Nature Rules - 2022 WATTY'S SHORTLIST

It's All Golden

I wake up having to pee. Badly. Must have been all that broth late at night.

Wiggling out of my blanket, I take care to step over Crinae and then five other kids who slumber in a puddle on the floor. Now where would the chamber pot be?

Almost everyone's asleep in the cavernous room. Except for Terra, who's speaking to someone at the settlement entrance.

I pad down to her in the soft light of the lamps. She has her back turned away from me and doesn't know I'm behind her. Something she says catches me and stops me in my tracks.

"Most of the children, about 90 per cent, are Aeternians," she says quietly to a man standing outside in the shadows. "The adults, around 65 per cent of them, have skills."

I'm frozen in place. Why is Terra telling this man about us? What are they going to do? What am I going to do? Before I can come up with anything, the man clears his throat and Terra whips around and sees me.

"Oh!" she exclaims. "Crinae, you scared me!"

"I'm Naia," I say, narrowing my eyes at Terra. At least get my name right lady if you're talking about us. "I have to use the bathroom."

"There's a bucket behind the deer," says Terra, pointing to a rug that's been rigged as a curtain.

I run behind the makeshift bathroom and do my business. I splash my hands in the basin that has a skiff of water in it and dry my hands on my shirt.

"Jebb and I were discussing tomorrow's chores," says Terra in a chipper and sweet voice when I come back from the bucketroom.

"What kind of chores?" I ask.

"The usual, you know," she replies quickly.

"I don't know," I say. "I'm not from here. I do know I don't like what you two were talking about."

Terra bites her lip.

"It wasn't anything bad," she says. "If that's what you're thinking. Nothing bad at all."

"She's on to you," says the man to Terra, stepping into the light. It takes me a second to make out his face because he has a tattoo inked all over his skin.

Jebb laughs at my squinting. "Trying to make out my tattoo? It's a turtle," he says. "Turtles stand for perseverance and protection."

I'm all for protection. In fact, while I'm talking to these two, I'm poised to scream and call for my sister. Hey, wait a minute. I know this man.

"You're Magda's brother," I say.

Jebb does a double-take.

"You know my sister?"

"Yes. We babysat Elijah sometimes."

"So it was your sister who was grabbed by the Motos," says Jebb.

"Yes. My Mom and Dad are gone too."

"Mags was here a couple of weeks ago for the census. She told me about you guys."

"The Motos came during a sandpour and tore up 33."

"She's a tough cookie," Jebb says to Terra, nodding at me. "If my sister trusted you enough to watch her baby, we can trust you too."

I'm still a little unsure I can trust Terra.

"Listen, Naia," says Jebb. "I'll tell you a secret. Then will you trust me?"

"Depends," I say.

"I'm a Golden Resister," Jebb says. "I'm fighting against Sebastian and the GlobalGov. I'm on your side and so is Terra."