The Water Wars - Cameron Stracher [1]
“Why don’t you have your screen, anyway?” A new student should at least bring a notebook to his first day, I thought.
“I don’t go to school.”
“Are you a harvester?”
“My father says I don’t have to go to school.”
Everyone went to school, except for water harvesters’ kids who chased the clouds across the sky. At least until you were eighteen—then you got jobs, or joined the army, or worked for the Water Authority Board, which was like staying in school for life.
“You’re lucky,” I said.
“School’s not so bad.”
I liked school, although I wouldn’t admit it. I loved learning the details about shiny rocks, their hard, encrusted surfaces yielding clues about the minerals inside. I loved our field trips to the dams, where metal wheels as large as entire houses turned slowly in their silicon beds. Best of all, I loved deciphering the swirling purple patterns of thunderstorms and hurricanes, trying to predict where, on the brown-gray prairie, they would strike next.
“Did they take you out?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Didn’t need to go anymore.”
I peered down the road again. The bus was late. It was often late. Sometimes it didn’t come at all, and I had to walk back to my building, where my father would unplug the old car and drive me to the school in town. Will was already there, a full hour earlier, because he had to empty the basins before the sun evaporated the small amount of water that collected as dew. Last year two other girls rode the bus with me, but one day they stopped coming and never returned. It was boring waiting alone. I welcomed the distraction.
“I’ve got a brother,” I said. “He passed his army physical.”
“Easy.”
“He had to do fifty pushups.”
“I can do a hundred.”
The boy kneeled like he was going to start exercising right there in the dust. The place where he had spilled his cup was completely dry; I couldn’t even tell it had been wet. I could see the elastic band of his underwear and the smooth skin where his back was exposed. No marks, scratches, or scabs of any kind. My own hands looked like some kind of treasure map, except the lines didn’t lead to riches.
“I’m Vera,” I said to his back.
“Kai,” he said, standing up.
“Where did you get the water?”
“I’ve got lots of water.”
“Are you rich?”
“I guess so.”
“Should you be out alone?”
“Ha!” he snorted. “I’d like to see them try something.”
It wasn’t clear whom he was talking about, but I didn’t think Kai—or any boy—could stand up well to the bandits and soldiers who menaced our town, no matter how many pushups he could do.
“Are you waiting for someone?” I asked.
“Going to a scavenge site. Want to come?”
“I’ve got school.”
“After school?”
I said I would try, but I knew my father wouldn’t let me. He didn’t want me going anywhere after school—not with this boy, not with any boy. It was dangerous to hang around strangers. Just last year there had been a virus, and three kids in our class had died. No one went to school for two weeks afterward, and Will and I played cards in his bedroom until we got so bored that we wanted to scream.
“We live in the Wellington Pavilion,” Kai said, naming a fancy housing complex. “Meet me there this afternoon. I’ll tell the guards.”
“I have water team.”
“After water team, then.”
“I’ll ask my dad.” Down the road I could see the telltale signs of rising dust. “There’s my bus.”
Kai looked to where I pointed, and his lips drew a tight line of disappointment. I realized then that he wasn’t out in the road spilling water because he had enough to drink. Like the girls who cut themselves or snuck their parents’ pharmies, he wanted someone to pay attention. I promised myself I would try to visit this boy, even though my father wouldn’t like it.
“Good-bye,” I said. “I’ll look for you later.”
“Later,” he said.
I boarded