The W.I.C.K.E.D Girl

9

"Are you staring at my plate because you're still hungry or because you're avoiding Newt's gaze at all costs?" Chuck whispered.

His words startled me, sent me looking straight into Newt's eyes, who was sitting a few tables across from me. Whereas the rest of the Gladers were cracking jokes and filling the Kitchen with their noise, we were quiet.

"I don't know," I answered, entirely honest. I'd told Chuck of our talk---more like our fight. The younger boy hadn't found it fair, despite also being one of the people who didn't want me risking my life out there. "Maybe both."

Newt didn't try to get my attention again that evening. Neither did I. I wasn't even sure how to feel. Grateful for his concern? Angry that he was threatening to steal the chance I'd craved so badly since the beginning from me? Worried about him, about what he'd seen that had made him so wary, so frightened for me?

"Do you think he'll apologise?" Chuck voiced his curiosity as we swung in our hammocks, playing a card game on a tall log placed between them.

I pondered upon it. "No, I don't think so. He thinks he's doing the right thing, but so do I. So I guess we've reached an impasse of sorts."

I fell asleep to the buzzing of fireflies and the croon of a stray bird.

The following day, I joined Frypan in the Kitchen. After breakfast, which had relied heavily on my abilities to move quickly and not singe myself, Frypan grudgingly sent me to peel vegetables. I'd burnt a dozen eggs, and dropped not just one full wooden bowl, getting Frypan to very loudly ask what had gotten into me. In the end, I'd managed to send most of the Gladers on with their days on empty stomachs. 

I was, indeed, distracted. I couldn't help but see Newt's pained expression over and over in my head whenever I closed my eyes.

By lunch, Frypan had decided to lovingly dismiss me. Thin knife cuts were marring my hands. "I heard you were an excellent Medjack, shuck-girl. Nobody's good at everything."

Chuck was busy with his own tasks, and Newt and Minho were out in the Maze, so there was nothing else for me to do.

Emily, please.

I shook my head, as if to dislodge the memory from my mind. I needed something to do, some kind of physical work that would silence my thoughts. The idea that came to me was one that got my feet moving, heading towards the sounds of tinkering and planks being sawed and nails being pounded by hammers. It didn't take long to find Bricky, the Keeper of the Builders, Gally's temporary replacement.

"Looky, looky," he muttered, eyeing me. "What brings you around, Greenie?"

The other Builders were all scowling my way---probably a result of the hunger coiled in their bellies, hunger I was to blame for.

"I want to try being a Builder," I said, and a lie sprouted from my lips before I could stop it. "Now. Alby sent me."

Bricky feigned a bow. "If almighty Alby said so. The boys are building a shed. Try not to get in the way."

I nodded, my lips a thin line. I attempted to obtain tools from the Builders' toolboxes, but my asking was only met with silence, and trying to take anything on my own made them snatch the tools away, mumbling that a girl didn't belong in their midst and that I would prove to be completely useless. After sitting on a tree log and watching a couple of Gladers create a shed for an hour or so, one of the Builders showed me some mercy and lent me his saw, instructing me to go cut down the small trees nearby.

Finally, something to do, something to snag me away from my thoughts.

I sawed and sawed and sawed, my arms catching fire with each push and pull, but I did not stop until there was a heap of raw wood beside me. Some of the Builders whistled, clearly enjoying the show of me bent over.