“Ed wants to stay here,” I said.
Uncle Paul grunted.
“On the farm. With us.”
“Didn’t he used to be a flenser?”
“Yeah. And I used to be a high school student.”
Uncle Paul turned toward me, a sad smile creasing his cheeks. “Same thing, but with less cannibalism?”
I snorted. “Yeah, pretty much.”
“So what’d you tell Ed?”
“I told him he could stay, but I thought it should be your decision. It’s your place and all.”
Uncle Paul rubbed his hands on a dishrag in silence for a moment. Then he turned toward me, looking me dead in the eyes. “Max and Anna ate today because of decisions you made, Alex. You think Ed should stay, that’s good enough for me.”
Uncle Paul turned away, walking toward the kitchen table. I dried my hands in a surreal silence, not really feeling them. What exactly did this new responsibility mean?
Chapter 13
Ed and I trekked to Apple River Canyon State Park about every other day to cut wood. We couldn’t afford to let our woodpile get low in case something went wrong—say, some of us got sick—and we had to have enough wood on hand to keep all the fires burning until we could cut more.
We filled the toboggan we used for hauling wood faster than usual one morning and wound up back at the farm about an hour before lunchtime. As we were stacking wood near one of the greenhouses, I had the nagging feeling that something was missing.
“There’s no smoke,” I said.
“Whatcha mean?” Ed asked.
“The hypocaust vent. There’s usually smoke coming from it.”
“Huh. I’ll check on the fire.” Ed slid down into the hole that allowed access to the fire shelf, which was a small, stone-lined space where we kept a fire burning continuously. Smoke and heat from the fire rose along the sloping shelf and was funneled into tunnels under the greenhouses to warm the soil. I could see the door to the shelf from my vantage point above him—it was partly open to allow fresh air to enter, which was as it should be. Ed slid the door fully open and peered inside. “Fire’s burned out.”
“Nobody fed it this morning?”
“Guess not. I’ll get it going.”
I left Ed and jogged to the house. The cooking fire outside the kitchen was lit. Uncle Paul was there, roasting a large pork shoulder on a spit—our lunch.
“Where is everyone?” I asked.
“Out in the greenhouses,” Uncle Paul said.
“No, I was just there.”
Uncle Paul shrugged, and I entered the house through the kitchen door. Darla was in there, cutting up the rest of the hog carcass that had supplied the shoulder. She didn’t know where everyone else was either. Avoiding her bloody hands, I leaned in for a kiss and then moved on to the living room.
Mayor Petty was asleep, and Dr. McCarthy sat nearby, reading what looked like a twenty-pound medical book.
“Where is everyone?” I asked.
He barely glanced up. “I think your mom went out to the barn.”
A strange sight awaited me at the barn. The doors were thrown wide, letting the weak, yellowish daylight inside. The straw had been brushed away and the dirt floor smoothed. Anna, Max, Rebecca, and Ben sat on the floor, scratching numbers in the dirt. It looked like they were doing some kind of… math lesson? My mom and Alyssa stood farther inside, nearly shrouded in darkness. I could hear them fine.
“Remember,” Mom was saying, “an average attention span is about seven minutes. Plan two activities in each fifteen-minute block. Seven minutes of direct instruction, eight of individual practice, workstations, or buddy practice. The point is to break it up. Match your instruction to your students’ attention spans.”
Alyssa was listening and nodding, soaking it all in. Nobody had noticed me.
“Do you realize,” I said loud enough to carry over my mother’s words, “that it’s almost lunchtime?”
Max jumped to his feet. “Oh, crap. I haven’t fed the goats yet.”
“You’re supposed to do that first thing,” I said.
“I know. Mom used to… never mind. That’s no excuse.” Max took a step toward the door of the barn and then stopped, looking back at Alyssa. “Um, Alyssa, um, I mean teacher, Mrs., I mean Miss Fredericks. May I be excused?” Max’s face was flushed, and Alyssa was failing to suppress a laugh. Alyssa said, “Yes, you may go.” At nearly the same time, my mom said, “School isn’t over until lunchtime.”
Max didn’t wait for them to sort it out. He was off like a shot, heading for the house, where we kept the goats stabled in the guest room so they didn’t freeze to death at night.
Rebecca and Anna were standing now. “We’re supposed to be watering the kale in Greenhouse Two,” Rebecca said.
“Go,” I said. “We’ll hold off on lunch until all the morning chores are done.” Rebecca and Anna each grabbed two empty five-gallon pails, carrying them out of the barn.
Ben was still sitting in the dirt, working math problems. Mom was glaring at me, her arms folded over her chest, and now Alyssa was frowning.
“What were you supposed to be doing this morning, Ben?” I asked.
“Ben’s assignment was changed by the Sister Unit,” Ben said.
“Is the Sister Unit in charge of the chore roster?” I asked.
“Ben always does what the Sister Unit asks of him,” Ben said.
“Almost always,” Alyssa said. “We were on fire duty.”
“The fires under the greenhouses are out!” I said.
“I’m sorry,” Alyssa said. “Will the kale be—”
“It’ll be fine,” I said, although I wasn’t totally sure about that. “Ed’s getting the fires relit, and the ground holds heat a long time. But what were you doing? Playing school?”
“We weren’t playing, Alex,” Mom said. “These kids need to be in school.”
“We need to eat,” I said. “School is a luxury we can’t afford right now.”
“Education is no kind of luxury,” Mom said. “Without it we’re only one generation removed from barbarism.”
“Without food there won’t be another generation.”
“Why do you have to fight me all the time?”
“That’s not the—”
“I’ll go help Ed with the fires,” Alyssa said, stepping toward the barn door.
“Wait,” I said.
“Well,” Mom said, “you seem to have ended all hope for any more learning taking place this morning.” She pivoted abruptly and marched off toward the house.
I stared, not sure whether to chase after her or not. “I’m sorry,” Alyssa said. “I just… Dr. McCarthy asked me this morning what I was planning to do before the volcano erupted. I always wanted to get a teaching degree, work with kids like Ben, maybe.”
“You’d be great at that.”
“Your mom was there, and she started telling me how she got her start teaching special ed.”
My mother was a special ed teacher? She’d never told me about that. She’d been a principal for as long as I could remember.
“And anyway,” Alyssa continued, “things kind of snowballed from there, and everyone was really enthusiastic about the idea, especially your mom. I figured we could teach practical classes too. I was going to ask you to run a taekwondo class, maybe have your uncle teach gun safety and marksmanship, stuff like that.”
“It’s a good idea, but—”
“I know. We should have waited until all the work was done. It doesn’t seem like there’ll ever be enough time to do everything we need and want to do.”
“Could you design lessons that could be taught while you do chores? It doesn’t take much brainpower to water the kale or wash clothing. I could change the duty rotations to give you time with each of your students and with Mom if you want.”
“That could work.” Alyssa turned toward Ben, who was still sitting on the floor, scratching columns of figures into the dirt. “Come on, let’s get our chores done.” He stood and brushed off his pants.