J U M P E R

C H A P T E R | F I V E

Two weeks.

She'd been there for two weeks.

The enrollment process for Creekford High School was taking longer than anticipated, so Alexander put Kieran to work to occupy her time. Kat had briefly mentioned her first night that everyone had a job to do. And since she wasn't in school, Kieran would be working full time instead of weekends.

Alexander had placed her with the Foragers—they were the ones who went out into the forest and collected herbs for the doctor and for cooking. As well as any wild berries that could be found. In her week of 'job training' she'd been shown around the pack's main territory. The area was much bigger than she'd anticipated. There were seven more clusters of houses dotted around, all in bunches of fifteen, as well as a training ground. There were two crop fields and three gardens beside them. A tool shed stood nearby. Everything fanned out in a semi circle around the main houses in the center of the territory. Toward the back-right corner were the storehouses and FHQ, which is what the Foragers called the small house they used to sort, clean, and prepare anything brought back. The lot of them—there were roughly one hundred fifty of them—would meet there in the morning and go over the shift schedule for the day.

They went out in groups of twenty-five. It was mostly for safety sake. There was a small contingent of the pack's fighters who went out with the Foragers to protect them. Any number over twenty-five became too difficult to watch over. Seventy-five people went out each day, divided into three four-hour long shifts. Everyone was back by 6:00 pm, and for the next two to three hours the last shift cleaned up and either put things into the storehouses or delivered them to where they needed to go. It was usually quick work since every shift was supposed to sort their baskets and write down where everything would be going before leaving.

Today would be Kieran's first day actually going out with a group. Kat was also in her work group, so they walked to FHQ together. They made it into the meeting room (the living room) at 5:40 a.m. exactly. Anna—the head Forager—wanted everyone there by 5:45 so they had time to go over shifts and prepare to leave.

"Are you excited?" Kat asked as they found a place to sit.

"I guess."

There wasn't much to be excited about, at least that was Kieran's opinion. She was about to go out into the woods with a bunch of people she didn't know very well and pick things for four hours. Yay.

"Alright everybody, let's get started," Anna called as she walked into the room.

The noise level dropped to a few whispers. Anna opened her mouth to speak when the creak of the front door interrupted her. A final few stragglers stumbled into the room, ducking their heads as everyone watched.

"If we're all ready," Anna raised her brow, and someone sank low into their chair. "Same groups as last week, they seemed to work really well. Kieran, you will be on the first shift. Kat, Tammy, I want you two to stick with her, help her if she needs it. We're going to use the same set up as well—group A today, group B tomorrow and we alternate. And to make things a little fairer, since they were last shift most of last week, Annie's group will take second shift and Linda's will take last. Okay? Alright people, let's get cracking."

Kat stood and led Kieran to the Basket Room. She grabbed each of them a basket and a small pocketknife. They left out the back door and stood with their shift's guard, waiting for the rest of the group to come out.

Five minutes later everyone was ready, and they began walking toward the foraging path. It led up near the mountains marking the northern edge of the pack's land. Tammy introduced herself as they walked, staying with Kat and Kieran for the rest of the walk. Turns out, she was one of the other Jumpers in the pack. Kieran was surprised to hear she'd been there for nearly twenty-three years.