good it could feel when it tousled your hair on a humid summer day. I took the wind for granted.
Something else I didn’t appreciate while I had it. I was always complaining about the forceful gusts. “It blew my skirt up, messed up my hair,” were most of my common complaints.
But I didn’t have the wind anymore….
It never whipped through the halls of our underground world. So how was it that it was blowing now?
My eyes flew open and I bolted from Frankie’s bed. I stood at the edge of the hall, staring up at the entrance/exit to my home.
Another gust of wind carried down the hall and blew my hair into my face. I pushed my hair away from my face, opened my mouth and let out the loudest, piercing scream I had ever let out in my life.
One-by-one, colonists rushed out of their quarters, stopping right behind me, frozen in fear as six hungry cannibals breached the safety of our underground world and started descending down the rope ladder.
Chapter 23: Shattered
Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!
Five-year-old Ruby Martin, Colin’s kid sister waddled up next to me. Her bottom lip was quivering and then she started wailing. Annie, her mother, sprinted forward, scooping Ruby up into her arms and ran to the back of the hall. Frankie woke up, peeked out from our room and ran down the hall to our mother.
My father, the council members, and boys old enough to fight charged forward as the first cannibal hit the ground. The cannibal hissed, twirling a makeshift machete made from aluminum scraps. The cannibals had weapons, dangerous weapons. We were unarmed and I feared that none of the men in the colony would leave this battle alive.
All of the women and children had retreated to the mess hall. I faced my father, watching in horror as he stormed toward a second cannibal, carrying only a large wooden pole. “No, Dad!” I screamed and rushed toward him. The cannibal had a baseball bat with nails sticking out of it and he brought the bat down as my father dodged it.
My father locked eyes with me for a split second. The sound of battle and the people screaming drowned out the sound of his voice. “Get out of here!” he yelled as the cannibal lifted the bat again.
“What?
“Get out!” The bat came down again, blasting my father’s foot.
I bent down reaching for his foot as tears swelled up in my eyes. “No, Dad! You’re hurt!”
He grimaced and twisted himself around, swatting at me. “Get out of here! Now!” he screamed. “I can’t fight if I’m too worried about you. Go find your mother!”
I was distracting him. I wouldn’t be any use to anybody if I was just standing out there screaming.
Bolting down the hall, I winced at the sound of one of the men screaming, one of the most gut-wrenching screams I had ever heard in my life. Tears brimmed in my eyes. I couldn’t look back to see who it was. If it was my father, I would have turned around, ran straight for the cannibal who hurt him and got myself killed.
No, I had to push forward, because I had bigger plans in store for the people of this colony.
In that moment, I knew that I could save everyone. I still had my secret place. The one place I vowed to
