“Jon,” Sarah said, and he could see how much she wanted to comfort him.
“No,” he said. “You know why I’m here today, why I’m walking to the bus with you? I took Julie’s pass. Alex had three. He gave two to Lisa, for her and Gabe. Julie was supposed to live with them. Lisa loved Julie like a daughter. Only Julie died, and everyone said I should use the last one. Because I was the youngest, and they were all in the habit of protecting me. I’m here on Julie’s pass. I couldn’t even face her when she was dying, and I get to live here and eat the food and go to school, and Miranda’s going to have Alex’s baby in that hovel.”
“Jon, the apartment isn’t that bad,” Sarah said. “And Miranda and Alex won’t live there forever. You loved Julie?”
Jon nodded.
“Did she love you?”
He nodded.
“Then she’d want you to have her pass,” Sarah said. “She’d want you to have the chance she couldn’t have.”
“That’s what everyone told me,” Jon said. “So I wouldn’t feel bad about living in Sexton while they were stuck in White Birch.”
Sarah stood on her tiptoes and kissed Jon on his cheek. “I’m sorry Julie died,” she said. “I’m sorry for Alex and for you and Lisa. But I’m glad you’re here. You’re my lifeline, Jon. I need you so much.”
You don’t know me, Jon thought. Nobody does.
The only one who had was Julie. And she wasn’t around to tell everyone who Jon really was.
Dr. Carlyle had been a professor of political science at Baumann Christian College, previously located twenty miles east of White Birch. The college, like most of the colleges in America, had ceased to exist four years ago. Dr. Carlyle, like the rest of the teachers, was not a claver, and so he kept his home in White Birch and was now forced to commute to Sexton, like a grub, to teach civics to the claver teenagers.
Jon understood why so much of the school time was devoted to the sciences—botany and biology, chemistry, even physics. He understood the math they were taught was practical, intended for engineering. If you were lucky enough to be a Sexton teenager, it was presumed you’d go to Sexton University and learn all that you could to further their agriculture. New and better greenhouses needed to be built, water supplies to be expanded, and better sources of electrical power to be designed.
English was taught because no matter what field of science they went into after graduation, they’d be expected to be literate. Jon liked the English classes. Mom had been a writer before it all happened, and Matt loved reading sci-fi. There were always books in the house. English classes helped Jon feel connected to the world and the family he no longer lived with.
But civics was a waste of time. For three years now Dr. Carlyle had lectured them on his particular view of history, complaining to them about the repulsive nature of grubs. His quarrel wasn’t with the government that hadn’t selected him to be a claver. It was with the unwashed, uneducated grubs who had taken over White Birch and made every day of his life a living hell.
Jon had more sympathy for him now that he’d ridden a grubber bus, but even so, Dr. Carlyle was a bore and the class a waste of time.
It was, however, the only time during the school day when the students were given the opportunity to talk. So Jon wasn’t surprised to see Sarah raise her hand, although he dreaded hearing what she had to say.
“Miss Goldman wishes to speak,” Dr. Carlyle declared. “Yes, Miss Goldman, what is it?”
“I do my afterschool at the White Birch Clinic,” Sarah said. “It’s terribly understaffed. I was hoping some of you might consider changing your afterschools to clinic work. We can use all the help we can get.”
Amber Healey raised her hand but didn’t wait for Dr. Carlyle to call on her. “You actually expect us to work in White Birch?” she asked. “Touching those filthy grubs?”
“I work hard at my afterschool,” Jennifer Egan said, “tutoring the first and second graders here. That’s valuable work. The children are our future.”
“There are children in White Birch, too,” Sarah said. “With diseases claver kids don’t get, like asthma and pneumonia.”
“That’s not our fault,” Zachary said. “We breathe the same lousy air they do.”
“That’s right,” Elizabeth Jenkins said. “But we know enough to take care of our children, not let them grow up like wild animals.”
“Most grubs wouldn’t even go to church if the guards didn’t make them,” Amber said. “They’d rather get drunk.”
“I’d rather get drunk, too,” Ryan said, and everyone except Dr. Carlyle and Sarah laughed.
“Why do we even have a clinic for the grubs?” Tyler asked.
“Because they’re human beings,” Sarah said.
“I don’t know,” Ryan said. “You ever see a naked grubber girl?”
This time even Dr. Carlyle laughed.
“Maybe there shouldn’t be a clinic,” Tyler said. “We need the strong, healthy grubs to do the manual labor, and we pay them enough for their food and rent and potka. But the weak grubs, the useless ones, are a drain on all of us. Why not let them die naturally so there’d be more resources for the ones who actually work?”
Half the kids in the class burst into applause.
“It’s an interesting question,” Dr. Carlyle said. “I won’t ask your response, Miss Goldman, because I know what it is. Let’s hear from someone else. You, Mr. Evans. As our resident slip, do you think there should be a clinic for grubs?”
“I can’t give an objective answer,” Jon replied. “I have family in White Birch. They use the clinic.”
“Evans is half grub,” Ryan said. “You can smell it.”
The kids laughed.
“What if you didn’t have family there?” Mr. Carlyle persisted. “Would you think there should be a clinic?”
What Jon thought was he hated Mr. Carlyle’s guts, and he wasn’t too fond of his friends, either. The clinic was important to Sarah, and Sarah was important to Jon.
But Lisa hadn’t heard about her evaluation yet. She and Gabe had to be his first priority. Sarah and her ideals would have to wait.
“I think if we lived in a perfect world, everyone would have health care,” he said. “But this isn’t a perfect world. People who are a lot smarter than me make the decisions. If they think the clinic is a good idea, I’m not going to disagree with them. If they ever decide the clinic isn’t a good idea, I won’t disagree with them, either.”
“So what you’re saying is you’ll just go along with whatever you’re told,” Sarah said. “Follow the rules and don’t question.”
“Are you suggesting, Miss Goldman, that you are smarter than the people who make the rules?” Dr. Carlyle demanded.
“Don’t you think you’re smarter than they are?” Sarah asked.
“Miss Goldman, you are very close to treason,” Dr. Carlyle said.
“I don’t see why,” Sarah persisted. “You’re a college professor. You have a PhD. You complain about the way you’re treated.”
“I complain, as you call it, about the people I am forced to share my hometown with,” Dr. Carlyle said. “The dregs of humanity, looking for nothing but handouts.”
“They work ten hours a day six days a week,” Sarah said.
“So do clavers,” Jennifer said. “My father works longer than that. I never see him. And he’s doing real work, valuable work. Our domestics eat our food and sleep in our homes, and if they had their way, we’d be serving them.”
“That’s right,” Amber said. “Grubs wouldn’t have anything to eat if it weren’t for us. And now you’re saying we should give up our afterschools to hold some grub’s hand and tell her not to work so hard.”