Theodore and Melinda worked the fields outside of the tent city. The day was cool and the dust heavy. They walked along the fields with their hoes, following in the footsteps of the children in front of them as they moved the earth to prepare for next year’s harvest. A few older children walked along the edges of the working children. There were fewer older children these days. They left the tent city earlier and earlier as they grew older. Wherever they went must have needed their services.

It was either that or Theodore and Melinda were growing older themselves. Where they used to do odd jobs for the farming children, they were now at the far end of the farmers. They prepared the fields and tilled them before planting season. This past harvest they spent most of their time gathering the harvest from the smaller children and pushing it in wagons to the collection points. Melinda and Theodore worked together along with the Trident and Samuel; their forms moving rapidly along the well-tilled earth. They had been at it since early in the morning. It must be close to their midday break and the bit of food they would have earned by now.

Trident hummed a tune as she worked. She had a wonderful voice, the pitch always perfect. They did not know many tunes. The only songs they had heard were from the old women, the wives of the guards. Trident used to hum those exclusively. As she grew older he began trying on different tunes, different beats. She would speed up or slow down the cadence, perfecting her own humming. She would use the farming tools or her hands to keep the beat or create a counter rhythm to the words she sang. These past few weeks he began adding words to the tunes, no longer content to just find the melody. The days Trident sang in the fields were the most productive and relaxing of the year. She did not always have the energy, but when the weather was just right and they had enough food, she would regale them with her singing and the hours of the day would fly by.

Samuel was very quiet while he worked. He was a slow speaker. Other children in the tent city thought he was slow or stupid. Theodore and the rest of his tent mates knew better. Samuel was a large boy, larger than some of the guards that watched over the oldest of kids. He had grown into his body when he was young, and it had kept pace with the other children. For all of his muscle, he was slow to anger. He used his strength to work harder and to keep his four tent mates from falling behind on their required work.

Theodore was clearly the weakest link in the group. While the rest of the children knew that he worked hard, his body could only handle so much lifting and carrying. He moved much faster than the others, but his movements had a lightness and speed but lacked strength. He could move some grain at almost twice the speed of the others, but when they carried four times the amount he could per trip, he would eventually end up slowing them down. If it was not for Samuel’s ability to take on almost twice the normal share of the group, they would have fallen behind.

Melinda was very similar to Theodore in this way. She was larger than most of the other children. Her strength, however, was not always focused on the task at hand. She had a streak of rebellion about her that seemed to force her to find trouble in other places. She was a nightmare with the older children. They had given up trying to get her to do most things. She was larger than most of them now, and she was always willing to fight before she talked. The guards had tried to speak to her a few times, but they did not seem interested in the fights between the older children and their charges. As late, the older children began giving her more freedom and trying to control her less.

A few weeks ago, the older kids hit upon a perfect approach for Melinda. They put her in charge of more of the younger children. At first she tried to resist. But she became very protective of the younger children and began spending more time with them and less time getting into trouble and prowling around tent city looking to steal things or bother the children while they were doing their chores.

It had calmed Melinda down and given her a purpose. Except for Theodore, her tent mates no longer needed her protection. They were able to stay out of trouble on their own. She needed a purpose and she found it in the younglings that she took under her wing. She did not always teach them what the older kids wanted them to know. But she did protect them and help them in their chores when they needed it. She also protected them from some of the older kids who enjoyed the power but not the responsibility that being in charge of the younger children provided them.

Melinda did not work with them much in the fields anymore. She spent most of her time with the younger children helping them with their chores and protecting them from the wrath of the older children.

“We’re growing up,” Theodore said to Samuel as they worked together in the field.

Samuel continued to plow without looking back. He stopped in mid stroke and looked up at Theodore. “Yes, it won’t be much longer now.”

Theodore nodded in agreement. There was no reason to discuss what would happen in the future. The tent children always spoke about what happened when you grew old and the guards took you over the mountains to the other side.

“This way!” Melinda yelled in a hushed voice. It was late and growing dark already. Theodore did not know how she had convinced them but she did. They four of them walked quietly out the back of the tent. Melinda held it open and they stayed crouched, low to the ground.

