The Girl in Charge | Newt

6 | Jobs and words of comfort

The discussion to sort out jobs soon became a voting system and before long, they had figured it out.

There were to be 10 different jobs: Runners, Sloppers, Builders, Cooks, Slicers, Track-hoes, Med-jacks, Bricknicks and Baggers. Each job had a leader assigned to it, otherwise known as keepers. A few of the boys had already volunteered to be the keepers for some of the jobs which made Vera's life a lot easier.

They also decided that Vera should remain as leader seeing as she'd been there for a year already. She told them that her deputies were to be Alby and Newt.

There were 9 of them who agreed to be Runners, so after she dismissed everyone to go and figure out what their jobs entail, she took the Runners to the weapons room. The boys were: Newt, Minho, Hank, Dan, Alfred, Ben, Nick, Stephen and Justin. Alby had volunteered, but she pointed out that they'd need someone to run the Glade whilst Vera was out running.

"Follow me." She said as she climbed down the ladder. "I'll just give you a more thorough tour before I start training you guys tomorrow."

She quickly unlocked  the weapons room door, keeping the password a secret until she was sure that she could trust them. The boys looked around it in awe, each taking a walk around and running their hands over the weapons.

"You bloody shanks seem to be in love with this room already." Vera commented, her arms crossed in front of her. "This room, however, must remain strictly between us. The other Gladers can't know."

The boys nodded glumly. Evidently, they were planning on telling the others and she had let them down by saying the room had to be kept a secret.

"When we go running after I've trained you guys, you'll each take a couple of knives for safe keeping."

"Why would we need them?" Nick asked. "It's just a maze, isn't it?"

"Tell me Nick. When you went to sleep last night, what did you hear?"

Nick thought for a moment, but Alfred spoke before he could.

"Screeching." Alfred said, shuddering at the memory of them. "It was horribly loud."

"That's why. I'll fill you in on it when we get out there."

"Why would we even want to go out there?" Ben questioned her.

"Because I don't want to be stuck here my whole life. This place is klunk. You guys can happily stay here all you want, but one day, I will find the way out." She walked out of the room and up the ladder.

For a moment, she thought that the boys wouldn't follow her, but they did after a few minutes of leaving her to think. She'd been in the Glade for a year and it was a year too long.

Silently, she got up from the bench she was sat on and walked towards an abandoned looking building near the Blood House. Inside it was multiple crates full of plain paper and writing supplies.

"What is this place?" Newt asked. He looked around and ran his fingers along through dust on some of the crates.

"I haven't named it yet. I only built it recently to hold the paper where I started to map out the maze as best as I could." She shrugged, sorting through pieces of paper on the desk.

"You built this place?" Minho asked, looking at her with a bemused expression.

"With my own bare hands." She said. "And building tools that I made earlier." She added as a side note.

"I'm impressed." Newt mumbled, thinking that Vera couldn't hear him.

"I best be off to check on the others. Take a look around this room but only you Runners can come in here. It's just a precaution." She left the boys to explore her work and she was swiftly joined by Bark, whom trotted happily at her side.

She spoke to lost boys. Boys whom were silently breaking down in fear of their new life, in fear of the maze. Boys whom didn't know who they were or how they got there. Boys whom started to panic whenever they tried to remember blank memories.

To comfort them, she introduced them to Bark and told them stories of her first weeks at the Maze. She told them about how the animals and her fails at making a farm and building shacks. She told them about how she got freaked out by the Box coming up every day and how shocked she was to see them all come up.

Whilst they didn't know her, they listened to her and calmed down. They laughed as she told stories and although she didn't smile back, they felt comfortable around her and let their guards down a little.

Even the sour faced Gally calmed down after she made him fight it out with her a few days later. He didn't respond to comforting words instead, responding to letting out his anger in a physical way. He may not have won the fight and he got a little injured, but he eventually stopped yelling at her.

Her Runners took training in open arms, throwing themselves into it which almost made her smile out of proudness. They raced against each other to get faster at running. The other boys all took to their jobs well and the Glade became well functioning.

Newt and Alby stayed in Vera's room which became designated to the leaders. She became friends with them quickly as well as building good friendships with the Runners, Frypan and Gally.

It was all coming together and then a month later the Box siren sounded the same as when as the boys came up.