The Giver - Lois Lowry [50]
He watched, fascinated, as his father gently lifted one and then the other to the scale and weighed them.
He heard his father laugh. "Good," his father said to the woman. "I thought for a moment that they might both be exactly the same. Then we'd have a problem. But this one," he handed one, after rewrapping it, to his assistant, "is six pounds even. So you can clean him up and dress him and take him over to the Center."
The woman took the newchild and left through the door she had entered.
Jonas watched as his father bent over the squirming newchild on the bed. "And you, little guy, you're only five pounds ten ounces. A shrimp!"
"That's the special voice he uses with Gabriel," Jonas remarked, smiling.
"Watch," The Giver said.
"Now he cleans him up and makes him comfy," Jonas told him. "He told me."
"Be quiet, Jonas," The Giver commanded in a strange voice. "Watch."
Obediently Jonas concentrated on the screen, waiting for what would happen next. He was especially curious about the ceremony part.
His father turned and opened the cupboard. He rook out a syringe and a small bottle. Very carefully he inserted the needle into the bottle and began to fill the syringe with a clear liquid.
Jonas winced sympathetically. He had forgotten that newchildren had to get shots. He hated shots himself, though he knew that they were necessary.
To his surprise, his father began very carefully to direct the needle into the top of newchild's forehead, puncturing the place where the fragile skin pulsed. The newborn squirmed, and wailed faintly.
"Why's he—"
"Shhh," The Giver said sharply.
His father was talking, and Jonas realized that he was hearing the answer to the question he had started to ask. Still in the special voice, his father was saying, "I know, I know. It hurts, little guy. But I have to use a vein, and the veins in your arms are still too teeny-weeny."
He pushed the plunger very slowly, injecting the liquid into the scalp vein until the syringe was empty.
"All done. That wasn't so bad, was it?" Jonas heard his father say cheerfully. He turned aside and dropped the syringe into a waste receptacle.
Now he cleans him up and makes him comfy, Jonas said to himself, aware that The Giver didn't want to talk during the little ceremony.
As he continued to watch, the newchild, no longer crying, moved his arms and legs in a jerking motion. Then he went limp. He head fell to the side, his eyes half open. Then he was still.
With an odd, shocked feeling, Jonas recognized the gestures and posture and expression. They were familiar. He had seen them before. But he couldn't remember where.
Jonas stared at the screen, waiting for something to happen. But nothing did. The little twin lay motionless. His father was putting things away. Folding the blanket. Closing the cupboard.
Once again, as he had on the playing field, he felt the choking sensation. Once again he saw the face of the lighthaired, bloodied soldier as life left his eyes. The memory came back.
He killed it! My father killed it! Jonas said to himself, stunned at what he was realizing. He continued to stare at the screen numbly.
His father tidied the room. Then he picked up a small carton that lay waiting on the floor, set it on the bed, and lifted the limp body into it. He placed the lid on tightly.
He picked up the carton and carried it to the other side of the room. He opened a small door in the wall; Jonas could see darkness behind the door. It seemed to be the same sort of chute into which trash was deposited at school.
His father loaded the carton containing the body into the chute and gave it a shove.
"Bye-bye, little guy," Jonas heard his father say before he left the room. Then the screen went blank.
The Giver turned to him. Quite calmly, he related, "When the Speaker notified me that Rosemary had applied for release, they turned on the tape to show me the process. There she was—my last glimpse of that beautiful child—waiting. They brought in the syringe and asked