Samuel waited in the front. It was difficult for him to crouch too low because of his large size. His face as always looked bemused. There was little he feared in the camp. Theodore sometimes wondered if the guards even raised his blood pressure with their wicked looked blades. When Theodore had asked Samuel about it, he had pointed out that the guards were old men.

“They put old men to guard the children,” he had said. “There’s a reason we call their wives the old ladies. They are old men and there is not much I fear from old men. It is the older children that I fear more. They do not have the weapons but there is still a lot of them, and I am not sure how we would handle ourselves if the time came that we had to fight back.”

“I think most would come with us,” Theodore said to Samuel.

“I wish that were the case,” Samuel said after a few minutes. The look in his eye convinced Theodore to drop the conversation. Theodore believed that the children would band together, even the older ones who had not treated them as well growing up. Samuel, for all of us quietness, did not trust most of the children or adults in the tent city. Theodore sometimes wondered if he trusted his tent mates either.

Samuel walked with his back bent after Melinda. Trident followed Samuel with Theodore walking more easily behind them. He did not have to walk too low to the ground because of his size. He kept turning around to see if anyone watched them. He was a bit nervous but excited at the same time. Melinda had not told them what they were going to see. But she had been outside of the tent city often enough that there must have been something interesting tonight for her to sound so excited about their planned excursion.

Before they left that remembered to stuff old clothing into the blankets they slept in on the ground. It would not trick the older kids if they looked closely, but would stop the cursory glance. Not that there were many inspections anymore. As the children grew older, the supervision became lax. The old women began to patrol them more than the older children, particularly since Samuel began to grow into his full size. The old women would not be a match for him, and the guards never entered the tent city, even when there was trouble. The older children usually handled it.

They walked along the back of the children’s tents following Melinda. She paused at the break between the tents and did a crouched run that they all tried to emulate with moderate success. The dust was not heavy that evening, and there was good visibility in all direction. They all wore the canvas wrap around their mouths to protect them from the orange dust. They wore their summer clothing even though the evenings had grown cold. They left their winter clothing stuffed in their sheets along with their canvas pillows and extra fruit they had been saving for a few days for this purpose.

Melinda brought them to the edge of the tent camp. Theodore had never gone this far. The fields were in the opposite direction from this edge. Even the older children were not allowed out here. From here the children had a clear view of the mountains some miles in the distance. With the air only slightly dusty, they were able to look out and see the mountains that ran from north to south along the edge of their world. When the camp moved, they always moved along the mountain’s edge. They all crouched by the back of a large tent that led into the tent camp.

“That is beautiful,” Trident said, sucking the orange dust from a finger she slid underneath the canvas that covered her mouth. Many of the inhabitants of tent city became quite enamored with the taste of the orange dust. Trident in particular would eat it whenever she had a chance. Theodore found the taste to be pungent and although it did not affect him as he did the others, he found it to be calming and focusing at the same time. With enough orange dust in their systems, they could work through the night during harvest time with little ill effects the next day. While the older children rarely had them work that hard, there were times during the harvest and planting season where if it was not for the orange dust, they would not be able to finish their work.

“That is not why I brought you here,” Melinda said, still whispering in a loud voice. Theodore only glanced at the mountains, spending most of his time looking around the camp waiting for the older children or the old women or the guards to find them beyond their tents late at night. His nervous energy could not be spent in this area and he kept waiting for one of them to pop up behind them. He was afraid they would break out into a fight. He knew Melinda, and once they were found, he figured she would fight, and the rest of them would be dragged into it.

As they waited, evening slowly descended. The sky turned orange through the orange dust. They could see the strands of the dust in the air. There was not much dust and they could almost see rays of sunlight as the sun started to dip beyond the tops of the mountain. It always grew darker early this time of year, as the sun moved across the mountains.

“Here they come,” Melinda said, pulling Theodore’s vision to the mountains.

Word count: 2,004 (24,889)

Words remaining: 25,111

An early morning headache kept me from excelling today. I went to the bucks of stars in the morning and stared at a blank screen for an hour before returning home and hiding under the covers until the afternoon. Doolies managed to get me out of the house to enjoy a surprisingly mild and clear day with the dogs. My head cleared in the evening and I pounded out words.