Chapter 17

TODAY IS DECLARED AN UNSCHEDULED HOLIDAY. Jonas, his

parents, and Lily all turned in surprise and looked at the wall
speaker from which the announcement had come. It happened so
rarely, and was such a treat for the entire community when it did.
Adults were exempted from the day's work, children from school
and training and volunteer hours. The substitute Laborers, who
would be given a different holiday, took over all the necessary
tasks: nurturing, food delivery, and care of the Old; and the
community was free.

Jonas cheered, and put his homework folder down. He had been
about to leave for school. School was less important to him now;
and before much more time passed, his formal schooling would
end. But still, for Twelves, though they had begun their adult
training, there were the endless lists of rules to be memorized and
the newest technology to be mastered.

He wished his parents, sister, and Gabe a happy day, and rode
down the bicycle path, looking for Asher.

He had not taken the pills, now, for four weeks. The Stirrings had
returned, and he felt a little guilty and embarrassed about the
pleasurable dreams that came to him

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as he slept. But he knew he couldn't go back to the world of no

feelings that he had lived in so long.

And his new, heightened feelings permeated a greater realm than

simply his sleep. Though he knew that his failure to take the pills
accounted for some of it, he thought that the feelings came also
from the memories. Now he could see all of the colors; and he
could keep them, too, so that the trees and grass and bushes
stayed green in his vision. Gabriel's rosy cheeks stayed pink, even
when he slept. And apples were always, always red.

Now, through the memories, he had seen oceans and mountain

lakes and streams that gurgled through woods; and now he saw the
familiar wide river beside the path differently. He saw all of the light
and color and history it contained and carried in its slow-moving
water; and he knew that there was an Elsewhere from which it
came, and an Elsewhere to which it was going.

On this unexpected, casual holiday he felt happy, as he always had

on holidays; but with a deeper happiness than ever before.
Thinking, as he always did, about precision of language, Jonas
realized that it was a new depth of feelings that he was
experiencing. Somehow they were not at all the same as the
feelings that every evening, in every dwelling, every citizen
analyzed with endless talk.

"I felt angry because someone broke the play area rules," Lily had
said once, making a fist with her small hand to indicate her fury.
Her family--Jonas among them--had talked about the possible
reasons for rule-breaking, and the need for understanding and
patience, until Lily's fist had relaxed and her anger was gone.

But Lily had not felt anger, Jonas realized now. Shallow

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impatience and exasperation, that was all Lily had felt. He knew
that with certainty because now he knew what anger was. Now he
had, in the memories, experienced injustice and cruelty, and he had
reacted with rage that welled up so passionately inside him that the
 thought of discussing it calmly at the evening meal was
unthinkable,
"I felt sad today," he had heard his mother say, and they had
comforted her.

But now Jonas had experienced real sadness. He had felt grief. He
knew that there was no quick comfort for emotions like those.

These were deeper and they did not need to be told. They
were felt.
Today, he felt happiness.

"Asher!" He spied his friend's bicycle leaning against a tree at the

edge of the playing field. Nearby, other bikes were strewn about on
the ground. On a holiday the usual rules of order could be
disregarded.

He skidded to a stop and dropped his own bike beside the others.
"Hey, Ash!" he shouted, looking around. There seemed to be no
one in the play area. "Where are you?"

"Psssheeewwww!" A child's voice, coming from behind a nearby

bush, made the sound. "Pow! Pow! Pow!"

A female Eleven named Tanya staggered forward from where she

had been hiding. Dramatically she clutched her stomach and
stumbled about in a zig-zag pattern, groaning. "You got me!" she
called, and fell to the ground, grinning.

"Blam!"

Jonas, standing on the side of the playing field, recognized

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Asher's voice. He saw his friend, aiming an imaginary weapon in his
hand, dart from behind one tree to another. "Blam! You're in my line
of ambush, Jonas! Watch out!"

Jonas stepped back. He moved behind Asher's bike and knelt so

that he was out of sight. It was a game he had often played with the
other children, a game of good guys and bad guys, a harmless
pasttime that used up their contained energy and ended only when
they all lay posed in freakish postures on the ground.

He had never recognized it before as a game of war. "Attack!" The

shout came from behind the small storehouse where play
equipment was kept. Three children dashed forward, their
imaginary weapons in firing position.

From the opposite side of the field came an opposing shout:

"Counter-attack!" From their hiding places a horde of children--
Jonas recognized Fiona in the group--emerged, running in a
crouched position, firing across the field. Several of them stopped,
grabbed their own shoulders and chests with exaggerated
gestures, and pretended to be hit. They dropped to the ground and
lay suppressing giggles.

Feelings surged within Jonas. He found himself walking forward

into the field.

"You're hit, Jonas!" Asher yelled from behind the tree. "Pow! You're
hit again!"

Jonas stood alone in the center of the field. Several of the children
raised their heads and looked at him uneasily. The attacking armies
slowed, emerged from their crouched positions, and watched to see
what he was doing.

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In his mind, Jonas saw again the face of the boy who had lain dying
on a field and had begged him for water. He had a sudden choking
feeling, as if it were difficult to breathe.

One of the children raised an imaginary rifle and made an attempt

to destroy him with a firing noise. "Pssheeew!" Then they were all
silent, standing awkwardly, and the only sound was the sound of
Jonas's shuddering breaths. He was struggling not to cry.

