A New Home by Abigail Denver

Author:Abigail Denver [Denver, Abigail]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abigail Denver
Published: 2012-03-09T13:00:00+00:00

Chapter Four

After their late night, Hannah found it was all she could do to drag herself out of bed at six the following morning. They were all meeting at seven for their first hour of training with the general. He was going to have them for one hour each morning, and they would attend “school” for three hours after that. Then each kid would get a chance to shadow an adult of their choice as an apprenticeship program.

They all had only a month to decide what they would do for a living. After that, it would take a petition to change career paths. There was no time to waste. Those were the only rules Hannah had made each family agree to before joining the community. All other rules would be decided by a vote.

While they were all training with the general and Sergeant McCoy, the adults would be meeting with Jim Ryder to discuss the laws of their community. The same meeting would be held with all children above ten years of age, along with the general and Sergeant McCoy after their first training session. School would begin after that.

Hannah fell into line with the other children. Everyone ten and over had to meet with the general. Sergeant McCoy took the six to nine year olds. Emily was ten and stood beside Hannah not looking at her. Emily hated exercise and made it clear she was not happy about being forced to participate.

“I have one goal in mind for our training sessions,” the general began. “That goal is to make you all into the best soldiers you can possibly be. Not every one of you will be part of the army that will keep this community alive. But every one of you will need to be able to shoot a gun and run to get away from the enemy should the situation present itself. If you don’t care to be part of our training exercises, that’s too bad. You’ll do it and you’ll smile about it.” He paused for emphasis. “This morning we’re going to run.”

He started off in a jog, and they all fell in line behind him. Some of the kids were overweight, and some looked like they ran every day. Hannah was thankful for the hours she put in swimming. It would make the training easier for her.

The grass in the encampment was freshly mowed. A man had been hired to bring his tractor in and take care of the overgrown weeds. The run across the grass wasn’t easy, but it was pretty. Hannah concentrated on her breathing as she raced across the grass.

It was a perfect late summer morning. The sky was littered with small fluffy white clouds. The trees were a beautiful backdrop. Many still needed to be cleared, both for space to build and for firewood for the long winter ahead. This winter would be spent in the travel trailers, and the nightly fires would be necessary for warmth. Hopefully by next winter, they’d have built permanent housing.

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