sHe: THE RISE OF THE NEW BREEDS [Book 1]

THE DEATH OF A NATION [1 of 7]

THE THREE GIRLS WERE LAUGHING when they rode their bikes uphill. It was the same race, which they had every day on that stretch of the road when they returned home after school — Laura Jensen had always allowed either one of them to win and wanted no glory by beating them. She was after all the champion in the school swimming team — and these were her two best friends and her biggest supporters.

The three of them were also known as 'The Farmers' Sisters' — and were often ribbed by many at school — but, it was no use feeling angry or ashamed about it, because their fathers were indeed simple agrarians — working daily on their bucolic cornfields outside Wellsville, Utah.

Connie Pearlman and Haley Eastman were riding neck to neck ahead. They passed by fields of swaying corn on both sides in the afternoon breeze. Laura was tagging behind closely — and she was sure Haley, the leader of 'The Farmers' Sisters' would beat them both as always.

Coming also from behind was a battered yellow, school bus that had younger children aboard, returning home to their farms after school. The nine-year-old Roberta, was sitting in that bus, looking bored, chewing bits of paper and spitting on the hair of two sleeping girls in the front seat. All of a sudden, a boy came from behind — and yanked her ponytail. She stood up at once, and she immediately kicked him in the guts.

She hated the ponytail she had, and wanted it to be cut off — so that she could be more like the other boys — but, her mother refused as she wanted her to be feminine like her older sister Laura Jensen.

Still angry, Roberta was about to punch the fallen boy's head again — then he cried out. "Robbie, wait! I saw Laura outside..."

Roberta peered out of the bus window and saw the group of twelve-year-old racing ahead on their mountain bikes. A wicked smile shaped on her face. She took out a couple of pebbles from her pocket. She bit on one in between her teeth and loaded the other on her catapult. The bus rode pass the cycling older girls, Roberta propelled and slung the stones, to hit them twice...

She particularly hated her sister's friend, Haley Eastman — who often teased her and sometimes pinched her nipple through her blouse saying, that she would grow bosoms like a woman someday, even though Roberta wanted to remain a hoyden.

The slingshots missed, but yet the spiteful tomboy still felt victorious, and she sneered back at her sister instead — yelling out from the transporting bus's window...

"I am going to reach home before you, Laura!"

The two sisters were totally different. Roberta had rivalled Laura all the years growing up together. This was because Laura was her mother's favourite — as for her father — he was too busy working out there on his farm. Indeed, too occupied to pay attention to any of his children at home.

Roberta had always wanted to be the boy in the family — but, even that role was taken away when her twin brothers were born, two years ago...

Today, she played her duty as the 'big brother' to the toddlers.

Haley Eastman laughed and yelled back, teasing Roberta that she missed hitting them. The bus overtook, accelerated uphill, blowing out black exhaust smoke. The three girls noticed the poster at the back of the bus, of the waving Senator Walter Rosewood from New York, who had recently won the presidential election.

*

The three girls were still laughing on an innocuous conversation about the boys in their class while riding home through on a short cut. Laura was the quiet one among them and was even more subservient at home. She relished listening to their conversation, and the bantering between Connie and Haley.