Gradually, when nothing happened, nothing changed, the children

looked at each other nervously and went away. He heard the
sounds as they righted their bicycles and began to ride down the
path that led from the field. Only Asher and Fiona remained.

"What's wrong, Jonas? It was only a game," Fiona said.

"You ruined it," Asher said in an irritated voice.

"Don't play it anymore," Jonas pleaded.

"I'm the one who's training for Assistant Recreation Director," Asher
pointed out angrily. "Games aren't your area of expertness."

"Expertise," Jonas corrected him automatically.

"Whatever. You can't say what we play, even if you are going to be
the new Receiver." Asher looked warily at him. "I apologize for not
paying you the respect you deserve," he mumbled.

"Asher," Jonas said. He was trying to speak carefully, and with

kindness, to say exactly what he wanted to say. "You had no way of
knowing this. I didn't know it myself until recently. But it's a cruel
game. In the past, there have--"

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"I said I apologize, Jonas."
Jonas sighed. It was no use. Of course Asher couldn't understand.

"I accept your apology, Asher," he said wearily.

"Do you want to go for a ride along the river, Jonas?" Fiona asked,
biting her lip with nervousness.

Jonas looked at her. She was so lovely. For a fleeting instant he

thought he would like nothing better than to ride peacefully along
the river path, laughing and talking with his gentle female friend.
But he knew that such times had been taken from him now. He
shook his head. After a moment his two friends turned and went to
their bikes. He watched as they rode away.

Jonas trudged to the bench beside the Storehouse and sat down,
overwhelmed with feelings of loss. His childhood, his friendships,
his carefree sense of security--all of these things seemed to be
slipping away. With his new, heightened feelings, he was
overwhelmed by sadness at the way the others had laughed and
shouted, playing at war. But he knew that they could not
understand why, without the memories. He felt such love for Asher
and for Fiona. But they could not feel it back, without the memories.
And he could not give them those. Jonas knew with certainty that
he could change nothing.

Back in their dwelling, that evening, Lily chattered merrily about the
wonderful holiday she had had, playing with her friends, having her
midday meal out of doors, and (she confessed) sneaking a very
short try on her father's bicycle.

"I can't wait till I get my very own bicycle next month. Father's is too
big for me. I fell," she explained matter-of-factly.
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"Good thing Gabe wasn't in the child seat!"

"A very good thing," Mother agreed, frowning at the idea of it.
Gabriel waved his arms at the mention of himself. He had begun to
walk just the week before. The first steps of a newchild were always
the occasion for celebration at the Nurturing Center, Father said,
but also for the introduction of a discipline wand. Now Father
brought the slender instrument home with him each night, in case
Gabriel misbehaved.

But he was a happy and easygoing toddler. Now he moved

unsteadily across the room, laughing. "Gay!" he chirped. "Gay!" It
was the way he said his own name.

Jonas brightened. It had been a depressing day for him, after such
a bright start. But he set his glum thoughts aside. He thought about
starting to teach Lily to ride so that she could speed off proudly
after her Ceremony of Nine, which would be coming soon. It was
hard to believe that it was almost December again, that almost a
year had passed since he had become a Twelve.

He smiled as he watched the newchild plant one small foot carefully

before the other, grinning with glee at his own steps as he tried
them out.

"I want to get to sleep early tonight," Father said. "Tomorrow's a

busy day for me. The twins are being born tomorrow, and the test
results show that they're identical."

"One for here, one for Elsewhere," Lily chanted. "One for here, one
for Else--"

"Do you actually take it Elsewhere, Father?" Jonas asked.

"No, I just have to make the selection. I weigh them, hand the larger
over to a Nurturer who's standing by,

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waiting, and then I get the smaller one all cleaned up and comfy.
Then I perform a small Ceremony of Release and--" He glanced
down, grinning at Gabriel. "Then I wave bye-bye," he said, in the
special sweet voice he used when he spoke to the newchild. He
waved his hand in the familiar gesture.

Gabriel giggled and waved bye-bye back to him.

"And somebody else comes to get him? Somebody from

Elsewhere?"

"That's right, Jonas-bonus."

Jonas rolled his eyes in embarrassment that his father had used the
silly pet name.

Lily was deep in thought. "What if they give the little twin a name
Elsewhere, a name like, oh, maybe Jonathan? And here, in our
community, at his naming, the twin that we kept here is given the
name Jonathan, and then there would be two children with the
same name, and they would look exactly the same, and someday,
maybe when they were a Six, one group of Sixes would go to visit
another community on a bus, and there in the other community, in
the other group of Sixes, would be a Jonathan who was exactly the
same as the other Jonathan, and then maybe they would get mixed
up and take the wrong Jonathan home, and maybe his parents
wouldn't notice, and then--

She paused for breath.

"Lily," Mother said, "I have a wonderful idea. Maybe when you
become a Twelve, they'll give you the Assignment of Storyteller! I
don't think we've had a Storyteller in the community for a long time.
But if I were on the Committee, I would definitely choose you for
that job!"

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Lily grinned. "I have a better idea for one more story," she
announced. "What if actually we were all twins and didn't know it,
and so Elsewhere there would be another Lily, and another Jonas,
and another Father, and another Asher, and another Chief Elder,
and another--"

Father groaned. "Lily," he said. "It's bedtime."

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